A Manual of Church History - Second Impression of the Authorized Translation From the 5th German Edition #244490

Sides quarrel and conflict prevailed, and he was doing no more than his duty when he strove to make peace, especially as nothing could be done to deliver the Holy Land until the animosities of the Western rulers had been laid to rest. First and foremost he desired to mediate between France and England. As his remonstrances were unavailing, and as the clergy were being subjected to systematic extortion in the interest of the different war parties, he took the course of issuing (1296) the Bull, known as Clericis laicos (infestas esse oppido tradit antiquitas), from the words with which it begins. He therein forbade the clergy, on pain of the ban, to contribute anything whatsoever to the laity without previously securing his permission, forbidding also princes or secular oficials to impose any kind of tax on clerics, or to claim or receive aught from them. The way for this prohibition had indeed been, in some sense, made ready by the previous enactments of Alexander III, Innocent III, and Alexander IV.1 The new decree, however, went much further, the times were any thing but favourable to its execution, and in England, and still more in France, it encountered Opposition. Philip the Fine even retaliated by forbidding the export of silver and treasure from his country, and prohibiting strangers to sojourn in his dominions. His action was crowned with success, and though the Bull was not immediately Withdrawn, it was soon made ineffectual by new decrees. Boniface not only explained that his prohibition was not intended to interfere with the duties imposed by fealty, but he expressly granted permission to the clergy to make free gifts to the king, and even to do so at the king's demand, provided the request was made in a friendly way. In cases of need — the judgment of what precisely constituted a need being left to the king he consented to such demands being made without first seeking the approbation of the Apostolic See.