One class or "estate" occupied a peculiar position. The clergy still claimed the privilege of self-taxation, and therefore it was convocation, not parliament, that voted the tenths imposed on clerical property. In some instances much heavier charges (e.g. in 1296 one-third) were decreed by the king, but the taxation of the clergy declined in productiveness during the 14th century. By the close of the reign of Richard II. the results of the transition from feudalism to a parliamentary constitution were practically complete. In respect to finance the most important of these were: (1) The disappearance or reduction to unimportance of the feudal dues. The fact that this change occurred at, relatively speaking, so early a date is of special significance for English development. (2) The royal demesne, though it had not suffered the losses that the grants of later times inflicted on it, had also lost some of its value as a source of revenue. (3) In compensation the direct taxation of property had become a ready means of supplying the growing requirements of the administration, and the mode of levy had been reduced to a well-recognized form, unsatisfactory experiments--such as the poll tax--being withdrawn. (4) The growth of import and export duties through the "old" and "new" customs and the subsidies furnished a large part of the requisite funds. In fact, in the course of a little over three hundred years the constituent parts of the public income had, without any violent change, been completely altered in relative value and in organization.