Editing Canonization (section)

=== Exclusive reservation to the Apostolic See ===
{{Main|Beatification and canonization process prior to 1983}}
[[Hugh de Boves]], [[Archbishop of Rouen]], canonized [[Walter of Pontoise]], or St. Gaultier, in 1153, the final saint in [[Western Europe]] to be canonized by an authority other than the [[Pope]]:<ref name="ofsnlu">{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/stream/dictionaryofchri01smituoft/dictionaryofchri01smituoft_djvu.txt|title=William Smith and Samuel Cheetham, ''A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities'' (Murray, 1875)|page=283|publisher=Boston: Little |access-date=4 October 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.saint-mike.org/library/papal_library/AlexanderIII/biography.html|title=Pope Alexander III|access-date=4 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131015044654/http://www.saint-mike.org/library/papal_library/alexanderiii/biography.html|archive-date=15 October 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref> "The last case of canonization by a metropolitan is said to have been that of [[Walter of Pontoise|St. Gaultier]], or Gaucher, [A]bbot of Pontoise, by the Archbishop of Rouen. A decree of [[Pope Alexander III]] [in] 1170 gave the prerogative to the [P]ope thenceforth, so far as the Western Church was concerned."<ref name = "ofsnlu"/> In a decretal of 1173, [[Pope Alexander III]] reprimanded some bishops for permitting veneration of a man who was merely killed while intoxicated, prohibited veneration of the man, and most significantly decreed that "you shall not therefore presume to honor him in the future; for, even if miracles were worked through him, it is not lawful for you to venerate him as a saint without the authority of the Catholic Church."<ref>Pope Gregory IX, ''Decretales'', 3, "De reliquiis et veneratione sanctorum". It is alternatively quoted as follows: "For the future you will not presume to pay him reverence, as, even though miracles were worked through him, it would not allow you to revere him as a saint unless with the authority of the Roman Church". (C. 1, tit. cit., X, III, xlv.)</ref> Theologians disagree as to the full import of the decretal of [[Pope Alexander III]]: either a new law was instituted,<ref>St. Robert Bellarmine, ''De Eccles. Triumph.'', I, 8.</ref> in which case the [[Pope]] then for the first time reserved the right of beatification to himself, or an existing law was confirmed.

However, the procedure initiated by the decretal of [[Pope Alexander III]] was confirmed by a [[papal bull|bull]] of [[Pope Innocent III]] issued on the occasion of the canonization of [[Cunigunde of Luxembourg]] in 1200. The [[Papal bull|bull]] of [[Pope Innocent III]] resulted in increasingly elaborate inquiries to the [[Apostolic See]] concerning canonizations. Because the decretal of [[Pope Alexander III]] did not end all controversy and some bishops did not obey it in so far as it regarded beatification, the right of which they had certainly possessed hitherto, [[Pope Urban VIII]] issued the Apostolic letter ''Caelestis Hierusalem cives'' of 5 July 1634 that exclusively reserved to the [[Apostolic See]] both its immemorial right of canonization and that of [[beatification]]. He further regulated both of these acts by issuing his ''Decreta servanda in beatificatione et canonizatione Sanctorum'' on 12 March 1642.