clergy to meet in convocation. This was the commencement of the constitutional practice of the clergy meeting in Convocation at the same time as the Lay Parliament, and voting subsidies by its own voluntary act for the service of the state. 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 Boniface VIII issued a bull in 1296, which forbade churchmen of every degree to pay any tribute, subsidy, or gift to laymen, without authority from the See of Rome ; and declared that if they should pay, or princes exact, or any one assist in levying such unauthorised taxes, all such persons respectively would incur the sentence of excommunication. In the same year, however, Edward I demanded of the clergy a fifth of their moveables, which they resisted, on the ground that they could not disobey the Pope; but the king was not inclined to desist, and in order to force the acquiescence of the clergy, he put them out of the pale of the laws. Orders were issued to the judges to hear no cause brought before them by the clergy, but to decide all causes in which they were sued by others. The clergy could not long resist these oppressions; and although unwilling to disobey the Papal Bull, they evaded it by voluntarily depositing a sum equivalent to the amount demanded of them in some church, whence it was taken by the king's officers. In this expedient the whole ecclesiastical body acquiesced, and thus yielded up their spiritual privileges, under coercion by the temporal power. Publication An edition of the Taxatio was published by the Record Commission in 1802 as Taxatio Ecclesiastica Angliae et Walliae Auctoritate, edited by Thomas Astle, Samuel Ayscough and John Caley. References External links Article in "English Cyclopedia" by Charles Knight (1854) Taxatio database 1292 in Europe 1292 works 13th-century Latin books 13th-century manuscripts English manuscripts Legal history of England Christianity in medieval England Taxation in medieval England Medieval English law