CAPITULATION
— Under this name, in international law, two completely different institutions are indicated: 1) a capitulation is a military agreement by which, in time of war, the surrender is agreed upon, with certain specifically stipulated conditions, of a more or less considerable part of the armed forces of one of the belligerents; 2) a capitulation is also a complex of privileges originally granted unilaterally, then, almost always, by treaty, by virtue of which the citizens of one State were granted, in the territory of another State of more backward civilization, immunity from local jurisdiction, the application of their national law in certain matters of private law, and various other exemptions. Such capitulations, until a few decades ago, were in force to a greater or lesser extent in favor of certain European States in Japan, Turkey, Persia, Ethiopia, China, Egypt, and some other territories; now they have been almost everywhere abolished.
In the history of the Church, the term capitulation is known for agreements or pacts according to which, in the conclaves, each cardinal undertook, if elected pope, to observe certain chapters concerning the observance of specific conditions.
The first authentic known capitulation was that of the Conclave from which Innocent VI was elected (1352). The conditions imposed restricted the future pope's rights especially regarding the appointment, punishment, and deposition of cardinals, etc. Similar agreements took place also in the elections of Eugenius IV (1431–47); of Pius II (1458–64); of Paul II (1464–71); and of Innocent VIII (1484–92). They were forbidden and declared null by various popes (In eligendis of Pius IV of 9 Oct. 1562, and Aeterni Patris of Gregory XV of 15 Nov. 1621); whose provisions were substantially reproduced in the Apostolic Constitution of Pius X Vacante Sede Apostolica of 25 Dec. 1904 (n. 83), and then in that of Pius XII, which at n. 183 states: *We forbid the cardinals, before proceeding to the election, to draw up any pacts or to establish anything in common agreement, binding themselves to their observance if they should be elected to the papacy: and if such pacts should intervene, even by means of an oath, We declare them null and void.*