that might have merited the approval of the most loyal supporters of
Rome. But as a matter of fact, lest their acceptance of such a measure
might be misunderstood, the English bishops offered the most strenuous
opposition to the Statute of Provisors and insisted that their
protests against it should be registered, a policy which, it might be
added, was followed by the University of Oxford. The bishops demanded
later on that it should be repealed. Their request was not granted,
but from the numerous provisions made to bishoprics in England and
from the appointments made to English benefices during the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries it is evident that the Statute was allowed to
fall into abeyance. Similarly the Statute of Praemunire (1353) by
which it was forbidden under the penalty of forfeiture and outlawry to
bring cases cognizable in the English courts before foreign courts, or
to introduce into the realm provisions, reservations, or letters
contrary to the rights of the king or his subjects, was passed to
prevent an undoubted abuse at the time, and was enforced rarely as the
frequent appeals to Rome amply prove.

These measures serve to indicate at most only the attitude of the
Crown towards the Pope, not the attitude of the English clergy and
people. The loyal submission of the latter is evidenced from the papal
appointments to bishoprics and benefices, from the First Fruits paid
willingly to the Holy See by those who were called upon to pay them,
by the constant interference of the Holy See in regard to the division
and boundaries of parishes, the visitation of monasteries, the rights
of bishops, etc., as well as by the courts held in England in virtue
of the jurisdiction of the Pope. That the Pope was above the law and
that to dispute the authority of a papal decree was to be guilty of
heresy was a principle recognised by the English ecclesiastical
authorities and accepted also in practice by English jurists. The