So complained an unidentified mid-thirteenth-century cleric, perhaps at the time of the ‘Taxation of Norwich’. If the clergy thought things were bad in 1256, they were going to suffer much more towards the end of the century. Edward I demanded tax after tax, based on the 1291 valuation, known as the Taxatio of Pope Nicholas IV, culminating in 1294 in the imposition of a moiety, or half, of clerical revenue. As Archbishop Greenfield was consecrated in York in 1306, and even into the episcopate of Archbishop Melton (1317–40), royal officials were still pursuing arrears of these taxes.

As this complaint from the clergy indicates, clerical taxation was initially levied by successive popes, ostensibly for Crusading purposes. Between 1305 and 1333, seven papal taxes were imposed: seven tenths in 1305; four tenths in 1309; six tenths were decreed in 1312 at the Council of Vienne, called to discuss the fate of the Templars, and attended by both Archbishop Greenfield and Bishop Halton of Carlisle; one in 1317; two in 1322; four in 1330; and six in 1333. In the event, only fourteen papal tenths were actually collected and almost all the receipts were handed to the English king.

The 1317 papal tax was exacted when the Northern Province was complaining of devastation caused by Scottish incursions after Bannockburn. As early as July 1317, Edward II instructed the archdeacon of Richmond to reassess the value of the benefices in his archdeaconry. This archdeacon was Roger Northburgh, the keeper of the king's wardrobe, who had been captured at Bannockburn and so was in a good position to catch the king's ear about the difficulties of the province.