Edward I., who was a strong king, checked an attempt to magnify the spiritual authority by the writ _Circumspecte agatis_, which defined the sphere of the ecclesiastical courts, put a restraint on religious endowments by the Statute of Mortmain, and desiring that every estate in the realm should have a share in public burdens and counsels, caused the beneficed clergy to be summoned to send proctors to parliament. The clergy preferred to make their grants in their own convocations, and so lost the position offered to them. For some years clerical taxation by the crown was carried on with the good-will of the papacy; it was not oppressive for unbeneficed clergy and incomes below ten marks were exempt, and in theory the clergy were celibate. Papal demands, however, were additional burdens. In 1296 Boniface VIII., by his bull _Clericis laicos_, forbade the clergy to grant money to lay princes, and Edward's request for a clerical subsidy was in 1297 refused by convocation led by Archbishop Winchelsea. The king thereupon outlawed the clergy. The northern province yielded, the southern held out longer; but finally the clergy made their peace severally, each paying his share, and the royal victory was complete. Winchelsea joined the baronial opposition which forced Edward to grant the "Confirmation of the Charters." Edward procured his disgrace from Clement V., and in return allowed Clement to exact so much from the church that the doings of the papal agents provoked an indignant remonstrance from parliament in 1307. With that exception the king's dealings with the church were statesmanlike. He employed clerical ministers and paid them by church preferments, but his nominations to bishoprics did not always receive papal confirmation which had become recognized as essential. His weak son Edward II. yielded readily to papal demands. The majority of the bishops of the reign, and specially those engaged in politics, were unworthy men; religion was at a low ebb; plurality and non-residence were common. By the constitution _Execrebilis_ John XXII. ordered that all cures held in plurality save one should be vacated, and, which was not so well, "reserved" all benefices so vacated for his own appointment. As the residence of the popes at Avignon from 1308 to 1377 brought them under French influence, Englishmen during the war with France were specially displeased that large sums should be drawn from the kingdom for them and that they should exercise patronage there. In the reign of Edward III. the popes, though appointing to bishoprics by provision, did not give them to foreigners, but they appointed foreigners, enemies of England, to lesser preferments, deaneries and prebends. In 1351 the Statute of Provisors declared provisions unlawful. Capitular elections, however, remained mere forms; the king nominated, and the popes provided, and took advantage of their claim to appoint to sees vacant by translation.