In 1476, the Abbot of Mellifont complained, that "owing to oppressions and extortions within the County of Louth and Uriell, his monastery was greatly indebted and impoverished." Certain it is, that for some time previous, it had fallen from its former regularity and fervour; but, through the zeal and tact of Abbot Roger who then governed it, it regained its wonted prominence amongst the most observant monasteries. In 1479, this same Roger having set forth to the King that he had "Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical of all persons within his lands, as well secular as ecclesiastical, the King, out of his love to the Cistercian Order, granted to the Abbot and his successors, the _Jus de excommunicatis capiendis_, and episcopal jurisdiction," (Stat. Roll. 19 Ed. IV., c. 5.) The former privilege refers to the concession made to the Church by the first clause of the Statute of Kilkenny, and which had been confirmed by subsequent Parliaments for centuries after its first enactment. Under the heading--"The Church to be free--Writ _De Excommunicato capiendo_," the clause proceeds to ordain, "that Holy Church shall have all her franchises without injury, ... and if any (which God forbid) do to the contrary, and be excommunicated by the Ordinary of the place for that cause, so that satisfaction be not made to God and Holy Church by the party so excommunicated within a month after such excommunication, that then, after certificate thereupon being made by the said Ordinary into the Chancery, a writ shall be directed to the Sheriff, Mayor, Seneschal of the franchise, or other officers of the King, to take his body, and to keep him in prison without bail, until due satisfaction be made to God and Holy Church, etc." By episcopal jurisdiction is here meant the civil rights and privileges appertaining to the episcopal office, and enjoyed at that time by bishops over their subjects, lay and clerical. And as to the spiritual, quasi-episcopal jurisdiction--the Abbots of the Order had that as well as exemption in relation to their own monks from the very foundation of the Order; but by a Decree dated 28th September 1487, Pope Innocent VIII. granted to all Cistercian Abbots quasi-episcopal jurisdiction over their tenants, vassals, subjects, and servants. By this Decree, the Pope "took all the Abbots, Abbesses, Monks and Nuns of the Order under his special protection, together with all their goods, vassals, subjects, and servants, and exempted and freed the same from _all jurisdiction, superiority, correction, visitation_, subjection and power of Archbishops, Bishops and their Vicars, etc., ... and subjected them immediately to himself and the Holy See." This Decree is given in full in the _Privilegia Ordinis Cisterciensis_, p. 179.