1. See generally Bras, G. le, ‘Canon Law,’ in Crump, G. and Jacobs, E., eds., Legacy of the Middle Ages 321 (New York, 1926)Google Scholar; Kuttner, S., Harmony from Dissonance (Latrobe, 1960)Google Scholar. For articles on specific subjects, see Naz, R., ed., Dictionnaire de droit canonique (Paris, 1935–1962)Google Scholar. A concise introduction to the operation of the church courts in medieval England is Owen, D., ‘Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in England, 1300–1500,’ in Baker, D., ed., Materials, Sources and Methods of Ecclesiastical History 199 in Studies in Church History xi (1975)Google Scholar; a full-scale study of a single diocese is Woodcock, B., Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts in the Diocese of Canterbury (London, 1952)Google Scholar. For an analysis of litigation, see Helmholz, R.H., Marriage Litigation in Medieval England (Cambridge, 1974)Google Scholar; for court records and an extensive introduction, see Adams, N. and Donahue, C. Jr., eds., Select Cases from the Ecclesiastical Courts of the Province of Canterbury, Selden Society 95 (1981)Google Scholar.

2. The development of these rules is traced in detail in Millon, D., ‘Common Law and Canon Law During the Reign of Edward I’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell, 1982)Google Scholar. See also infra, notes 23–27.

3. See generally Flahiff, G.B., ‘The Writ of Prohibition to Court Christian in the Thirteenth Century, Part I’ [hereafter ‘Prohibition I’], Mediaeval Studies vi (1944) 261CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Flahiff, G.B., ‘The Writ of Prohibition to Court Christian, Part II’ [hereafter ‘Prohibition II’], Mediaeval Studies vii (1945) 229CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Flahiff, G.B., ‘The Use of Prohibitions by Clerics against Ecclesiastical Courts in England,’ Mediaeval Studies iii (1941) 101CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Adams, N., ‘The Writ of Prohibition to Court Christian,’ 20 Minnesota Law Review 272 (1936)Google Scholar. R.H. Helmholz has suggested how the mode of proof in prohibition cases (typically wager of law) may have contributed to the writ's ineffective policing of the theoretically clear-cut jurisdictional boundaries. Helmholz, R.H., ‘The Writ of Prohibition to Court Christian before 1500,’ Mediaeval Studies xlii (1981) 297CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For speculation on how wager of law might have functioned effectively, see Millon, ‘Common Law and Canon Law,’ supra note 2, ch. 2. For the use of ecclesiastical sanctions against parties obtaining writs of prohibition, see Helmholz, R.H., ‘Writs of Prohibition and Ecclesiastical Sanctions in the English Courts Christian,’ 60 Minnesota Law Review 1011 (1976)Google Scholar.

4. See Statutes of the Realm (London, 1810) i, 108Google Scholar; Powicke, F.M. and Cheney, C., eds., Councils and Synods II (Oxford, 1964) 1091Google Scholar. Bracton described a consultation procedure whereby the ecclesiastical judge might seek permission to proceed despite a prohibition. Woodbine, G., ed., Thorne, S., trans., Bracton De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae [hereafter Bracton], 4 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1969-) iv, 262–64Google Scholar. The 1290 statute thus provided a different remedy. See Millon, ‘Common Law and Canon Law,’ supra note 2, 35–44.

5. For example, the medieval church courts routinely heard suits to enforce contractual obligations, though such actions were subject to the writ of prohibition ‘de catallis et debitis que non sunt de testamento vel matrimonio.’ See infra, note 27.

6. E.B. Graves establishes the date and context of the document known as Circumspecte agatis in Graves, E.B., ‘Circumspecte Agatis,’ English Historical Review xliii (1928) 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In addition, he provides an accurate text replacing the old version published in the Record Commission's edition of the medieval statutes among statutes ‘temporis incerti.’ Statutes of the Realm, supra note 4, i, 101–2. This version included an ‘addition,’ shown by Graves to have been a royal response to a clerical grievance issued in 1280. It is textually unrelated to Circumspecte agatis. See Graves, ‘Circumspecte Agatis,’ supra, 11–15.

7. See Public Records Office [hereafter P.R.O.], CP40/80 m.210 (1289) (defendants in prohibition plea argued that they sued in church court ‘sicut eis bene licuit per statutum’); CP40/109 m.27 (1295) (argument that ‘statutum’ did not bind king); Y.BB. 33–35 Edw. 1, A.J. Horwood, ed., Rolls Series, 31 pt. 5, 478–79.

8. Graves, ‘Circumspecte Agatis,’ supra note 6, 1.

9. See, e.g., Baker, J.H., Introduction to English Legal History, 2d ed. (London, 1979) 112Google Scholar. Graves refers to ‘the indeterminate boundary between the two jurisdictions, royal and ecclesiastical. Writs of prohibition sporadically checked the aggressions of ecclesiastical judges within this borderland; but it was not clear in what cases such writs of prohibition lay.’ Graves, ‘Circumspecte Agatis,’ supra note 6, 2. Powicke describes Circumspecte agatis as aimed at ‘closer definition.’ Powicke, F.M., The Thirteenth Century, 2d ed. (Oxford, 1962) 482Google Scholar. See also Adams and Donahue, Select Canterbury Cases, supra note 1, 101; infra, text accompanying note 21.

10. See, e.g., Stubbs, W., The Constitutional History of England, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1877) ii, 119Google Scholar; Flahiff, ‘Prohibition I,’ supra note 3, 308, 309; Jones, W., ‘Relations of the Two Jurisdictions,’ Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History vii (1970) 164Google Scholar; Jones, W., ‘Bishops, Politics, and the Two Laws,’ Speculum xli (1966) 221Google Scholar.

11. For the following events, see Douie, D., Archbishop Pecham (Oxford, 1952) ch. 8Google Scholar. See also Graves, ‘Circumspecte Agatis,’ supra note 6; Richardson, H.G. and Sayles, G., ‘The Clergy in the Easter Parliament, 1285,’ English Historical Review lii (1937) 220–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Powicke, Thirteenth Century, supra note 9, 481–83. The relevant documents are printed in Powicke and Cheney, Councils and Synods, supra note 4, 955–75.

12. Similar presentations were made on several occasions during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. See generally Jones, ‘Bishops, Politics, and the Two Laws,’ supra note 10.

13. For texts of all these complaints and responses, see Powicke and Cheney, Councils and Synods, supra note 4, 956–63.

14. Ibid. 964–67.

15. See infra, note 39.

16. Powicke and Cheney, Councils and Synods, supra note 4, 967–69.

17. Graves, ‘Circumspecte Agatis,’ supra note 6, 4.

18. Powicke and Cheney, Councils and Synods, supra note 4, 969–72.

19. Circumspecte agatis was issued from Paris, where Edward was to do homage to the new French king, Phillip IV, and to resolve a dispute over lordship of certain French lands. Powicke, Thirteenth Century, supra note 9, 290–91.

20. See Douie, Pecham, supra note 11, ch. 8.

21. Ibid. 314.

22. Ibid. 318–19. See also Richardson and Sayles, ‘Easter Parliament,’ supra note 11, 222; Jones, ‘Relations, Politics, and the Two Laws,’ supra note 10, 95.

23. The Constitutions of Clarendon (1164) established that lay inquests (assize utrum) would determine whether land contested between layman and clerk was libera elemosina or feodum laicum. Disputes about the latter were beyond the church's jurisdiction. ‘Constitutions of Clarendon,’ in Stubbs, W., ed., Select Charters, 9th ed. (Oxford, 1921) ch. 9, 165–66Google Scholar. The distinction was between consecrated land, the endowment of a religious foundation, and land held by an ecclesiastical institution or individual by a particular mode of feudal tenure known as frankalmoin. See Woodbine, Bracton, supra note 4, iii, 128, iv, 265–66; Douglas, A., ‘Frankalmoin and Jurisdictional Immunity,’ Speculum liii (1978) 26CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A writ of prohibition ordering an ecclesiastical judge to halt a plea de laico feodo and a writ of attachment to a church court suitor are included in Hall, G.D.G., ed., The Treatise on the Laws and Customs of England commonly called Glanvill [hereafter Glanvill] (London, 1965) 146–47Google Scholar. These were probably instituted in conjunction with the assize utrum. Flahiff, ‘Prohibition I,’ supra note 3, 270–71. For royal court cases from the earlier thirteenth century, see Maitland, F., ed., Bracton's Note Book, 3 vols. (London, 1887) ii, 424–25, 576–77, iii, 163–64Google Scholar. Pope Innocent III, in his decretal Novit, X 2.1.13, specifically exempted disputes concerning feudal tenures (de feudo) from the church's judicial authority.

24. The first item of the Constitutions of Clarendon claimed pleas ‘[d]e advocatione et praesentatione ecclesiarum’ for the king's courts. Stubbs, Select Charters, supra note 23, 164. Advowson was the patron's right to present a clerk of his choosing to a benefice in his gift. Glanvill included two forms of prohibition de advocatione. One was available to the patron of a clerk whose incumbency was the subject of an ecclesiastical suit brought against him by another clerk claiming to hold the same church at the presentation of another patron. Known as the Indicavit form, this writ was directed at possessory actions. See Hall, Glanvill, supra note 23, 52. See also Woodbine, Bracton, supra note 4, iv, 253. Because the church courts might also entertain a suit concerned directly with right, in which the patron himself was defendant, another prohibition was available to him. See Hall, Glanvill, supra note 23, 53. See also Woodbine, Bracton, supra note 4, iv, 252-53. A decretal of Pope Alexander III directed specifically to England challenged the king's claim to decide such questions, X 2.1.3, but the canonist Hostiensis noted that ‘hanc decretalem non servat curia illustris regis Anglie: immo quicquid dicat papa, ipse cognoscit; vel is cui committit.’ Quoted in Gray, J. W., ‘The Jus Praesentandi in England from the Constitutions of Clarendon to Bracton,’ English Historical Review lxvii (1952) 487 n.3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

While the lay courts decided disputes concerning patronage, the actual possession of the benefice was under the jurisdiction of the church; admission, rejection or deprivation of the patron's candidate was left to the authority of the local bishop. See Gray, ‘Jus Praesentandi,’ supra.

25. The writ of prohibition to halt pleas ‘de catallis et debitis que non sunt de testamento vel matrimonio’ does not appear in Glanvill but probably was routinely available at least from the 1220s. See Flahiff, ‘Prohibition I,’ supra note 3, 277.

26. Woodbine, Bracton, supra note 4, iv, 249–50, 267. For cases, see Flahiff, ‘Prohibition II,’ supra note 3, 242 n.78, 285–86; Maitland, Bracton's Note Book, supra note 23, ii, 353–54. According to custom in some localities, real property held by burgage tenure was devisable by will, contrary to the medieval common law's prohibition on wills of land. See Hemmeon, M.H., Burgage Tenure in Medieval England (Cambridge, 1914) 130–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sheehan, M., The Will in Medieval England (Toronto, 1963) 274–81Google Scholar. Claims for such gifts were therefore within the church's testamentary jurisdiction, prohibitions de laico feodo notwithstanding. Woodbine, Bracton, supra note 4, iv, 273–74. Questions about whether devisability was customary in particular towns were decided by the royal courts. See, e.g., Sayles, G., ed., Select Cases in the Court of King's Bench under Edward I, 3 vols., Selden Society 55 (1936), 57 (1938), 58 (1939) ii, 51–53Google Scholar.

The common-law courts assumed jurisdiction over a particular aspect of the church's testamentary authority early in the reign of Edward I. Beginning in 1279, several entries in the Common Pleas rolls indicate that claims for debts sued by and against testamentary executors were now justiciable by common-law writ of debt. See P.R.O., CP40/28 m.47 (1279), CP40/31 m.10d (1279) (both suits by executors); CP40/28 m.50, CP40/31 mm.12d, 101 (suits against executors); CP40/28 m.72d (executors sue executors of another). According to clerical complaints from 1280 and 1285, the removal of testamentary debt claims from the church's jurisdiction was a novel development. See Powicke and Cheney, Councils and Synods, supra note 4, 875–76, 958. But a 1280 Common Pleas decision refused to extend common-law jurisdiction to ordinary claims for testamentary legacies. The plaintiff on a writ of debt stated that the deceased, whom the defendants represented as executors, ‘legavit ei predictam pecuniam in testamento suo.’ The court, responding that this was an ecclesiastical matter, dismissed the action: ‘Et quia huiusmodi placitum spectat ad forum ecclesiasticum, dictum est ei quod sequatur inforo ecclesiastico si voluerit.’ P.R.O., CP40/32 m.67d (1280).

27. According to the Constitutions of Clarendon, pleas ‘de debitis’ were for the king's justice. Stubbs, Select Charters, supra note 23, 167. For an early case, see Maitland, Bracton's Note Book, supra note 23, iii, 335. See also Woodbine, Bracton, supra note 4, iv, 265. However, claims for annual money payments due from ecclesiastical corporations, such as parish churches or monasteries, were not subject to prohibition, because they originated ‘in bonis dei et non alicuius hominis privati vel singularis personae.’ As such, the proper forum for their recovery was the spiritual. Ibid, iii, 60 (explaining why no common-law remedy to enforce corrody obligations). But this rule did not apply if the debt was based on a sale of tithes, which by the fact of sale became lay chattels. Ibid, iv, 282. See also Maitland, Bracton's Note Book, supra note 23, ii, 244–45, iii, 518–19. The common-law writ of annuity was available solely for enforcement of unsecured, personal (as opposed to real) obligations. See Pollock, F. and Maitland, F., History of English Law, 2d ed., 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1898; reprint, 1968) ii, 133–34Google Scholar.

Common-law rules notwithstanding, church courts continued to hear large numbers of contractual cases throughout the middle ages without interference from prohibitions. See Helmholz, R.H., ‘Assumpsit and Fidei Laesio,’ 91 Law Quarterly Review 406 (1975)Google Scholar; Woodcock, Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts, supra note 1, 89–90. This was also true of testamentary debt claims. Helmholz, R.H., ‘Debt Claims and Probate Jurisdiction in Historical Perspective,’ American Journal of Legal History 23 (1979) 68CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Woodcock, Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts, supra note 1, 85. For the canonical authority for the church's jurisdiction, see C.22 q.5 c.12; X 1.35.3; Sext 2.2.3.

28. See Sheehan, Will in Medieval England, supra note 26.

29. See Helmholz, Marriage Litigation, supra note 1.

30. Writs of prohibition concerning ‘placita de transgressione contra pacem domini Regis’ enforced the exclusivity of royal jurisdiction over trespass vi et armis. But violence against clerks and ecclesiastical property, which constituted sacrilege, was punishable by the church. See Woodbine, Bracton, supra note 4, iv, 266. For cases, see Maitland, Bracton's Note Book, supra note 23, iii, 470; P.R.O., KB27/121 m.26d (1289) (in prohibition plea, defendants pleaded that they were clerks and sued the plaintiffs in church court ‘de verberationibus’); CP40/113 m.58 (1296) (ecclesiastical suit alleged theft of oblations from chapel).

31. See, e.g., a Common Pleas judgment accepting the defendants' assertion that their defamation suit ‘mere spectat ad curiam christianitatis.’ P.R.O., CP40/96 m.198d (1292). See generally Helmholz, R.H., ‘Canonical Defamation in Medieval England,’ American Journal of Legal History 15 (1971) 255CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32. Failure to pay tithes was spoliation, a wrong punishable by excommunication. X 3.30.5, 6. According to Bracton, ecclesiastical actions based on spoliation of tithes were not subject to prohibition. Woodbine, Bracton, supra note 4, iv, 269. For cases, see Maitland, Bracton's Note Book, supra note 23, ii, 170–71, 679–80. During the reign of Edward I, common-law courts continued to allow pleas in defense of prohibition suits de catallis et debitis based on this principle. See, e.g., P.R.O., CP40/38 m.21 (1281); CP40/80 m.27d (1289); CP40/91 m.136d (1291); JUST1/1089 m.17 (York, 1293). Money claims for arrears in tithe payments were allowed the church courts. See Powicke and Cheney, Councils and Synods, supra note 4, 875, 1209. See also P.R.O., CP40/51 m.85 (1283); JUST1/575 m.105 (Norfolk, 1286) Appendix, case 10.

In contrast to spoliation claims, which were possessory, prohibitions de advocatione were available to halt claims of right to receive tithes. Because tithes might comprise virtually the entire revenue of a parish church, loss of a significant portion could seriously injure the value of the patron's right to present a clerk to the living. But the rule against ecclesiastical determination of tithe suits affecting advowson was not absolute. In 1280, an authoritative statement allowed church courts to hear suits involving up to a third of the church's annual income. Powicke and Cheney, Councils and Synods, supra note 4, 875. Bracton wrote earlier that claims of ‘one-sixth, one-fifth, or one-fourth’ should be heard at common law and gave an example of a writ of prohibition in which the amount was only one-sixth. Woodbine, Bracton, supra note 4, iv, 254.

33. Mortuaries, animals due to rectors from the estates of deceased parishioners, could be claimed in church courts if due according to local custom. See, e.g., a consultation authorizing further ecclesiastical proceedings: ‘Licitum est iudicibus ecclesiasticis congnoscere in foro ecclesiastico de mortuariis defunctorum si de consuetudine patrie approbata debeantur.’ Printed in Adams and Donahue, Select Canterbury Cases, supra note 1, 421. Disputes about what local custom was were for the royal courts. See Y.B. 21–22 Edw. I, A.J. Horwood, ed., Rolls Series, 31 pt. 2, 588–91; Y.B. 30–31 Edw. I, A.J. Horwood, ed., Rolls Series, 31 pt. 3, 440–47. Other customary payments—oblations and obventions—were subject to the same jurisdictional arrangement. For cases, see Flahiff, ‘Prohibition II,’ supra note 3, 261 n.85, 288–89.

34. The church's authority here was subject only to the common-law rule that no pecuniary penance could be exacted involuntarily. If it were, a prohibition de catallis et debitis would lie. See, e.g., Maitland, Bracton's Note Book, supra note 23, ii, 585–86, 679. In 1280, the crown restated this rule in response to a clerical grievance, but with the proviso that, if the guilty party willingly agreed to substitute a money fine for corporal penance, prosecution to collect it would not be subject to prohibition. Powicke and Cheney, Councils and Synods, supra note 4, 875.

35. This conclusion is developed at length in Millon, ‘Common Law and Canon Law,’ supra note 2, which is based on a thorough search of common-law case records from the first thirty years of Edward I's reign. For a comprehensive analysis of curia regis records from the reign of Henry III, see Flahiff, ‘Prohibition I and II,’ supra note 3.

36. Powicke and Cheney, Councils and Synods, supra note 4, 958.

37. Ibid. 963.

38. Ibid. 958.

39. The first of the grievances presented after the July 1 writ referred to both aspects in terms similar to the earlier complaint: ‘Inprimis, cum a tempore cuius memoria non existit fuerit ecclesia in possessione pacifica cognoscendi de omnibus causis spiritualibus et pluribus civilibus donec inhibitio regia porrigeretur iudici vel prelato. hiis temporibus ministri regie magestatis inhibent ordinariis generali edicto ne cognoscant de aliquibus causis, nisi tantum de matrimonio vel testamento; et sic est ecclesia libertate pristina spoliata.’ Ibid. 969. This was not the only specific reference to the ‘general edict.’ The clergy's replies to the crown's responses to their original set of gravamina objected to a ‘public edict’ (‘cum sit edicto puplico promulgatum ut prelati cognoscant tantum de causis testamentariis et matrimonialibus …’). Ibid. 959–60. This reference, prior to July 1, makes it clear that the lost edict was not the writ issued on that date.

40. Ibid. 967–69.

41. Supra, text accompanying notes 32–34.

42. The fullest record is Boyland's roll, P.R.O., JUST1/575. The complaints against ecclesiastical judges begin at m. 101, headed ‘Inquisitiones capte coram R. de Boylund et W. de Royng’ vicecomite, de transgressionibus factis laycis et comitatui Norwic' dioc' per clericos totius dioc',’ and continue through m. 109d. Boyland's roll for the Suffolk eyre of that year includes only one membrane headed ‘Rotulus de querelis conquerentis de clericis in Com' Stiff'.’ See P.R.O., JUST1/829 m.58. Evidently the inquest was not pursued in that county. For selections from JUST1/575, see infra, Appendix.

43. See P.R.O., JUST1/575 mm.102–105d passim for examples.

44. Ibid. m.101d, Appendix, case 5; m.109d (complaint of Alexander le Bucher, sued in church court ‘pro quodam contractu inter eos habito pro quodam vitulo quod non fuit de testamento vel matrimonio); m.104 (complaint of William But).

45. Ibid. m.101, Appendix, case 2; m.101d (‘Cum idem magister Henricus mutuo tradidisset predictis Rogero et Simoni [complainants] x marcas, idem magister Henricus citari fecit ipsos coram commissario Episcopi Norwic'’); m. 103d (complaint of John Lamberd).

46. Ibid. m.101 (complaint of Margaret Man); m.101d (complaints of John le Redeprest, William Isonde, Walter Kyde, Edmund de Swatfend); m.103 (complaint of William Brimman); m.105d (complaints of Simon fitz Thomas and Benedict Gentil).

47. Ibid. m.103, Appendix, case 8; m.102 (‘Convictum est per Juratam in quam Alicia Colyn de Swanton querens et Walterus clericus se posuerunt quod idem Walterus citari fecit ipsam Aliciam coram Johanne de Fereby ad exigenda eadem tria quarteria ordei precii xii solidorum de debito Nicholi Colyn quondam viri sui ipsius Alicie et quod quidem debitum non fuit de testamento vel matrimonio’); m.105d (complaint of John Lamberd).

48. Ibid. m.103, Appendix, case 7.

49. Ibid. m.105d, Appendix, case 12; m.101 (complaint of William Pangeford).

50. Ibid. m.101, Appendix, case 4; m.102d (Beatrix widow of Richard de Bradenham complained that she was prosecuted in church court for 40s due from her husband on account of an earlier conviction for adultery).

51. Ibid. m.101, Appendix, case 3; m.105d (exaction of 3 s from Theobald le Tayllur ‘pro halidayeswerk iniuste et per extorsionem’), m.101d (several complaints against John subdeacon of Norwich).

52. Ibid. m.107 (complaint of Lucia widow of Adam de Silvestre).

53. Ibid. m.102 (complaint of John Baldewyne).

54. Ibid. m.106d (conviction of Richard Maile for suing in church court ‘de mahem et bateria;’ no indication that he was a clerk).

55. Ibid. m.103d (complaint of Thomas de Feltewell).

56. Ibid. m.101d (Richard atte Dam fined half mark ‘eo quod predicta Margar’ non potuit concipere de predicto Ricardo viro suo infantem); m.104 (subdeacon of Norwich ‘cepit et extorsit de laicis catallis suis [i.e., of the complainants] vi denarios eo quod predictus Galfridus calefecerit aquam per diem festinum’). For examples of abusive conduct by Gregory de Pontefracto, who seems to have been a particular villain, see ibid. m.105. Appendix, cases 9, 11.

57. Ibid. m.105, Appendix, case 10. See also m.102d, Appendix, case 6, where the court convicted a clerk of disobeying a prohibition, although his suit was for spoliation of tithes. The jury's statement revealed that, contrary to the clerk's claim, the church court defendant had paid his minor tithes (decimas minutas) and according to local custom was not obliged to scythe his wheat ad opus the clerk. It seems the clerk's offense was his vexatious use of ecclesiastical process to compel his parishioner to scythe wheat designated as tithe when it was in fact his own responsibility to do so. The royal courts viewed questions of local custom governing tithe collection as secular ones. See P.R.O., CP40/98 m.94 (1293) (concerning local custom for tithing hay). See also supra note 33. Also on the Norfolk roll is a similar complaint against a clerk, alleging abusive use of spiritual sanctions for refusal to perform unwarranted labor. See P.R.O., JUST1/575 m.101 (subdeacon of Norwich prosecuted John de Rollisby ‘eo quod idem Johannes quadam die fenationis negavit ad cariandum fenum ipsius decani et ad acommodandam cartatam suam’).

58. The court did, however, rule that tolls collected by the dean of Norwich on merchandise brought into the town on feast days (‘quidam consuetudo que vocatur holiday toll’) were illegal, after consultation with the King's Council. The dean made no attempt to justify these exactions as spiritual; they may have been in the nature of penitential fines for commercial activity on holy days, but the judgment forbidding them suggests a market toll. See ibid. m.101 (first entry). See also ibid. m.101; Appendix, case 1.

59. Powicke and Cheney, Councils and Synods, supra note 4, 970–72.

60. Ibid. 970.

61. Cf. supra note 32 regarding the fraction.

62. Powicke and Cheney, Councils and Synods, supra note 4, 874–75.

63. Ibid. 969.

64. Graves, ‘Circumspecte Agatis,’ supra note 6, 2 n. 3.

65. In an unpublished paper delivered at the 6th International Congress of Medieval Canon Law at Berkeley, California in July 1980, Dr. Hyams has suggested that the relations between clergy and laity in the Norwich diocese may have been particularly difficult. If that were so, it might explain why the extensive inquest into church court activities was not duplicated elsewhere. I am grateful to Professor Donahue for this reference.

66. Bartholomew Cotton's Historia Anglicana includes this passage: ‘Eo anno [1286] fecit inquiri rex qui clerici implacitaverant quoscumque de feodo seu laicis catallis in curia Christianitatis, et de praelatis, qui graviter punierant excessus laicorum pecuniariter; et clericos, praelatos, et eorum ministros de hujusmodi [culpa] convictos graviter vinxit et incarceravit.’ H.R. Luard, ed., Historia Anglicana Bartholomaei de Cotton, Rolls Series, 1859, 166–67. Although this statement may seem general enough to suggest a broad campaign, its context and the author's parochial perspective (a Norwich monk, whose original contributions to the history concerned mainly Norwich and Yarmouth) indicate that the reference was probably to Norfolk alone. Note that the jurisdictional offenses mentioned were well established, without indication of a newly restrictive policy.

67. P.R.O., JUST1/375 m.81 (Kent, 1293).

68. P.R.O., KB27/156 m.25 (1298). This case was from Suffolk and therefore could have been referring to the 1286 inquest. There is no notation of the events alleged in the 1298 complaint among the 1286 records, however.

69. ‘[A]d turnum suum [the sheriff] liberavit eis [i.e., the jurors] quosdam articulos in scriptis ad quos respondere debuerunt et inter articulos illos fuit ille articulus: quod ipsi inquirerent si aliquis esset in patria qui aliquem in curia christianitatis inplacitavit contra prohibitionem seu defensionem domini regis.’ P.R.O., KB27/150 m.24 (1297). This case came from Norfolk, so perhaps the inquiry was a survival of the 1286 inquest.

70. The eyre of London of 1321 included an indictment procedure for the prosecution of jurisdictional complaints against ecclesiastical judges, but this too was apparently exceptional. See Y.B. Eyre of London, 1321, H. Cam, ed., Selden Society 85 (1968) i, 38.

71. There was a significant increase in trespass actions in particular. The eyres were replaced by specialized commissions of limited authority and, later, by local justices of the peace. See Harding, A., A Social History of English Law (Gloucester, Mass., 1966) 67–73Google Scholar.

72. Compare the incomplete success of Edward's ambitious quo warranto campaign, also intended to be implemented through the eyre system. See Sutherland, D., Quo Warranto Proceedings in the Reign of Edward I (Oxford, 1963)Google Scholar.

73. See supra note 65.

74. See supra note 27.

75. Compare Donahue, C. Jr., ‘Roman Canon Law in the Medieval English Church,’ 72 Michigan Law Review 647, 661–67 (1974)Google Scholar, with Millon, ‘Common Law and Canon Law,’ supra note 2, 263–66 (questioning evidence that church courts heard numerous cases subject to prohibition in addition to contractual cases). I develop this argument further in an article forthcoming in the University of Illinois Law Review.

76. Professor Green has discussed the relation between community norms and values and common-law rules in a different context. The local community's responsibility as fact-finder in homicide cases allowed it to circumvent unacceptable common-law rules. Green, T.A., ‘The Jury and the English Law of Homicide, 1200–1600,’ 74 Michigan Law Review 414 (1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In the area of rules governing the availability of prohibition, the procedural framework allowed violations of the rules to escape royal notice altogether.

77. The actual entries contain many abbreviations. These I have expanded without comment. I have also supplied capitalization and punctuation. Idiosyncratic spelling (e.g., consistent use of the ‘e’ for classical ‘ae’) has been retained and no effort has been made to edit the clerks’ grammar according to classical or modern standards.