The Taxatio Ecclesiastica, often referred to as the Taxatio Nicholai or just the Taxatio, compiled in 1291–92 under the order of Pope Nicholas IV, is a detailed database valuation for ecclesiastical taxation of English, Welsh, and Irish parish churches and prebends. History The Taxatio Ecclesiastica was compiled in furtherance of the collection of a tax on all ecclesiastical property in England and Wales, in order to defray the costs of an expedition to the Holy Land. The Pope promised Edward I one tenth of the annual profits of every ecclesiastical benefice for the endeavour. A further tax, entitled Nova Taxatio, was levied in 1318 by virtue of a royal mandate directed to the Bishop of Carlisle. The Nova Taxatio was conducted largely to pay for the war with Scotland. The database is reportedly "complete or virtually complete for the dioceses of Canterbury, Rochester, London, Lincoln, Norwich, Chichester, Exeter, Hereford, Salisbury, Bath and Wells, Winchester, Worcester, Ely, St Davids, Llandaff, St Asaph and Bangor." Robinson has demonstrated many inaccuracies and omissions in the Taxatio and that it must be exercised with caution as a source. Nonetheless, it remains an important source document for the medieval period. Payment dispute This taxation is a most important record, because all the taxes of the Church, as well to the kings of England as to the pope, were afterwards regulated by it until the survey made by Henry VIII; and because the statutes of colleges which were founded before the Reformation are also interpreted 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. In 1295, 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 wars, summoned deputies from the inferior clergy for the first time to vote him supplies from their own body. In the preceding year he had, by threats and violence, exacted a tax of half the revenues of the clergy; but now he 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, lest they should appear to acknowledge the temporal power; and in order to overcome this objection, the king issued his writ to the archbishop, who, as their spiritual superior, summoned the