te their struggle with the imperial house, laid grievous taxes on
the English clergy, supported the king in making heavy demands upon
them, and violated the rights of patrons by appointing to benefices by
"provisions" often in favour of foreigners. Churchmen, and prominently
Grosseteste, the learned and holy bishop of Lincoln, while recognizing
the pope as the divinely appointed source of all ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, were driven to resist papal orders which they held to be
contrary to apostolic precepts. Their remonstrances were seldom
effectual, and the state of the national church was noted by the
Provisions of Oxford in 1258 as part of the general misgovernment which
the baronial opposition sought to remedy. The alliance between the crown
and the papacy in this reign diminished the liberties of the church.

13th and 14th centuries.

Edward I., who was a strong king, checked an attempt to magnify the
spiritual authority by the writ _Circumspecte agatis_, which defined the
sphere of the ecclesiastical courts, put a restraint on religious
endowments by the Statute of Mortmain, and desiring that every estate in
the realm should have a share in public burdens and counsels, caused the
beneficed clergy to be summoned to send proctors to parliament. The
clergy preferred to make their grants in their own convocations, and so
lost the position offered to them. For some years clerical taxation by
the crown was carried on with the good-will of the papacy; it was not
oppressive for unbeneficed clergy and incomes below ten marks were
exempt, and in theory the clergy were celibate. Papal demands, however,
were additional burdens. In 1296 Boniface VIII., by his bull _Clericis
laicos_, forbade the clergy to grant money to lay princes, and Edward's
request for a clerical subsidy was in 1297 refused by convocation led by
Archbishop Winchelsea. The king thereupon outlawed the clergy. The
northern province yielded, the southern held out longer; but finally the
clergy made their peace severally, each paying his share, and the royal
victory was complete. Winchelsea joined the baronial opposition which
forced Edward to grant the "Confirmation of the Charters." Edward
procured his disgrace from Clement V., and in return allowed Clement to
exact so much from the church that the doings of the papal agents
provoked an indignant remonstrance from parliament in 1307. With that
exception the king's dealings with the church were statesmanli