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.