receipts from Geoffrey of Vezano for £104 13s. 4d, and from William de Testa for £1 15s. 10d., and he had a small sum in hand, so the amount outstanding was £8 12s. 1¾d. The debtors had been excommunicated, and he gave a list of them.
Within the next twenty years the clergy were three times required to pay procurations to cardinals. In 1307, when Clement V sent Peter of Spain, cardinal bishop of Sabina, to arrange a general pacification and to assist in settling the marriage between Edward, prince of Wales, and Isabella of France, Peter demanded a procuration of twelve marks from all ecclesiastical persons, with the reservation that those who were too poor to find this sum should pay at the rate of fourpence in the mark, and in a later letter these were defined as monasteries and others whose revenues were less than £100 a year and over £4 a year according to the Taxation of Pope Nicholas.[1] In 1312, when two other cardinals, Arnold, bishop of Albano, and Arnold of St. Prisca, were sent on a mission to foster peace in the realm, they levied a procuration of twelve marks on all ecclesiastical persons whose revenues were assessed at over £200 a year, and at threepence in the mark for others.[2] Archbishop Winchelsey was instructed to collect this procuration from his province within twenty-one days. He had been in exile when Cardinal Peter of Spain was in England in 1307. He now sent a letter by his clerk, Henry of Derby, which was delivered to the cardinals in London on 11 May, in which he raised several doubtful points, and protested that in the papal bull authorizing the levy of procurations there was no mention of rectors, asserting that on the occasion of previous levies it was never seen, heard, or accustomed that 'simple rectors' should pay.[3] His vigorous attempt to protect the parish clergy of his province from this imposition was one of his last acts, for he died on 11 May. In a subsequent letter to the bishop of Salisbury, commanding him to collect the procurations in his diocese, the cardinals explained that rectors were included under ecclesiastical persons, and that the archbishop's statement concerning them was contrary to the truth as they had ascertained from the registers of other cardinal legates.[4]
In 1317, when Gaucelin, cardinal of SS. Marcellinus and Peter, and Luke, cardinal of St. Mary's in Via Lata, were sent to negotiate between Edward II and Robert Bruce, they demanded a procuration at the highest possible rate, fourpence in the mark from all.[5] Apparently they failed to get more than twelve marks on the higher incomes, for the prior of Canterbury reported
