Archiepiscopal and Papal Involvement in Episcopal Elections: The Origins and Reception of Lateran IV cc. 23–24 from the Third Lateran Council to the Liber Sextus
Abstract Constitutions 23 and 24 of the Fourth Lateran Council dealt with episcopal elections, providing the proper timeframe and three possible electoral procedures, respectively. Although the former stipulated that an electoral body’s proximate superior was to gain the potestas eligendi and thus make an appointment if the electoral body failed to elect within the specified three months, the latter constitution was far less explicit about to whom the power to elect devolved if an electoral body did not follow proper procedure. The former constitution also failed to identify clearly which office constituted the ‘proximate superior’. Both constitutions were based in some sense on recent conciliar decrees (from the Third Lateran Council) or pre-1215 decretals issued from Innocent III’s curia. Since both constitutions lacked certain points of legal precision, several more decretals and conciliar decrees were needed in the thirteenth century before it was fully and clearly decided when the power to elect devolved to the metropolitan and when it devolved to the pope. A constitution by Boniface VIII in the Liber Sextus finally resolved the matter. This essay traces this development.