where it was known as droit de régale (French: [dʁwa də ʁeɡal]), jura regalia came to be applied almost exclusively to that assumed right.
Ultimately, it had its origin in the assumption that bishoprics and imperial abbeys, with all their temporalities and privileges, were royal estates given as fiefs to the bishops or abbots, and subject to the feudal laws of the times.
At first the right was exercised only during the actual vacancy of a see or abbey, but it was later extended over the whole year following the death of the bishop or abbot.
Often, the temporal rulers also claimed the right to collate all the benefices that became vacant during the vacancy of a diocese, with the exception of those to which the cure of souls was attached.
Under King William the Conqueror, the record is also unclear, but the absence of monastic complaints suggests that revenues did not go to the royal treasury.
Although William's successor, King Henry I, said at the start of his reign that he would abandon the practice of leaving ecclesiastical offices vacant to secure their revenue for himself, events soon required him also to exploit the regalian rights.
[9] That the pope did not recognize the right is manifest from the fact that Pope Alexander III condemned Article 12 of the Council of Clarendon (1164), which provided that the king was to receive, as of seigniorial right (sicut dominicos), all income (omnes reditus et exitus) of a vacant archbishopric, bishopric, abbacy, or priory in his dominion.
The revenues of vacant dioceses in Prussia went to the succeeding bishop; in Bavaria, to the cathedral church; in Austria, to the "Religionsfond".
Important regalia were the following: In France, the first mention of it is found during the reign of Louis VII, when in 1143, Bernard of Clairvaux complained in a letter to the Bishop of Palestrina that in the Church of Paris, the king had extended the droit de régale over a whole year.
[18] Pope Boniface VIII, in his bull Ausculta fili, of 5 December 1301, urged Philip the Fair to renounce it but without avail.