from three. This indicates his special position within the Church political structure. Innocent III exercised more power than any of his predecessors, or his successors. He famously placed England under interdict during the reign of John of England. During and after the Fourth Lateran Council, Innocent III proclaimed that all tithes to the Church should take precedence over any taxes imposed by a state. This was controversial. He also excluded all lay interference (including matters of civil and criminal law). He affirmed the right of Rome to review any and all important legal cases. This made appeal to the Pope more attractive and easier to obtain than in previous generations. He gave the Chancery an improved and more efficient organisation. All this occurred in the generation before Bracton, and still was rancorous in his time. It has been argued and unsettled whether any English Churchman in the 13th century would have disputed that the Pope was the head of the Universal Church. It was admitted that the canon law of the great councils was binding upon all members of the Church. Bracton, being both a lawyer and a cleric wrote of the Pope "in spiritualibus super omnibus habet ordinariam jurisdictionem" (In spiritual things he has an ordinary jurisdiction over all men in his realm.) Not only was the Pope a law giver, but he was also a judge, and in his Curia, could enforce his decrees. Papal legislation was defined and circumscribed by "ius divinium et naturale" – law divine and natural. Contract and the writ of prohibition The development of contract law began in the Church courts, following Roman law. These courts claimed (with some validity) to enforce all promises made by oath, or by "pledge of faith". The man who pledges his faith, or on his soul, arguably has pawned his soul, and in so doing, has left his salvation to actions of another. Henry II of England asserted his jurisdiction over such cases. Thomas Becket claimed concurrent jurisdiction for the Church. Henry won. From that time onward, the royal court was always at the ready to prohibit ecclesiastical judges from entertaining a breach of faith, unless both parties were clerks (church clerics) or the matter lay outside the realm of the temporal. The method was to issue a writ of prohibition, prohibiting the church court from hearing and ruling on the case. The practice developed whereby a