(c) _Finance._—The Lateran Council of 1179 decreed that leper-communities should not pay tithe from gardens and orchards, nor of the increase of cattle, and this was ratified in the Provincial Council of Westminster in 1200. The [p196] Church wished to go a step further and ordain that neither lazar-house, Domus Dei nor poor hospital should pay taxes, which was set forth by Gregory X; entries upon Papal Registers in 1278 declare that certain English houses, including Ospringe, should share this immunity. But the decree was not necessarily accepted in England, remission of taxation being a royal prerogative; Ospringe was a Crown hospital to which exemption was renewed from time to time of the king’s grace. In the cases of lazar-houses, a curious distinction was made, witnessing incidentally to national independence—“And let not the goods of lepers be taxed where they are governed by a leper” (_par Sovereyn meseal_). This rule occurs in the First Statute of Westminster (3 Edw. I),[118] and afterwards in rolls and writs dated 1297, 1307, etc.[119] It was evidently in allusion to this custom that, in remitting a wool-tax, it is stated that St. Bartholomew’s, Rochester, was governed by a leprous prior (1342), but a few years later the king granted it freedom from taxation for ever. Many houses were freed by charter from local and general contributions and tolls. Land-tenure may be included under finance. Before the enactment of the Statute _De Religiosis_, benefactors met with no hindrance in promoting any plan for endowment, but after 1279 permission was sought “to alienate land in mortmain.” On payment of a small fine, communities were empowered to accept property to a certain value. This developed into the “licence to found” named in fourteenth-century rolls, and subsequently into incorporation. [p197] (ii) RELATIONS WITH THE PARISH PRIEST Before the foundation of a hospital chapel, special permission was required from the bishop, with a guarantee that it should not interfere with the parochial system. It was necessary clearly to define privileges, lest friction should arise. Grants in civil and ecclesiastical registers include “a chapel, bell and chaplain,” oblations, sepulture and “the cure of souls.”