Note 5 — Chapter LVIII

Among the media employed by the Holy See in the restoration of one’s conscience to its good estate, are the bulls of composition. In the case of persons in possession of ill-gotten goods, as prebendaries who have forfeited their canonical allotments, or trustees who have maladministered estates, and the like, an arrangement (Latin, compositio) is sometimes made—only, however, when the rightful owners or heirs of the property in question are unknown (si domins sint ignoti), whereby the said “unjust steward” is allowed to keep for himself a moiety of what does not belong to him, on condition that the rest be handed over for the maintenance of church services, or institutions of charity, as hospitals, asylums, and the like. See Ferraris’s Bibliotheca, art. “Bulla Cruciatae.”—Rev. T. C. Middleton, O.S.A.

The bulls for the dead were placed on the heads of the dying, or in the hands of the dead—purchased by their friends or relatives in order to rescue then souls from purgatory. Those de lacticinios (literally, “for milk-porridges”) permitted to ecclesiastics the use of certain foods at times when these were forbidden by church law. The bulls of the Crusade were valid as dispensations only one year in Spain; but according to Solórzano they were extended to two years in the colonies, on account of the long time required for them to teach those distant places. See Bancroft’s Hist. Mexico, iii, p. 605. After the victory of Lepanto, Gregory XIII resumed the issue of these indulgences, and extended them to twelve years; and since then his bull has been renewed every twelve years, (E. H. Vollet, in Grande Encyclopédie, Paris, Lamirault et Cie.), xiii, p. 453.