3283

November 17. Anagni. Pope Alexander IV writes to the archbishops, bishops, deans, archdeacons, and their vicars and officials whom this letter reaches, relating that it was proposed to him on behalf of the master and brothers of the house of the knighthood of the Temple of Jerusalem that, although they have no bishop or prelate except the Roman pontiff and the Apostolic See has granted them that no one can promulgate sentences of excommunication or interdict against them without the pope’s special mandate, some of the addressees envy these liberties and promulgate such sentences against their men and families and lands and against those who associate with them in food and drink, in mills, trials, contracts, and merchandise and in any other way, to their prejudice and detriment. Thus they only observe the words of the papal privileges and not their force or power, excommunicating them after a fashion, since they so not allow others to communicate with them, so they seem to be judged by the judgment of the Jews, such that others find it worse to communicate with them than with excommunicates. The pope therefore strictly prohibits the addressees from daring to pronounce such sentences in deceptive opposition to these privileges, and they are to revoke without trouble those that they have perhaps promulgated, lest the pope be forced to deal with them in other ways.