IN COENA DOMINI: A papal bull issued annually on Holy Thursday for several centuries, famous in European history as formulating the condemnation of numerous heresies. According to ancient custom, on certain days proceedings were instituted and excommunication pronounced in the Church against persons obstinately disobedient. Such days were the Thursday in Holy Week, Ascension Day, and the festival of SS. Peter and Paul. The first seems to have been the most usual; it was dies indulgentite, the day on which penitents were received again into the Church, and -thus the excommunication of the impenitent made a proportionately stronger impression. The excommunication of Henry IV. by Paschal II. was pronounced on that day in 1102, and that of Frederick II. by Gregory IX. in 1227. These acts were directed against individuals; but in the thirteenth century the so-called "general proceedings,) became customary at Rome, and on Thursday before Easter whole classes of persons were excommunicated. These proceedings were aimed especially at heretics; and the proclamations issued at various times against them were combined into one decree by Nicholas II. in 1280. Later popes, especially Urban V. in 1364, made use of and revised this collection, to which additions were made from time to time, especially after the reforming movements of the fifteenth century. Luther and his adherents were included in.1524. Supplementary condemnations were appended by Paul III. (1536), Pius V.

472

(1566), Gregory XIII. (157883), Paul V.,(16M), and Urban VIII. (1627). In its latest form the bull begins with an excommunication of various heretics and schismatics individually, and condemns also those who appeal from papal decrees to a general council, pirates, wreckers, etc. It is not to be wondered at that this bull was regarded by secular powers as an infringement of their rights and its proclamation prohibited. Clement XIV. discontinued its publication at; Rome in 1770, and Pins IX. finally abolished it by the constitution APosWicm sedis of Oct. 12, 1869, though this constitution is in certain points, especially as concerns heretics, practically a repetition of the Bulls Carne'.

(E. Friedberg.)

Bibliography: The bull of Nicholas TII. is given in Thatcher and McNeal, Source Book, pp . 309-310. Consult: Le Bret, Prapmagsdie Gearchichte des . Bulls in cans Domini, Ulm,1709; F. H. Reuseh, Der Index der roerbotsnen Bscher, i. 71, 88, 603, Bonn, 1883; J. J. T. Von Döllinger, Das Papsasn4, pp. 215 sqq., Munich, 1892.