TAX 



118 



TAX 



tun, promised him a tenth ot' the n. "ly ui' 



l.ut nf the laity. 1 this proceeding there 



appe.. i n twofold tcln- 



poral prince uttered tho pope a contribution I'n in his 



,. which commonly originated with tin- pope: and 



i tax was to be levied upon tlie laity nut for the 



service" of the state, but fur the benefit of u foreign 



iie strangeness of the circumstances how- 



iid nut prevent the pope iVuiu taking immediate 



advantage of (be king's urt'er, ami be accordingly sent a 



.> England to collect the tenth>. His demand 



met with Mime opposition, indeed, chiefly from the 1 



but the pope and the kins: together were tuo powerful to 



I. The legate, to shorten the work of collection, 



obliged tin- bishops to pay the tax for their inferior clergy: 



and when any of them co'mplained that they had no ready 



money, he introduced them to eertftin Italian usurers whom 



he had brought with him for that purpose, who lent them 



the Minis demanded at an exorbitant rate of interest. 



(Matthew Paris, p. :; 



In the ame reign the pope's legates were constantly 

 demanding presents from the bishops, monasteries, and 

 . and enlivening assemblies of the ehureh with no 

 other object than to extort money. Their proceedings 

 vd such disgust that the great barons sent orders to 

 the wardens of the seaports to stop all persons bringing 

 any bulls or mandates from Rome, and at la.-t succeeded 

 in driving the legate himself out of the kingdom, i Matthew- 

 Paris. ]>. (i.V.l.'i Little good however was effected by these 

 -'ires, fur we find that in 1240 the pope demanded the 

 half of all the goods of the non-resident clergy and the 

 third of those who resided. (Ibid., 708.) The resistance 

 met with in this case deterred the pope from enforcing 

 his demand ; but the sums which he continued to draw 

 from the clergy at that time appear to have been enor- 

 mous, and the histories of that period are full of com- 

 plaints and remonstrances against pupal exactions. An 

 act was passed by the parliament in 1307 (Statute of 

 Carlisle, 35 Edward I.), to restrain, in some measure, the 

 exactions of the see of Rome, but apparently with littk 

 good results ; for seventy years afterwards we find the 

 Commons in pnrliament still protesting against the ex- 

 tortions of the pope. In their remonstrance to the kint, 

 upon that grievance they asserted. that the taxes paid u 

 the pope yearly, out of England, amounted to five time 

 as much as the taxes paid to the king." (Cotton's Abridy 



', p. 128.) 



Although complaints continued long after this period 

 no measures were effectual in limiting the demands of tin 

 court of Rome until the pope's authority was altogethei 

 suppressed in England at the Reformation in the reign o 

 Henry VIII. 



2. 'The immunities claimed by the church were no' 

 effectual in protecting its revenues from being laid undei 

 contribution for the service of the state. The kings o 

 England, sometimes by the pope's authority, sometimes hi 

 forced or voluntary compliance on the part of the church 

 and sometimes by their own direct power, obtained large 

 sums from the clergy. 



William the Conqueror found the ehureh very wealthy 

 and subjected it to much spoliation. (Matthew 1'ari's 

 p. 6.) A singular occasion for taxing the clergy arose 

 in the reign of Henry I., A.D. 1120. An eccl'csiasii 

 cal council, assembled at London, denounced all marriei 

 clergymen, and decreed that they should put awu\ thei 



I lie council nmittdd to the king the cxc'cnlioi 



of their decrees, but he. instead of compelling the dergi 

 to send away their wives, imposed a tax on those wh< 

 chose to retain them, which is said to have been very pro 

 (Illctive. 



The pope was not unwilling to assist in oppressing UK 

 : the benefit of king-*, when they were ihclincc 

 to further bis own object*, either by undertaking crusades 

 carrying on want against his enemies, or making . 

 sions to him. He could not sutler the immunities i<f th, 

 church to be infringed by Hie temporal power, but often 

 placed at the disposal of princes the ! (he chind 



by his own authority. Thus the pope. l>v virtue of his 

 apostolical power, granted King Henry HI.. bv 

 bulls, the goods of all cli ho died intestate, tin 



mes of all vacant benefices, and of all noii-ic-idents 

 In 12o:i Pop,- Innocent \\II. gave the first-fruiti ant 

 tenths of all ecclesiastical benefices to the king for threi 



ears. This grant made u valuation .. taxation 01 the 

 jcncfiues necessary, which was ; u in 



he following year, and is Minictiiiies tailed the 

 faxati. Pope 1m 



same prince, with the pope's concur*, 

 sums from the clergy in 12T>5 to earn on Us war- 

 Su-ih. Hills amounting on the whole to i.>n..~>U) marks 

 were drawn upon all tin' bishops, abbots, and 

 iiien of the kingdom by Wallcian. lushu,. 

 ord. who resided at Rome as an agent foi 

 Kiiglaud : these bills were made over to It.i 

 who, it was pretended, had already advanced the m 

 fur the Sicilian war. All resistance on the part of the 

 church to these unjust demands of their own spiritual 

 superior was unavailing, and alter much remonstrance and 

 opposition the money was paid. (Matthew Paris, pp. 

 815-610.) 



In 128H Pope Nicholas IV. granted the tenths u> King 

 Edward I. fur six vcars, towards defraying the e 

 an expedition to tlie Holy Land : and in oidcr U> CO 

 them at their full value, a taxation by the kin: 

 was begun in that year, and finished, i ;ovincc of 



Canterbury, in 12SI1. and as to that of York in the follow- 

 er, the whole being under the direction of the bishops 

 of Winchester and Lincoln. This taxation is a most im- 

 portant record, because all the taxes of the church, as 

 well to the kings of England as to the pope, were after- 

 wards regulated bv it until the sin v cy made bv Henry \ 111. ; 

 and because the statutes of colleges which were founded 

 before the Reformation are also interpret etl by this criterion. 

 according to which their benefices. under a certain value, 

 are exempted from the restriction in the statute 21 Henry 



VIII. concerning pluralities, d'rrt, 



. //".. by tin- ItiTurii I'niiin: 



In 12i)."> Edward, notwithstanding the pope's grant, and 

 numerous exactions from the clergy in the meantime, 

 being still in great need of money to carry on his 

 summoned deputies from the inferior clergy for Hi. 

 time to vote him supplies from their own body. In the 

 preceding year he had, by threats and violence, exacted 

 tax of half the revenues of the clergy; but now be 

 thought it prudent to obtain their consent to his demands 

 in a more regular manner. The clergy however would not 

 obey the king's writ of summons, lesi they should a; 

 to acknowledge the tempoial ]>wer : and in order to . 

 come this objection, the king issued his writ to the aroh- 

 p, who. as their spiritual superior, summoned the 

 cleigy to meet in convocation, (.(filbert's /li\tnr;/ of tfii- 

 ~ 



. 



, p. ~>1 : Ilium-, vol. ii.. pp. 27H. 27'.). 

 This was the commencement of the constitutional prac- 

 tice of the clergy meeting in ( '(invocation at the same time 

 as the Lay Parliament, and voting subsi own 



voluntary act for the service of the stale. It was not 

 viewed without alarm by the pope and the high church 

 dignitaries; and in order to put a stop to all such exactions 

 of princes from the clergy. Pope Huijitaee \ III. i-Micd a 

 hull in 12i)(i. which, alter stating that temporal princes 

 were in the habit of extorting hen, itions from 



-iastical persons, who. fearing to uli'cml temporal 

 power more than the eternal, bad unwisely acquiesced in 

 such extortions, proceeded to forbid churchmen ot 



B to pay any tribute, subsidy, or gill to laymen. 

 without authority from the see of Home, and declared 

 that if they should pay. or pimces exact, or any one 

 in levying such iinauthui , 



spcctively would incur the sentence of excommunication. 

 i Rymer's" / ol. i., part 2. p. s:i : Re. 



uers. ed. 181G.) 



In the same year however Etlward I. demanded Of the 

 clrrgv a tilth ui' their moveables. which ti !, on 



the ground Hint they could not disob, I the 



was not inclined to desist : anil 



acquiescence Of the clergy, he put them out of the pale of 

 the laws. Onlt -'nil to the ju<! r no 



brought before them by the clergy, hut to decide 

 all causes in which Ihcv were -ned In 



were immediately exposed to violence ;md spoliation nn 

 all sides, in spite of a general sentence of excommunication 

 pronounced by the archbishop against all persons who 

 should att;n . The 



could not long resist these oppressions ; and although 

 they were unwilling to diMibe\ the Papal bull, t i 

 it by voluntarily depositing awn equivalent to the amount 



