Taxatio Ecclesiastica

The Taxatio Ecclesiastica was compiled in furtherance of the collection of a tax on all ecclesiastical property in England and Wales, in order to defray the costs of an expedition to the Holy Land.

In the preceding year he had, by threats and violence, exacted a tax of half the revenues of the clergy; but now he thought it prudent to obtain their consent to his demands in a more regular manner.

[3] This was the commencement of the constitutional practice of the clergy meeting in Convocation at the same time as the Lay Parliament, and voting subsidies by its own voluntary act for the service of the state.

It was not viewed without alarm by the Pope and the high Church dignitaries ; and in order to put a stop to all such exactions of princes from the clergy, Pope Boniface VIII issued a bull in 1296, which forbade churchmen of every degree to pay any tribute, subsidy, or gift to laymen, without authority from the See of Rome ; and declared that if they should pay, or princes exact, or any one assist in levying such unauthorised taxes, all such persons respectively would incur the sentence of excommunication.

The clergy could not long resist these oppressions; and although unwilling to disobey the Papal Bull, they evaded it by voluntarily depositing a sum equivalent to the amount demanded of them in some church, whence it was taken by the king's officers.