Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/184

176 THE GEE AT STATUTE OF PRAEMUNIRE April but its connotation was familiar, for since the Conquest the kings of England had claimed and asserted the right of excluding from the country papal documents prejudicial to their authority and to the realm. From time to time writs were issued ordering that such documents should be seized, and in 1343 it was ordained in parliament that those who introduced them should be arrested and brought before the king's council. 1 The qualifying formula in the ordinance and writs lacked precision, as it did in the act of 1393, and a king like Henry VIII might wrest it to uses which medieval kings and parliaments never contemplated. But there is no doubt how it was interpreted in 1393 and the next genera- tion. The bulls and instruments forbidden to Englishmen were such as concerned what in the view of the secular authorities were secular affairs. By the fourteenth century most of these were recognized as secular by churchmen also ; but there was still a debatable ground claimed by both the lus Commune of the church and the Common Law of the state. It was to secure the state's hold on this that anti-papal statutes were passed and anti- papal writs issued. But no English king or parliament before the days of Henry VIII had any intention of disputing the pope's authority in that wide sphere of human concerns which every one except a few heretics agreed to call spiritual. 2 The nature and extent of papal jurisdiction within its limits were matters for the pope and the clergy. So long as the claims of the Common Law were respected it mattered nothing to the Crown whether ' spiritual ' suits were decided before the English courts Christian or the papal curia. 3 and execution of papal bulls was contrary to law '. The editor, however, ignored an important ' aforesaid ', for the corresponding clause in the original runs, ' nesciente prefato priore ut asserit impetracionem bullarum predictarum nee execucionem earundem fore preiudicialem nee contra leges et statuta regni nostri existere ' (Rot. Pat., 19 Ric. II, fo. 2, m. 11). The bulls in question affected the king's rights of patronage. 1 Makower, p. 237, treats this subject with his customary lucidity and quotes a number of writs in illustration of the policy of the Crown. 2 On the line drawn in England between temporal and spiritual affairs, see Makower, sect. 60. It is worth noting that in a petition presented by the commons in 1348 the pope is styled ' Soverein Govemour de Seinte Esglise en terre ' (Rot. Parl. ii. 173). 3 Dr. Pollard, however, is not justified in saying (cf. supra, p. 174) that the animus of the statutes of provisors and praemunire was as much against the English church courts as against the court of Rome. Though the statutes of provisors of course contained safeguards against possible attempts of the English courts Christian to frustrate them, their sole object was to prevent papal interference with rights of patronage. As for the ' statutes of praemunire ', the act of 1353 applied to suits in English church courts as well as in the court of Rome ; but its enactment was due entirely to the activities of the latter, and long before it was passed the Crown had ample means of protecting its rights from aggression on the part of the English courts. The act of 1365, so far as it was new, was concerned merel^ with the court of Rome. When Dr. Pollard says that the statutes of praemunire ' set no limits to the pope's control over English ecclesiastical courts ', and that the Crown had no objection