Boniface, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, for the perpetual
remembrance of this matter. Ancient writings declare the hostility of
laymen to clerics in a city, and the experience of these present days
confirms it, for laymen, not content with their own, strive to enter a
forbidden sphere, and cast off restraint in quest of unlawful power; nor
do they prudently remember that jurisdiction over clerics and
ecclesiastics and their goods is prohibited to them; on the contrary,
they impose heavy burdens on prelates of churches, churches, and the
regular and secular clergy, talliage them, ... and compel them to
undergo all manner of servitude ...; further, ... some prelates, ...
seeking a transitory peace, ... acquiesce in such abuses, without
obtaining the authority of the Apostolic See. We, therefore, wishing to
prevent such occurrences, by the advice of our brethren, decree by our
apostolic authority, that all prelates or clerics, ... who pay or
promise to laymen imposts or talliages, a half, a tenth, a twentieth, or
a hundredth, of the goods and revenues belonging to themselves and their
churches ... without the authority of the same see; likewise all
Emperors, Kings, Princes, Dukes, Earls, ... and any others ... who
impose, exact, or receive such payments, ... thereby incur the sentence
of excommunication.