§ 39. THE CHURCH IN ENGLAND. 311
The memorable statute of Pro visors forbade all papal provisions and reservations and all taxation of Church property contrary to the customs of Englanj^. The act of 1353 sought more effectually to clip the pope's power by forbidding the carrying of any suit against an English patron before a foreign tribunal.!
To these laws the pope paid only so much heed as expediency required. This claim, made by one of his predecessors in the bull Ciipfentes, to the right to fill all the benefices of Christendom, he had no idea of abandoning, and, whenever it was possible, he provided for his hungry family of cardinals and other ecclesiastics out of the proverbially fat appointments of England. Indeed, the cases of such appointments given by Merimuth, and especially in the papal books as printed by Bliss, are so recurrent that one might easily get the impression that the pontiff's only concern for the English Church was to see that its livings were put into the hands of foreigners. I have counted the numbers in several places as given by Bliss. On one page, 4 out of 9 entries were papal appointments. A section of 2|- pages announces " provisions of a canonry, with expectation of a prebend " in the following churches : 7 in Lincoln, 5 in Salisbury, 2 in Chichester, and 1 each in Wells, York, Exeter, St. Patrick's, Dublin, Moray, Southwell, Howden, Ross, Aberdeen, Wilton. ^ From 1342-1385 the deanery of York was held successively by three Roman cardinals. In 1374, the incomes of the treasurer, dean and two archdeaneries of Salisbury went the same way. At the close of Edward III.'s reign, foreign cardinals held the deaneries of York, Salisbury and Lichfield, the archdeanery of Canterbury, reputed to be the richest of English preferments, and innumerable prebends. Bishops and abbots-elect had to travel to Avignon and often spend months and much money in securing confirmation to their appointments, and, in cases, the prelate-
iSee the texts of these statutes in Gee and Hardy, 103 sqq., 112-123. With reference to the renewal of the act in 1390, Fuller quaintly says: "It mauled the papal power in the land. Some former laws had pared the pope's nails to the quick, but this cut off his fingers."
2 11. 345; III. 54 sq. Prebend has reference to the stipend, canonry to the office.
312 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
elect was set aside on the ground that provision had already been made for his office. As for sees reserved by the pope, Stubbs gives the following list, extending over a brief term of years : Worcester, Hereford, Durham and Rochester, 1317 ; Lincoln and Winchester, 1320 ; Lichfield, 1322 ; Winchester, 1323 ; Carlisle and Norwich, 1325 ; Worcester, Exeter and Hereford, 1327; Bath, 1329; Durham, Canterbury, Winchester and Worcester, 1334. Provisions were made in full recognition of the plural system. Thus, Walter of London, the king's confessor, was appointed by the pope to the deanery of Wells, though, as stated in the papal brief, he already held a considerable list of "canonries and prebends," Lincoln, Salisbury, St. Paul, St. Martin Le Grand, London, Bridgenorth, Hastings and Hareswell in the diocese of Salisbury. i By tlie practice of promoting bishops from one see to another, the pope accomplished for his favorites what he could not have done in any other way. Thus, by the promotion of Sudbury in 1371 to Canterbury, the pope was able to translate Courtenay from Hereford to London, and Gilbert from Bangor to Hereford, and thus by a single stroke he was enriched by the first-fruits of four sees.
In spite of legislation, the papal collectors contjnnfid to ply their trade m_England, but less publicly and confidently than in the two preceding centuries. In 1379, Urban VI. sent Cosmatus Gentilis as his nuncio and collector-in-chief, with instructions that he and his subcollectors make speedy returns to Rome, especially of Peter's pence. ^ In 1375, Gregory XI. had called upon the archbishops of Canterbury and York to collect a tax of 60,000 florins for the defence of the lands of the Apostolic
1 Bliss, II. 521. Cases of the payment of large sums for appointments to the pope and of the disappointed ecclesiastics-elect are given in Merinuith, pp. 31, 57, 59, 60, 61, 71, 120, 124, 172, etc., Bliss and others. Merimuth, p. 67, etc., refers constantly to the bribery used by such expressions as caum pecunialiter cognita, and non sine magna pecuniae quantitate. In cases, the pope renounced the right of provision, as Clement V., in 1808, the livings held in commendam by the cardinal of St. Sabina, and valued at 1000 marks. See Bliss, II. 48. For the cases of agents sent by two cardinals to England to collect the incomes of their livings, and their imprisonment, see Walsingham, I. 259. 2 Bliss, IV. 257.