many of the decretals comprised in them contain legislation obligatory upon the whole church such as the Constitution of Paul II, "Ambitios", which forbade the alienation of ecclesiastical goods. This is however not true of all of them; some had even been formally abrogated at the time when Chappuis made his collection; three decretals of John XXII are reproduced in both collections. Both the collections were printed in the official (1582) edition of the "Corpus Juris Canonici". This explains the favour they enjoyed among canonists. For a critical text of these collections, see Friedberg, "Corpus Juris Canonici" (Leipzig, 1879 1881), II. False Decretals The Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals (or False Decretals) are a set of extensive and influential medieval forgeries, written by a scholar or group of scholars known as Pseudo-Isidore. They aimed to defend the position of bishops against metropolitans and secular authorities by creating false documents purportedly authored by early popes, together with interpolated conciliar documents. Citations References External links IntraText Edition of The Decretals of Gregory IX (latin) Catholic canonical documents Medieval law