Papal bull

For specic bulls, see List of papal bulls.

A papal bull is a particular type of letters patent or

Papal bull of Pope Urban VIII, circa 1637, thoroughly sealed

with a leaden bulla.

Printed text of Pope Leo X's Bull against the errors of Martin
Luther, also known as Exsurge Domine, issued in June 1520

Papal chancery was named the register of bulls (registrum bullarum).[1]

By the accession of Leo IX in 1048, there develops a clear
distinction between two classes of bulls of greater and
less solemnity. The majority of the great bulls now in
Papal bull of Pope Benedict XVI, Magni aestimamus, 2011, existence are in the nature of conrmations of property
which instituted Military Ordinariate of Bosnia and Herzegov- or charters of protection accorded to monasteries and reina
ligious institutions. At an epoch when there was much
fabrication of such documents, those who procured bulls
charter issued by a Pope of the Catholic Church. It is from Rome wished to secure that the authenticity of their
named after the lead seal (bulla) that was appended to bulls should be above suspicion. A papal conrmation,
the end in order to authenticate it.
under certain conditions, could be pleaded as itself constituting sucient evidence of title in cases where the original deed had been lost or destroyed.[1]

History

Since the 12th century, papal bulls have carried a lead seal
with the heads of the apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul
on one side and the popes name on the other. Papal bulls
were originally issued by the pope for many kinds of communication of a public nature, but by the 13th century,
papal bulls were only used for the most formal or solemn
of occasions.[2] Papyrus seems to have been used almost

Papal bulls have been in use at least since the 6th century, but the term was not used until around the end of
the 13th century, and then only internally for unocial
administrative purposes. However, it had become ocial by the 15th century, when one of the oces of the
1

4 CONTENT

uniformly as the material for these ocial documents until the early years of the eleventh century, after which it
was rapidly superseded by a rough kind of parchment.[1]
Modern scholars have retroactively used the term bull
to describe any elaborate papal document issued in the
form of a decree or privilege (solemn or simple), and to
some less elaborate ones issued in the form of a letter.
Popularly, the name is used for any papal document that
contains a metal seal.
Today, the bull is the only written communication in
which the Pope will refer to himself as episcopus servus
servorum Dei, meaning Bishop, Servant of the Servants
of God. For example, when Benedict XVI, issued a decree in bull form, he began the document with Benedictus, Episcopus, Servus Servorum Dei. While it used to always bear a metal seal, it now does so only on the most
solemn occasions. It is today the most formal type of
letters patent issued by the Vatican Chancery in the name
of the Pope.

Format

Lead Bulla (obverse and reverse) of Urban V, Pope 1362 to 1370

Sanctus PEtrus (thus, SPA SPE or SPASPE). Paul, on

the left, was shown with owing hair and long pointed
beard composed of curved lines, while Peter, on the right,
was shown with curly hair and shorter beard made of
dome-shaped globetti (beads in relief). Each head was
surrounded by a circle of globetti, and the rim of the seal
was surrounded by an additional ring of such beads, while
the heads themselves were separated by a depiction of a
cross.[3] On the reverse was the name of the issuing pope
in the nominative Latin form. This disc was then attached
to the document either by cords of hemp (in the case of
letters of justice, and executory) or by red and yellow silk
(in the case of letters of grace) that was looped through
slits in the vellum of the document. Bulla is the name of
this seal, because whether of wax, lead, or gold, the material making the seal had to be melted to soften it and
take on an impression: Latin bullire, to boil.

A bulls format began with one line in tall elongated letters

containing three elements: the Popes name, the Papal title episcopus servus servorum Dei, meaning 'bishop, servant of the servants of God', and the few Latin words that
constituted the incipit from which the bull would also take
its name for record keeping purposes, but which might
In 1535 the Florentine engraver Benvenuto Cellini was
not be directly indicative of the bulls purpose.
paid 50 scutes to recreate the metal matrix which would
The body of the text had no specic conventions for its be used to impress the lead bulls of the Pope Paul III.
formatting; it was often very simple in layout. The closing Cellini retained denitive iconographic items like the
section consisted of a short datum, mentioning the place faces of the two apostles, but he carved them with a much
it was issued, the day of the month and the year of the greater attention to detail and artistic sensibility than had
popes ponticate and signatures, near which was attached previously been used on bullae. On the back of the seal
the seal.
he introduced several eurs-de-lis, a heraldic symbol of
For the most solemn bulls, the Pope would sign the doc- the family from which Pope Paul III had come (i.e., the
ument himself, in which case he used the formula Ego Farnese family).
N. Catholicae Ecclesiae Episcopus (I, N., Bishop of the Since the late 18th century, the lead bulla has been reCatholic Church). Following the signature in this case placed with a red ink stamp of Saints Peter and Paul with
would be an elaborate monogram, the signatures of any the reigning Popes name encircling the picture, though
witnesses, and then the seal. Nowadays, a member of very formal letters, e.g. the bull of Pope John XXIII conthe Roman Curia signs the document on behalf of the voking the Second Vatican Council, still receive the lead
Pope, usually the Cardinal Secretary of State, and thus seal.
the monogram is omitted.
Original papal bulls exist in quantity only after the 11th
century onward when the transition from fragile papyrus
to the more durable parchment was made. None survives
3 Seal
in entirety from before 819. Some original leaden seals,
however, still survive from as early as the 6th century.
The most distinctive characteristic of a bull was the metal
seal, which was usually made of lead, but on very solemn
occasions was made of gold (as those on Byzantine imperial instruments often were: see Golden Bull). On 4 Content
the obverse it depicted (originally somewhat crudely) the
early fathers of the Church of Rome, the apostles Peter In terms of content, the bull is simply the format in
and Paul, identied by the letters Sanctus PAulus and which a decree of the Pope appears. Any subject may

3
be treated in a bull, and many were and are, including
statutory decrees, episcopal appointments, dispensations,
excommunications, apostolic constitutions, canonizations
and convocations.
The bull was the exclusive letter format from the Vatican until the 14th century, when the papal brief began to
appear. The brief is the less formal form of papal communication and is authenticated with a wax impression
(now a red ink impression) of the Ring of the Fisherman.
There has never been an exact distinction of usage between a bull and a brief, but nowadays most letters, including encyclicals, are issued as briefs.

See also
Canonical Coronation
List of Images with Canonical Coronation
Abbreviator
Bull of the Crusade
Edict
Fatwa
Golden Bull
Great Seal of the Realm
Holy Roman Empire
Letters Patent
List of papal bulls
Proclamation
Ukase

Notes

[1] Thurston, Herbert. Bulls and Briefs. The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company,
1908. 23 Jul. 2014
[2] Papal bull. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 7 July
2012.
[3] Botsford, George Willis; Botsford, Jay Barrett (1922). A
Brief History of the World: With Especial Reference to Social and Economic Conditions. Macmillan. p. 293.

References
Chambers, Ephraim. Cyclopaedia, or an Universal
Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, 1728
Papal bull. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 7
July 2012.

8 Further reading
Albert, C.S. Bull. Lutheran Cyclopedia.
York: Scribner, 1899. p. 67

New

Papal Encyclicals Online

List of Conciliar documents at the Theology Library
Cherubini Laertius: Magnum Bullarium Romanum

9 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

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