It follows that the pope is subject to general councils, in which the bishops are his colleagues ("conjudices"), not merely his consultors; nor has he the exclusive right to summon such councils. The decrees of general councils need not be confirmed by the pope nor can they be altered by him; on the other hand, appeal may be made from papal decisions to a general council. As for the rights of the popes in such matters as appeals, reservations, the confirmation, translation and deposition of bishops, these belong properly to the bishops in provincial synods, and were usurped by the papacy gradually as the result of a variety of causes, notably of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. The Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals, also known as the False Decretals, are a set of false documents included in a collection of canon law, some concerning the relations of the political and ecclesiastical powers, composed about the middle of the ninth century by an author who used the pseudonym "Isidore Mercator". Louis Saltet, in the "Catholic Encyclopedia", wrote that the forgeries bear some of the blame for the distorted view the Middle Ages had of ecclesiastical antiquity and they blurred the whole historical perspective.