The effect of these statutes was to confine the great estates to the hands of their owners and direct descendants, or, when land changed hands, to keep alive the claims of the great lords or the Crown upon it.  These laws rendered it difficult for landholders to evade their feudal duties to the King (S150) by the sale or subletting of estates.  Hence, while they often built up the strength of the great families, they also operated to increase the power of the Crown at the very time when the growing influence of Parliament and the people was beginning to act as a check upon the royal authority.

226.  Legislation respecting the Church; Statute of Mortmain, 1279.

A third enactment checked the undue increase of Church property.  Through gifts and bequests the clergy had become owners of a very large part of the most fertile soil of the realm.  No farms, herds of cattle, or flocks of sheep compared with theirs.  These lands were said to be in mortmain, or “dead hands”; since the Church, being a corporation, never let go its hold, but kept its property with the tenacity of a dead man’s grasp.

The clergy constantly strove to get these Church lands exempted from furnishing soldiers, or paying taxes to the King (S136).  Instead of men or money they offered prayers.  Practically, the Crown succeeded from time to time in compelling them to do considerably more than this, but seldom without a violent struggle, as in the case of Henry II and Becket (S165).

On account of these exemptions it had become the practice with many persons who wished to escape bearing their just share of the support of the King, to give their lands to the Church, and then receive them again as tenants of some abbot or bishop.  In this way they evaded their military and pecuniary obligations to the Crown.  To put a stop to this practice, and so make all landed proprietors do their part, the Statute of Mortmain was passed, 1279.  It required the donor of an estate to the Church to obtain a royal license, which, it is perhaps needless to say, was not readily granted.[1]

[1] See p. 76, note 1, on Clergy; and see Summary of Constitutional History in the Appendix, p. xi, S11.

227.  Death of Edward I.

Edward died while endeavoring to subdue a revolt in Scotland, in which Robert Bruce, grandson of the first of that name (S219), had seized the throne.  His last request was that his son Edward should continue the war.  “Carry my bones before you on your march,” said the dying King, “for the rebels will not endure the sight of me, alive or dead!”

Not far from the beautiful effigy of Queen Eleanor in Westminster Abey (S223), “her husband rests in a severely simple tomb.  Pass it not by for its simplicity; few tombs hold nobler dust."[2]

[2] Goldwin Smith’s “History of the United Kingdom.”

228.  Summary.

During Edward I’s reign the following changes took place: