The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

THE XXIVth SESSION. 355
All those who did not possess the right to vote were excluded
from the last General Congregation on November loth, to
which all the canons and decrees were once again submitted ;
in previous General Congregations the more important theolo-
gians had been admitted. The canons and decrees on the
sacrament of Matrimony were first brought forward, and
before proceeding to the consideration of the decrees on
discipline, the resolution was adopted to add to all decrees
the clause : "in everything and always without prejudice
to the authority of the Holy See." All questions submitted,
including the declaration of the right of proposition, in the
twenty-first chapter of the reform decree, were almost unani-
mously accepted.^
After the happy issue of these preliminary proceedings, the
XXIVth Session, the eighth under Pius IV., was held on
November nth, 1563. ^ There were present the four legates,
Cardinals Guise and Madruzzo, three patriarchs, twenty-five
archbishops, a hundred and eighty-six bishops, five abbots,
six generals of orders, and eleven envoys. High Mass was
celebrated by an Italian, Cornaro, Bishop of Treviso, and
the sermon preached by a Frenchman, Richardot, Bishop of
Arras. The doctrinal chapter on Matrimony, in twelve
canons, and the reform decree on the same subject, in twelve
chapters, were first submitted. The first of these chapters
declared clandestine marriages null and void ; for the valid
celebration of marriage, the presence of the parish priest,
or, with his permission or that of the ordinary, of another
priest, and of two or three witnesses, were necessary. In
the chapters that followed there were regulations concerning
the impediments to matrimony, which were in some ways
limited, the punishment of those who abducted women, the
marriages of vagi, laws against concubinage, or violations
of the freedom of the marriage contract, and finally regulations
concerning the forbidden times. While a section of the fathers
1 See Pallavicini 24, 2.
2 See Theiner, II., 463-5; Paleotto, ibid., 674 seq. ; Rav-
NALDUS, 1563, n. 193-6; Pallavicini, 23, 8 seq.; Beccadklli,
Monumenti, II., 149; Susta, IV., 379 seq.