name of an indult, or up to a certain sum, or under any other colourable pretext; nor shall it be lawful for any one to make use of such as have been heretofore so granted. In like manner, neither shall any mental reservations,[1] nor any other graces soever in regard of future vacancies in benefices, nor indults [which apply] to churches belonging to others, or to monasteries, be panted to any, not even to cardinals of the holy Roman Church; and those hitherto granted shall be looked upon as abrogated.
CHAPTER XX.
The Manner of conducting Causes appertaining to the Ecclesiastical Court is prescribed.
All causes in any way belonging to the ecclesiastical court, even though they may relate to benefices, shall, in the first instance, be taken cognizance of, before the ordinaries of the places only; and shall be completely terminated within two years at latest from the time that the suit was commenced: otherwise, after that time, it shall be free for the parties, or for either of them, to have recourse to superior, but otherwise competent, judges, who shall take up the cause as it shall then stand, and shall take care that it be terminated as soon as possible; nor, before then, shall [the causes] be committed to any others,[2] nor be transferred therefrom; nor shall any appeals interposed by the same parties be received by any superior [judges] soever; nor shall any commission, or inhibition be issued by them, except upon a definitive, or one that has the force of a definitive sentence, and the grievance arising from which cannot be redressed by an appeal from that definitive [sentence]. Prom these are to be excepted those causes, which, according to the canonical appointments, are to be tried before the Apostolic See, or those which the Sovereign Roman Pontiff shall, for an urgent and reasonable cause, judge fit to commission, or to avocate, for his own hearing,
