Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/197

1922 THE GREAT STATUTE OF PRAEMUNIRE 189- the legislation against provisors ; and in their eyes, perhaps, even ' the great statute of praemunire ' would have left one or two points unguarded. But in that case one would still have expected them to make use of such a measure, which would have furnished at once a suitable procedure and adequate punishments. Instead, they had recourse to two earlier measures, and would apparently have left it to the courts to decide which of the numerous penalties provided in the statute of 1390 was to be used against the offenders they had in view. 1 Once again the act of 1393 is ignored unaccountably ignored if it was really the climax of the anti- papal legislation of the middle ages. It appears then that for many years the English parliament and the English courts of law took no notice of the statute. And, what is no less remarkable, there seems to be no evidence that it called forth any protest from Rome. The statute, it must be remembered, was passed at a time when Boniface IX was much exercised about the anti-papal legislation in England. In 1391 he had solemnly denounced and declared void the so- called statute of Carlisle, the statute of 1351, and the new one of 1390, and he had been trying hard to secure their repeal. But I have found nothing to show that he displayed any concern about the statute of 1393. In 1394, it is true, Bartholomew of Novara, a canonist of some repute, was sent by the pope to England to press for the annulment of certain statutes lately made there against the pope, the Roman church, and ecclesiastical liberty. 2 The use of the plural statuta might be thought to indicate that the pope had in mind the acts of 1390 and 1393. But in papal communications on this topic statutum is often used in its non- technical sense of something ordered or decreed. In 1391 the abbot of Nonantola spoke of the ' statutes ' of Quare impedit and Praemunire facias, and moreover used the plural when referring to the act of 1390. 3 Further, when Bartholomew stated his errand before the king's council, that body reported to Richard that he had explained how ' the statute lately made in 1 The petition is not always as explicit as one could wish. I have, however, tried to take into account all possible interpretations of obscure passages. To discuss the relation of all the anti-papal statutes to the abuse of which the petition complains would necessitate a long digression. I have, therefore, contented myself with stating the rather inconclusive results to which, in my opinion, such a discussion would lead.. The king refused the petition, and promised that the council would do justice to aggrieved incumbents. 2 Cal. of Papal Letters, iv. 47. 3 Cont. Polychr. ix. 250 seq. ; Walsingham, ii. 200. The Continuator of the Poly- chronicon gives a verbatim report of the abbot's speech. That it is genuine is proved not only by internal evidence, but also by the abridged version given by Walsingham, who frequently attributes to the abbot whole sentences reported by the Continuator. It looks as if the abbot had distributed copies of his speech among the journalists of the day.