224 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



national taxes of the reign of Edward III, and as the temporalities 

 annexed to the spiritualities were never taxed under grants made by the 

 laity in parliament, this is merely a plain statement of the existing 

 practice on the negative side.' Only a few years later, in the first par- 

 liament of the reign of Richard II, that of 1377, the commons petitioned 

 and the king granted that the clergy should contribute their share, when 

 lay taxes were levied, for goods upon all their possessions acquired 

 since 20 Edward I.^ In the writs sent to the collectors of the tenth and 

 fifteenth of that year a clause was added to that effect.^ The silence of 

 the chroniclers upon this move is the best kind of evidence that it was 

 nothing new and in no way considered oppressive. If the action of the 

 council then ruUng the kingdom had been to introduce a plan of taxa- 

 tion that would reach church property hitherto untouched, one might 

 well imagine the indignation of all pious churchmen throughout the 

 realm of England. 



There remains to be considered in connection with this subject the 

 curious answer made by King Edward III to the petition of the com- 

 mons in parhament in the year 1346.'* The commons prayed that the 

 abbots, priors and other rehgious, who had purchased lands or tene- 

 ments since the twentieth year of Edward I, should be charged and 

 taxed for the same with the men of the community; and in order to 

 raise these taxes that it be possible to distrain all of their lands for 

 which they did not pay clerical tenths. Thus far the matter is quite 

 clear. It is quite possible that the commons feared that the religious 

 houses might be able to escape taxation either by claiming that their 

 lands were acquired before the year mentioned, or in some other fashion, 

 and, on that account, desired an authoritative royal answer upon the 

 subject. The reply of the king is not so clear. The first part accords 

 with the existing practice as it is known: "As for this point, it appears 

 to the council, that the rehgious who pay their tenths with the clergy, 



■ A statement of such a nature hardly warrants the remark of Stubbs, op. cit.. Vol. II, p. 443, that the 

 chancellor reported that "all the chiorch lands acquired since 1292 must be included among the contributors." 



" Rot. Pari., Vol. Ill, p. 24 h. 



' Fine Roll, No. 179 (i Richard II, Part I), m. s. The clause reads: "necnon de viris ecclesiasticis 

 de bonis de terris et tenementis suis post annum vicesimam dominum E. fil' Regis Henrici progenitoris nostri 

 adquisitis." 



♦ Rot. Pari., Vol. II. p. 163 a. Cf. Stubbs, op. cit.. Vol. II, p. 416. 



