Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/195

 1922 THE GREAT STATUTE OF PRAEMUNIRE 187 recourse to the Roman court, it is often evident, even when there is no allusion to any statute, that the proceedings against the offenders are based on the earlier statutes of praemunire and not on the act of 1393. 1 Assuming that the statute of 1393 was an all-sufficient safe- guard against papal encroachments, modern writers have often given the impression that it marked the end of the anti-papal activities of medieval parliaments. This, however, was far from being the case. Some of the parliaments of Henry IV show as much jealousy of the authority of the pope as any of their predecessors. Nor were they merely concerned with the enforce- ment of existing laws. Much of their attention was given to grievances against which, as they evidently supposed, no adequate provision had as yet been made. Thus in 1401 it was complained that the Cistercians had obtained bulls granting them certain exemptions from the payment of tithes, to the prejudice of the rights of the king and other patrons of ecclesiastical benefices. Now here, if the statute of 1393 covered all papal bulls prejudicial to the Crown, was surely a case which fell within its scope. The petition indeed asked that any attempt to execute the bull should be punished by loss of the king's protection and forfeiture, the very punishments imposed on offenders against the statute of 1393 ; but it made no allusion to that measure. 2 What is more remarkable, the statute which was the outcome of this petition, though it directed that all who attempted to execute such bulls or procured any in future should be proceeded against by writ of praemunire facias, went on to ordain that they should incur the penalties prescribed, not in the statute of 1393, but in the statute of provisors of 1390. 3 This was a singular arrange- ment. For that statute had been very carefully drawn up to deal with the particular question of papal provisions ; a number of different penalties, appropriate to different classes of offenders, are enumerated in it ; and which of these were to be inflicted on the guilty Cistercians and others in like case is nowhere specified. The statute of 1393, if not applicable to the case, might more reasonably have been extended to meet it. But apparently no one thought of its existence. 4 contra formam ordinationis et concordie in parliamento domini Edwardi nuper regis Anglie progenitoris nostri apud Westmonasterium nuper tento editarum '. Doubtless one of the ' statutes of praemunire ' is meant, but not that of 1393, to which the entry in the calendar would naturally be taken to allude. 1 See, for example, Col. of Pat. Bolls, 1405-8, pp. 479 seq. ; 1408-13, pp. 27, 263. A good example appears in Rot. Pat., 20 Ric. II, fo. 3, m. 34, another letter which has had its meaning distorted in the calendar (Cal. of Pat. Rolls, 1396-9, p. 106 : pardon of the abbot of Dore, whose sentence was not for procuring unlawful citations at Rome, but for failing to respond to a writ of praemunire facias). 3 Statutes, ii. 121 seq.
 * Rot. Parl. iii. 464 seq. The source of the petition is not stated.