But since principally and chiefly the care of souls of the said city [and] of our whole diocese is incumbent on us and our future successors, as being those who, according to the apostolic saying, are to render an account thereof on the day of Judgment, by our aforesaid authority and tenor we wish and ordain that in our cathedral church, and in all the parish churches of the said city and of our diocese, we, and the prelates for the time being, commend and enjoin the care of souls, according to our free choice, on any beneficiary or beneficiaries of the churches themselves, or on anyone else even a non-beneficiary for the time being, and under such form as shall seem to us best to ensure the care of the said souls; moreover, recognizing that we, and all our successors, shall be at the Divine Judgment, we exhort and require them in this commission of souls to have no respect of persons, but to regard solely the advantage and safety of the souls entrusted to them by God. And to the end that whoso undertakes the aforesaid care of souls, receive also some temporal gain, to each one of them we assign all the first fruits of that parish, whereof he has undertaken the care of souls, a portion, however, as above designated to be given to the sacristan.
Moreover, we wish and ordain that the appointment and removal of the sacristans of all the churches of our diocese be always at the will and discretion of ourselves and our successors for the time being, together with the readjustment of their salary, whenever the said eighth part, which as provided should be paid them, amounts to a large sum, in which case whatever amount shall have been withdrawn from the said eighth part by us or our successors is to be set aside for the maintenance fund of the church itself, or some increase of divine worship, and for no other use.
Likewise the three remaining parts of the said seven are to be divided into two equal parts, whereof we freely assign one, namely, one-half of the said three parts, to the church maintenance fund of each of the above towns [i.e., towns in the diocese where churches may be established]; the remaining part, however, namely, the other half of the said three parts, we assign to the hospitals of each town, from which half or part so applied the said hospitals are to pay a tenth to the principal hospital standing in the place where the cathedral church shall be. But inasmuch as at present no hospitals have been founded in the towns of our diocese, nor does the necessity of the poor require any, as moreover in this city the sick poor are cared for in the royal hospital, we ordain that the revenue due the hospitals from the said half of the three parts go by right to the seminary, or college, for the support therein of poor students, wherein, according to the decree of the holy Council [of Trent] ministers are trained and taught in order that later on they may serve divine worship and the dioceses of our Church more worthily. And this is to hold until, on account of exigencies of place and time, some other arrangement be made by the aforesaid Catholic Majesty, or ourselves, or our successors.
