1316. denied to a clerk that has con fessed felony. admit them to an accusation against others, which such judges call an appeal [appellum], and do not, after the premises, deliver them, so confessing, accusing, or making appeal, to their prelates, although they [the judges] be sufficiently required therein; albeit they cannot be judged or condemned before them by their own confession without breaking the Church's privilege. The answer: The privilege of the Church shall not be denied to one appealing, when summoned in due form, as a clerk, by his ordinary. We-desiring to provide for the state of the English Church, and for the tranquillity and quiet of the prelates and clergy aforesaid, so far as we may lawfully do, to the honour of God, and emendation of the Church, prelates, and clergy of the same, ratifying, confirming, and approving all and every of the articles aforesaid, with all and every of the answers made and contained in the same-do grant and command them to be kept firmly, and observed for ever; willing and granting for us and our heirs, that the aforesaid prelates and clergy, and their successors, shall use, execute, and practise for ever the jurisdiction of the Church in the premises after the tenor of the answers aforesaid, without let, molestation, or vexation of us or of our heirs, or of any of our officers whosoever they be. Witness the king at York, the 24th day of November, in the tenth year of the reign of King Edward, the son of King Edward. By the king himself and the Council. [The first Statute of Provisors was passed in 1351; as it is recited in the second statute, vide post, No. XXXIX, it is not printed here.] XXXV. THE FIRST STATUTE OF PRÆMUNIRE, 27 EDWARD III, STAT. 1. THE enactment of a Statute of Provisors in 1351 (vide ante, p. 102, note) logically necessitated a Statute of Præmunire; this latter aimed at preventing encroachment upon, or usurpation of, jurisdiction, just as the former aimed at defending patronage. Præmunire makes it treason to appeal to the pope against the king. A second Act of Praemunire was passed in 1393 (vide post, No. XL]. [Tr. Statutes of the Realm, i. 329.] Our lord the king, by the assent and prayer of the great men, and the commons of his realm of England, at his great council holden at Westminster, on Monday next after the feast of St. Matthew the apostle, the twenty-seventh year of his reign of England, and of France the fourteenth, in amendment of his said realm, and maintenance of the laws and usages, has ordained and established these things under written: 1353. that many of the First, because it is shown to our lord the king, by the Complaint grievous and clamorous complaints of the great men and have been commons aforesaid, how that divers of the people be, and called out have been drawn out of the realm to answer for things, realm to whereof the cognizance pertains to the king's court; and answer plaints also that the judgments given in the same court be im- cognizable peached in another court, in prejudice and disherison of in the our lord the king, and of his crown, and of all the people courts, of his said realm, and to the undoing and destruction of the and that common law of the same realm at all times used. Whereupon, good deliberation being had with the great are elsemen and others of his said council, it is assented and king's judgments there given where impeached. 1353. Those so calling out of the realm, or impeaching, to answer before the king in council. Penalty for default. accorded by our lord the king, and the great men and commons aforesaid, that all the people of the king's allegiance, of whatsoever condition they be, which shall draw any out of the realm in plea, whereof the cognizance pertains to the king's court, or of things whereof judgments be given in the king's court, or which do sue in any other court, to defeat or impeach the judgments given in the king's court, shall have a day, within the space of two months, by warning to be made to them in the place where the possessions be, which are in debate, or otherwise where they have lands or other possessions, by the sheriffs or other the king's ministers, to appear before the king and his council, or in his chancery, or before the king's justices in his places of the one bench or the other, or before other the king's justices which to the same shall be deputed, to answer in their proper persons to the king, of the contempt done in this behalf. And if they come not at the said day in their proper persons to be at the law, they, their procurators, attorneys, executors, notaries, and maintainers, shall from that day. forth be put out of the king's protection, and their lands, goods, and chattels forfeited to the king, and their bodies, wheresoever they may be found, shall be taken and imAppear prisoned, and ransomed at the king's will; And upon the same a writ shall be made to take them, by their bodies, and to seize their lands, goods, and possessions, into the king's hands; and if it be returned that they be not found, they shall be put in exigent, and outlawed. ance with. in two months will save outlawry. Appear ance of the offender after two months will save Provided always, that at what time they come before they be outlawed, and will yield themselves to the king's prison to be justified by the law, and to receive that which the court shall award in this behalf, that they shall be thereto lawry, but received; the forfeiture of lands, goods, and chattels abiding in force, if they do not yield themselves within the said two months, as is aforesaid. his out not his lands or goods. XXXVI. LETTER OF POPE GREGORY XI TO ARCH- OF LONDON, DIRECTING AGAINST WYCLIFFE, A.D. 1377.. THIS letter represents one of five papal Bulls signed by Gregory XI on May 22, 1377, against Wycliffe, and appears to contain the essence of the whole number. Another of the series cites this one, and directs that if Wycliffe cannot be arrested, a public writ should be posted at Oxford and elsewhere, summoning him to appear at Rome within three months to answer for the propositions objected to, and to receive sentence. A third letter directs them to warn the king (Edward), his sons, the queen, and all the nobles and counsellors of the king, of the enormity and political danger of Wycliffe's tenets, and to require them to lend all help to prevent these errors from proceeding farther. [Tr. Sudbury's Register, f. 45b; cf. Wilkins, iii. 116.] 1377. ous for the once famThe faith, holy abun- learning and sacred Gregory, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to our England, venerable brethren the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London, greeting and apostolic blessing. realm of England, so glorious for its power, and the dance of its resources, but more glorious for the piety of influence, faith, and radiant for its renown in the sacred page, was wont to produce men gifted with the true knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, of profound ripeness, famous for their devotion, champions of the orthodox faith, who used to instruct not only their own but other peoples in the truest lessons, directing them into the path of the Lord's commandments; and as we infer from the result of the events of old, the prelates of the said kingdom set on the watchtower of their solicitude, undertaking their own watch with earnest care, did not suffer any error to arise that might infect their sheep, but if tares did spring up from the sowing of the Enemy of 1377. has now sadly changed, and her prelates fail to defend the faith, errors of man, they forthwith plucked them up, and so the pure grain grew continually, meet to be stored in the Lord's garner. But alas it now is clear that in this selfsame realm, watchful by office but careless through negligence, they do not compass the city, whilst enemies enter into it to prey on the most precious treasure of men's souls; whose sly entries and open attacks are noted in Rome, though at a distance so far removed, before resistance is made to them in England. We have heard forsooth with much grief by the intimation of many credible persons that John Wycliffe, especially rector of the church of Lutterworth in the diocese of Lincoln, against the professor of the sacred page-would he were not a master of Wycliffe. errors !—is said to have rashly broken forth into such detestable madness that he does not fear to assert, profess, and publicly proclaim in the aforesaid realm, certain propositions and conclusions, erroneous and false, and discordant with the faith, which endeavour to subvert and weaken the stability of the entire Church (and of which some, albeit with certain change of terms, appear to breathe the perverse bibed from opinions and the unlearned doctrine of Marsilius of Padua abroad.and and John of Jandun, of condemned memory, whose book disastrous, was reprobated and condemned by Pope John XXII of happy memory, our predecessor) malevolently infecting with them some of the faithful in Christ, and causing them to swerve from the Catholic faith, without which is no salvation. These errors he has im they are and ought to be checked by the careless bishops. Now for these errors so started, they not having been extirpated, or at all events no opposition which we know of having been offered, but your eyes conniving at their propagation or toleration, you and some of the prelates of England, when you ought to be pillars of the Church and vigilant defenders of the said faith, for that you pass them by so negligently with a certain connivance, ought to be covered with due shame, to be full of compunction, and to feel the sting of your own consciences. Wherefore we-being un |