Edward further rebuffed the archbishop by publishing the statute "De Religiosis" or "of Mortmain." This statute, though, as regards the date of its promulgation part of Edward's answer to Peckham's assumption, was directed against an abuse of long standing, and was in strict accordance with the king's general policy. It forbade, on pain of forfeiture, the alienation of land to religious bodies which were incapable of performing the services due from it. Land so conveyed was said to be in _mortmain_, or in a dead hand, because it no longer yielded profit to the lord, who was thus defrauded of his right of service, escheat, and other feudal incidents. Besides the vast amount of land that was held by the Church, estates were often fraudulently conveyed to ecclesiastical bodies, to be received again free of services by the alienor as tenant; and thus the superior lord, and the king as capital lord, were cheated, and the means for the defence of the realm were diminished. These evils were partially checked by Henry II., who levied scutage on the knights' fees held by the clergy, and the practice of conveying lands in mortmain was prohibited by one of the Provisions of Westminster in 1259. Edward's statute gave force to this provision by rendering it lawful, in case the immediate lord neglected to avail himself of the forfeiture, for the next chief lord to do so. Moreover, the king still further showed his discontent at the attitude of the clergy by demanding an aid from them. In spite of these rebuffs, Peckham pursued his policy of attempting to enlarge the sphere of spiritual jurisdiction at the cost of the jurisdiction of the Crown, and proposals were made in a council which he held at Lambeth in 1281 to remove suits concerning patronage and the goods of the clergy from the royal to the ecclesiastical courts. Here, however, the king interfered, and peremptorily forbade the council to meddle in matters affecting the Crown. Peckham was forced to give way, and shortly afterwards sent Edward a letter asserting in the strongest terms the liberties of the Church as agreeable to Scripture and the history of England, pointing out that it was his duty to order his conduct by the decrees of the Popes and the rules of the Church, referring the oppressions under which, he said, the clergy were suffering to the policy of Henry I. and Henry II., and reminding the king of the martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury for the Church's sake. [Sidenote: Conquest of Wales, 1282.]