Content
In terms of content, the bull is simply the format in which a decree of the Pope appears. Any subject may 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 fourteenth 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.
Read more about this topic: Papal Bull
Famous quotes containing the word content:
“People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know.”
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“It is still not enough for language to have clarity and content ... it must also have a goal and an imperative. Otherwise from language we descend to chatter, from chatter to babble and from babble to confusion.”
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