220 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



mentioned shows that this principle was carried strictly into effect. On 

 all the taxation rolls of the reign of Edward II, which have been exam- 

 ined, there are the names of numerous ecclesiastics paying lay taxes for 

 their personal property. ' On the close rolls of the same period are also 

 to be foimd the records of disputes as to the habihty of the clergy to be 

 assessed for such taxes for the personal property upon their lands. ^ 

 The point in controversy in these cases is whether the property in 

 question had been acquired before or after the twentieth year of Edward 

 I. If the lands had been acquired after that date the clergy had to pay 

 lay taxes for any personal property they might happen to possess upon 

 those lands. In the Public Record Office there is an interesting httle 

 parchment roll recording the taxation of the manor of Eastbrandenham, 

 belonging to the priory of St. Edmund, which clearly indicates this 

 practice with respect to the clergy.^ It notes the sums which the head 

 of the manor was assessed for the various lay subsidies from 3 Edward II 

 to 25 Edward III, with the names of those who paid these taxes. Though 

 it was owned by the priory, Julian de Stirston who held it, paid in 1307, 

 twenty-nine shillings and three-fourths of a penny to the subsidy of that 

 year. As he farmed the manor, his was the personal property assessed. 

 In 13 13 the prior was charged in person with an assessment of twenty- 

 seven shillings and ninepence. Evidently then, the priory had resumed 

 the farming of the manor and possessed taxable personal property 

 within its boundaries. For the remaining years of the reign of Edward 

 II and also during the early part of that of Edward III, either the prior 

 or the cellarer of St. Edmund paid to the lay subsidies assessed upon the 

 kingdom. 



With the advent of the next king, Edward III, in 1327, the clause 

 relating to the taxation of the personal property of the clergy, upon their 

 lands not assessed in the Taxatio, disappears from the instructions sent 

 out to the collectors of the lay subsidies. ^ It does not reappear until 

 the reign of Richard II, though at that time in a shghtly different form. 



' E. g., Cambridge Gild Records, edited by M. Bateson, pp. 151 et seq.; Exchequer Lay Subsidy, 107/10, 

 m. I, where the names of certain ecclesiastics are stricken out because their [goods] were taxed among 

 the spiritualities." 



» E. g., Calendar Close Rolls, 1307-13, p. 17; ibid., p. 179; C. C. R., 1313-18, p. 158; C. C. R., 1318-23' 

 pp. 647-48. 



3 Exchequer Lay Subsidy, 149/6. ♦ Rot. Pari., Vol. IL p. 426 b. 



