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 736 Charles Gross sometimes successfully resisted in the boroughs.' Usually, how- ever, it was allowed,"- especially when the clergy or their tenants bought provisions for their own use, or sold their grain and other products of their lands; in short, when they did not buy and sell as professional traders.^ The town authorities soon perceived that to prevent loss through the exemption of church estates from taxation, the flow of gifts and bequests to the clergy must be checked. Accordingly on the Continent from the thirteenth century onward many municipal ordi- nances forbade all alienation of land or houses to the church.* In some towns it was enacted that land acquired by the church should be alienated to burghers within a year, or if it remained in the hands of the clergy should be subject to municipal law and taxes. ° Another continental device to prevent loss by the transformation des hiens taillablcs en hiens viabinwrtables was the imposition of a heavy tax on property passing out of the hands of the burgesses.' We even meet with laws prohibiting the donation to the clergy of movables beyond a certain amount, or forbidding burghers to enter the church or church fraternities, for fear that their property might pass into the dead hand of the clergy.' In England prohibitions to alienate burgage land and tenements tc religious houses are mentioned as early as the second half of the twelfth century, and they become quite common in the first half ^ Shillingford's Letters, ed. Moore. 138; Cardiff Records, ed. Matthews, I. II ; Lau. Kbln, 238-239. ^ Cartul. S. Johannis de Colecestria, ed. Moore, 28; Red Paper Book of Colchester, ed. Benham, 39; Cat. of Patent Rolls, 1334-1338, pp. 15-19; Drake, Eboracnm. 555: Duncumb, Hereford, I. 297; Cbartularies of St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin, ed. Gilbert, I. 135, 396-397; Geering, Handel und Industrie von Basel, IS4- ^ Rot. Hund., I. 12, 356; Cal. of Patent Rolls, 1391-1396, pp. 423-425; Dug- dale, Monasticon, IV. 314; Blomefield, Norfolk, III. 73; Merewether and Stephens, Hist, of Boroughs, I. 396-397; Cardiff Records, ed. Matthews, I. 11. See also Espinas, Les Finances de Douai, 355-358 ; Martin Saint-Leon, Hist, des Corpo- rations, 138; Boos, Stddtekidtur, I. 437. At Aachen in 1349 the clergy of St. Mary's church were granted the right to sell wine without paying toll, but at Worms the claim of the clergy to exercise this right was bitterly contested. See HofHer, Verf. der Stadt Aachen, 14; Boos, II. 212; Arnold, Freistadte, II. 20, 335-337, 430-440 ; cf. von Maurer, Stadteverf., II. 866. 520; Arnold, Freistadte, II. 177-178; Espinas, Les Finances de Douai, 348-355; Des Marez, £tude siir la Propriete, 160-161 ; Fertile, Storia del Diritto Italiano, IV. 386-395. The earliest prohibitions against mortmain in Germany seem to fall in the first quarter of the thirteenth century. 5 Liebe, in Neiie Jahrb. fiir Klass. Allerthum. 1901, VII. 216; Varges, 519; Arnold, Freistadte, II. 177-178; Des Marez, Etude, 161-163. 6 Espinas, Les Finances de Douai, 223-226. 'Von Below, Stddteivesen und Biirgerthum. 112-113.
 * Varges, in Jahrbiicher fiir Nationalokonomie, ed. Conrad, 1895, LXIV. 518-