who were judges of his own court and his envoys and proxies, and who had a special mandate from him in this matter, swearing that he would abide by our commandments and those of the Church. Afterwards, however, he did not fulfil what he had sworn to do. Indeed, as it can clearly be gathered from his subsequent actions, we may reasonably believe that he took the oath with the intention of mocking both us and the Church, rather than obey, since after more than a year he could not be brought back to the bosom of the Church, neither did he care to receive reparation for the losses and injuries inflicted on him. Although he has been asked to appear on this matter, because we are not able to bear his iniquities any longer without grave offence to Christ, we are compelled and urged by our conscience to punish him according to the law. To say nothing at present about his other crimes, he has committed four of the most serious which cannot be hidden by subterfuge. For as often as he has sworn oaths, he has casually violated the peace previously restored between the Church and the Empire. He has perpetrated sacrilege, causing the imprisonment of cardinals of the holy Roman Church, and of prelates and clerics of other churches, both religious and secular, who were on their way to the council that our predecessor had decided to summon. He is also held suspect of heresy, on grounds which are not doubtful or trivial, but difficult \effective/ and inescapable. It is indeed clear enough that he has been guilty of perjury many times. For when he was formerly residing in Sicily, before he had been elected to the dignity of emperor, in the presence of G[regory] of happy memory, cardinal deacon of St * Theodore¹ and legate of the Apostolic See, he took an oath of loyalty to our predecessor Pope Innocent² of blessed remembrance and his successors and the Roman Church, in return for the grant of the kingdom of Sicily made to him by this same Church. And, as it is said, after he had been elected to that same dignity, he came to the City,³ and in the sight of I[nnocen t] and his brethren, and in the presence of many others, he renewed that oath, doing liege homage in the pope’s hands. Then, when he was in Germany, he swore to the same I[nnocent], and after his death to Pope Honorius⁴ of happy memory and his successors, and to the Roman Church itself, in the presence of the princes and nobles of the Empire, to preserve, as far as he was able, the honours, rights and possessions of the Roman Church, and to protect them in good faith, and to see to the restoration without trouble of whatever came into his hands, enumerating the said possessions in the oath. He later confirmed this, after he had acquired the imperial crown. But he has become an audacious violator of these three oaths, and not without the stigma of treachery and the charge of lese-majesty.⁵ For in opposition to our predecessor G[regory] and his brethren, he dared to address threatening letters to these same cardinals, and in many ways to defame G[regory] in front of his brethren, as is apparent from the letters which he sent to them at that time, and even as it is reported, almost throughout the whole world. He also personally caused our venerable brother O[tto],⁶ bishop of Porto, at that time cardinal deacon of San Nicola in Carcere Tulliano, and the bishop of Palestrina of happy memory,⁷ legates of the Apostolic See, noble and important members of the Roman Church, to be arrested. He also had them stripped of all their goods, and after being led ignominiously more than once through various places, he had them committed to prison. He did his best, moreover, to diminish or take away from that same Church the privilege which our lord Jesus Christ handed down to blessed Peter and his successors, upon which the authority and power of the Roman Church surely stands, namely, ‘Whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose, it shall be loosed’,⁸ writing that he did not fear the sentences of the aforementioned G[regory], and despising the keys of the Church, not only not observing the excommunication laid upon him by him [Gregory], but also compelling others himself, or through his officials, not to observe either that or other excommunications and sentences of interdict, which he entirely held in contempt. He also does not fear to occupy the possessions of the Roman Church, namely the March, the Duchy, and Benevento, whose towers and walls he caused to be destroyed, as well as other possessions which he was acquiring in the lands of Tuscany and