No decisions of a general nature, whether dogmatic or disciplinary, could be made without his consent.
For this third period, the most important and most considerable of the canonical texts is the body of disciplinary decrees of the council of Trent (1545-1563).
It is much less certain that the disciplinary reforms which the council, following the example of its predecessors, re-enacted, owed anything to Protestantism, unless indeed the council would have shown itself less intolerant in respect to such innovations as the use of the vernacular in the services had this not smacked of evangelicalism.
From 1787 onwards, colonial bishops and metropolitans were appointed by letters patent which purported to give them jurisdiction for disciplinary purposes.
African troops, entirely European and normally consisting of 606 officers time when it would have been impolitic to ask openly for more cavalry, they were little by little trained in real cavalry work, then combined in provisional regiments for disciplinary purposes and at last frankly classed as cavalry.