Boniface VIII.
From the Sixth of the Decretals, lib. 3, tit, XVI. on the State of the Regulars, cap. 1.
(Sess. xxv. de regul. et monial. cap. 5.)
Desiring to make wholesome provision for the dangerous and detestable state of certain nuns (who, the reins of decency being released, and monastic modesty and respect for sex being shamefully cast aside, wander about, sometimes through the habitations of secular persons outside their own monasteries, and frequently admit suspicious persons within the same monasteries, to the grievous offence of Him to whom they have devoted their purity of their own free will, the opproorium of religion, and the scandal of very many), by the present constitution, which is for ever to continue valid, we ordain, that all and every nun, present and future, of what profession and order soever may be, in whatever parts of the world existing, ought for the future to remain under perpetual enclosure in their monasteries, so that no one of them who has professed religion tacitly or expressly is to have or can have, on any account or any pretext soever (unless it should perchance be evident that some of them evidently laboured under such a disease, that she could not reside with others without great danger or scandal), permission to leave their monasteries for the future, and that no person in any respect indecent, or even decent (unless there arise a reasonable and manifest cause, and according to the special license of him who may be concerned), is to have no ingress nor access to the same, so that, thus separated from all mundane and public sights, they may be more at liberty altogether to serve God, and, all opportunity of lasciviousness being taken away, they may be able more carefully to guard their hearts for the same and their bodies in all sanctify. And, indeed, that this salutary statute may more conveniently be observed, we strictly inhibit any females from being admitted for the future among the sisters in the monasteries of the non-mendicant orders, unless as many as can be supported without penury out of the goods or revenues of the monasteries themselves; decreeing whatever may be done otherwise to be null and void.
