[chap.

registers of the abbeys are no longer records of national history,
but of petty law-suits ; the monastic life separates itself more
widely than ever from the growing life of the nation ; the tem-
poralities of the monasteries are offered to the king by the
religious reformers as a ready source of revenue, by the confis-
cation of which no one can lose ; when the great shock of the
Reformation comes at last, the whole system falls at one blow,
and, vast as the ruin is at the time, it is forgotten before the
generation that witnessed it has passed away.

388. The convocations of the two provinces, as the recognised
constitutional assemblies of the English clergy, have undergone,
except in the removal of the monastic members at the dissolu-
tion, no change of organisation from the reign of Edward I
down to the present day. The clergy moreover are still, by
the praemunientes clause in the parliamentary writ of the
bishops, ordered to attend by their proctors at the session of
parliament. On both these points enough has been said in
former chapters¹ ; and here it is necessary only to mention the
particulars in which external pressure was applied to multiply
meetings or accelerate proceedings. The clergy from the very
first showed great reluctance to obey the royal summons under
the praemunientes clause, and accordingly during a great part
of the reigns of Edward II and Edward III, from the year 1314
to the year 1340², a separate letter was addressed to the two

¹ Vol. ii. pp. 205-208.

² In June 1311 the clergy were summoned, to the parliament in which
the Ordinances were published, by the usual praemunientes clause. Under
the guidance, probably, of Winchelsey, who was anxious to extend their
immunities, they demurred to electing proctors, and, when in October the
king called another meeting of parliament for November ι8, he wrote to
the two metropolitans urging them to compel the attendance of the
proctors. Winchelsey took offence at the wording of this writ, and on
October 24 the king issued another, in which he said that nothing offensive
was intended, and that the writ should be amended in Parliament ; Parl.
Writs, II. i. 58 ; Wake, State of the Church, pp. 260, 261. In 1314,
March 27, the king summoned the archbishops to meet the royal com-
missioners in their respective convocations to discuss an aid. The clergy
immediately protested against the royal citation, and having met, recorded
their protest and broke up ; Parl. Writs, II. i. 123. When then on July
29 the king summoned a new parliament, he wrote special letters to the
archbishops urging them to enforce attendance under the praemunientes
clause ; ib. p. 128. This practice was followed down to 1340. On the ɪst

XIX.]

archbishops at the calling of each parliament, urging them to
compel the attendance of the clerical estate. This was ineffec- FaUnre of
tual ; and after the latter year the crown, having acquiesced in compel Uw
the rule that the clerical tenths should be granted in the pro- of^ttħe clergy
vincial convocations, seems to have cared less about the attend- m_c'ι⅛¹'^a^
ance of representative proctors in parliament. On two or
three critical occasions the clerical proctors were called on to
share the responsibilities of parliament¹, but their attendance
ceased to be more than formal, and probably from the begin-
ning of the fifteenth century ceased altogether.

With regard to the constitution of the Convocations the only Question of
question which has taken its place in political history is that of convoca→
of their relation to parliament : and this question affects only iiament?”
those sessions of convocation which were held in consequence of
a request or a command issued by the king with a view to a
grant of money. The organisation of the two provincial as- The provɪn-
semblies was applicable to all sorts of public business, and the or ∞nvoca-
archbishops seem to have encountered no opposition from the
king on any occasion on which they thought it necessary to call
their clergy together. The means to be taken for the extirpa-
tion of heresy, for the reform of manners, for the dealings with
foreign churches and general councils, might be, and no doubt
were, generally concerted in such assemblies. Archbishop
Arundel and his successors held several of these councils, which
are not to be distinguished from the convocations called at the
king’s request in any point except that they were called with-
out any such request. As however parliaments and convocations Meetings of
had this much in common, that the need of pecuniary aid was correspond"
the king’s chief reason for summoning them, it might naturally ⅛notregu-
be expected that, when a parliament was called, the convocations p^a_a∏y pari⅛
would at no great distance of time be summoned to supplement ^ments∙

OfDecember 1314 the prior and convent of Canterbury protested against
the archbishop’s citation under the premunition, first, ‘in eo quod ad
curiam secularem, puta domini régis parliamentum quod in camera
ejusdem domini regis fuit inchoatum et per dies aliquos Continuatum ; ’
secondly, because the abbots and priors were not summoned; ib. p. 139;
they complied however with the summons. See above, vol. ii. pp. 3√p4_j
35⁰∙

¹ See above, vol. ii. pp. 364, 519.

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