Process of
taxing the
clergy.
Clerical
tenths.
Amount of
a clerical
tenth.
The old
valuations.
350 Constitutional History.
the function of the parliamentary proctors was chiefly to
negotiate between parliament and convocation, rather to an-
nounce than to make the grants. With the convocations the
kings very prudently abstained from direct interference. Wheii
money was wanted the king requested the archbishops to
collect their clergy and ask for a grant ; the archbishops,
through their provincial deans, summoned their provincial
synods, as they might do for any other purpose, and the clergy
assembled without the pressure of a royal writ or such direct
summons as would derogate from their spiritual independence.
When they met, the king, either through the archbishop or
through special commissioners, acquainted them with his neces-
sities, and the votes were made either conditionally on the
granting of petitions, or unconditionally, in much the same
way as they were made in parliament. The clerical vote
usually took the form of a tenth or a portion of a tenth, or a
number of tenths, of all ecclesiastical property, assessed on the
valuation of pope Nicolas in 1291 ; the parochial clergy shared
with the towns the burden of a heavier rate of taxation than
the counties and the baronial lands, which paid a fifteenth ;
the latter were of course subject to feudal services from which
the former were exempt. The produce of an ecclesiastical tenth
seems to have been a diminishing quantity, owing probably to
the multiplication of exemptions, especially the exemption of
livings Undertenmarksvalue; under the full valuation of 1291
it ought to have amounted to .£20,000 1 ; we learn, however,
from a letter addressed by Henry VII to the bishop of Chiches-
ter, that in his reign the tenth of the southern province was
estimated at no more than £10,000. The lay tenth and fifteenth
had at the same time sunk to £30,000 2. The history of the two
forms of grant is the same ; as the spiritual tenth was levied on
the assessment of 1291, the lay tenth and fifteenth was paid
1 See above, vol. ii. § 282.
2 In 1497 the convocation of Canterbury granted £40,000 to the king,
payable in two moieties. Henry excuses the payment of £10,000, ‘ which
is as we understand to the value of one hole dismo.’ The laity had
granted a tenth and fifteenth amounting to £30,000. The king’s debts
were £58,000; W. Stephens, Memorials of Chichester, pp. 178, 179.
Xix,] Ecclesiastical Taxation. 351
according to an assessment of 1334’, the counties and their
subdivisions being expected to account for the sums which they
had furnished in that year, and the particular incidence being
regulated by local assessments. Both were unelastic, and
required to be supplemented as time went on. Accordingly, χβw forms
just when the parliaments are found introducing new forms of astɪeai im-
subsidy, income tax, poll tax, or alien tax, the clergy have to p°st'
provide some corresponding methods of increasing their grants.
The stipendiary clergy were brought under contribution by arch-
bishop Arundel, who, as we have seen, had some difficulty in recon-
ciling with justice the collection of the priests’ noble, by a vote
of convocation, from a class of clergy which was not represented in
convocation 2. The difficulty was probably overcome by a diocesan
visitation or some other proceeding of the individual bishops.
397. Of this liberty of convocation the kings were carefully Forbearance
observant ; and the parliaments not less so. Frequently as the ɪn dealing'
knights of the shire proposed to seize the temporalities of the
clergy, they never threatened the spiritualities ; they attacked
the position of the bishops and religious orders, but not that of
the parochial clergy. And the clergy were generally willing
to make a virtue of the necessity which lay upon them ; they
never, or only in the rarest cases, refused their tenth when the
parliament had voted its proper share. More than once, indeed,
under Edward III and Richard II, the commons made their
grants conditional on the proportionate contribution of the
clergy ; but these occasions were not construed as a precedent,
and were met by protests at the time s. On one occasion, in The king
the next century, we have seen the commons taking the clerical commons
ɪ ∙ , n . , . p. ʌ , ..,to tax the
grant into account and presuming upon the gift of the priests stipendiary
noble in a way that called for the interposition of Henry VI4. ctorgy'
He reminded them that it was not for them but for the convo-
cations to decide that that tax should be voted. But although
the clergy had thus retained the power to consent or to refuse,
they had no direct voice in the disposal of the grants they
1 Coke, 4 Inst. j>. 34; Brady, Boroughs, p. 39; Blackstone, Comm,
ɪ. 308 ; Madox, Firma Burgi, pp. no sq. a See above, pp. 46, 48.
“ Vol. ii. pp. 444, 4⅛0, 489. 4 Above, p. 147.