Church History in Plain Language

by Bruce L. Shelley

Europe was slowly moving away from its feudal past. Land was less important; hard cash was the new thing. Increasingly, men at the top of the medieval power structure realized that they had to command everlarger sources of revenue. This, in turn, required a broader authority to tax. The struggle between the church and the brash national monarchies of England and France touched off the turmoil of the fourteenth century. Edward I ruled in England; Philip the Fair in France. Both were strong and self-assured and at odds with each other over lands in France still under English control. To finance their costly campaigns, Edward and Philip hit upon the same solution: tax the clergy within their realms. But, in the pope’s view, church revenues were exempt from compulsory assessments and taxable only by the church. In 1296 Boniface VIII had issued Clericis laicos, a document threatening excommunication for any lay ruler who taxed the clergy and any churchman who paid those taxes without papal consent. But Edward and Philip were a new breed of secular monarch, unimpressed by threats from Rome. Edward’s retort was to decree that if the clergy did not pay, they would be stripped of all legal protection and their extensive properties would be seized by the king’s sheriffs. Phillip’s answer was to place a complete embargo on the export of all gold, silver, and jewels from his domains, thus depriving the papal treasury of a major source of revenue from church collections in France. Face...