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 influence or money had secured his nomination from the Pope, and now presented himself for election by virtue of a document signed months or years beforehand. The Pope's provisions, amounting as they often did to sheer confiscation, and liable to the very grossest abuse, were more than once denounced by Parliament as an intolerable scandal and usurpation. In the year 1343, and again in 1359, statutes were passed to restrain or debar this claim, and in 1353 the statute of Praemunire made it a serious crime, punishable by severe pains and penalties, to allow the Pope's writ to run in England, or to appeal from England to Avignon. But these statutes were constantly evaded, and the anti-clerical Council of 1371-1375 determined to make an effort to get rid of the abuse.

In 1373 the King sent a special mission to Avignon to discuss the matter with Pope Gregory XI., who had succeeded Urban V. in 1371. There were four members of this delegation—John Gilbert, Bishop of Bangor; William de Berton, a distinguished graduate of Oxford, resident at Merton, and subsequently Chancellor of the University; Uhtred Bolton, a monk of Dunholme, and John de Shepeye. They represented the difficulty which had been created in England by the existing irregularities of reservation, collation, and provision, especially when English clergymen were displaced by aliens. Gregory seems to have listened without replying; but it was arranged, now or subsequently, that a conference should be held in the following year at Bruges, between representatives of the Pope and of the