Constitutions of Clarendon

The Constitutions of Clarendon were a set of legislative procedures passed by Henry II of England in 1164. The Constitutions were composed of 16 articles and represent an attempt to restrict ecclesiastical privileges and curb the power of the Church courts and the extent of Papal authority in England. In the anarchic conditions of Henry II's predecessor, Stephen, the church had extended its jurisdiction by taking advantage of the weakness of royal authority. The Constitutions were claimed to restore the judicial customs observed during the reign of Henry I (1100–35), while in fact they were a part of Henry II's larger expansion of royal jurisdiction into the Church and civil law, which was a defining aspect of his reign.

The Constitutions take their name from Clarendon Palace, Wiltshire, the royal hunting lodge at which they were promulgated.

The Constitutions' primary goal was to deal with the controversial issue of "criminous clerks," or clergy who had been accused of committing a serious secular crime but were tried in ecclesiastical courts by "benefit of Clergy". Unlike royal courts, these ecclesiastical courts were strictly limited in the punishments to which a convicted felon could be subjected; in particular the spilling of blood was prohibited. An ecclesiastical case of murder often ended with the defendant being defrocked (dismissed from the priesthood). In a royal court, murder was often punished with mutilation or death.

The Constitutions of Clarendon were Henry II's attempts to deal with these problems (and conveniently increase his own power at the same time) by claiming that once the ecclesiastical courts had tried and defrocked clergymen, the Church could no longer protect the individual, and convicted former clergy could be further punished under the jurisdiction of secular courts.

It was formerly supposed that Henry wanted all clerks accused of crimes to be tried in the King's Courts. But this impression, as F. W. Maitland showed, is certainly wrong. A rather complicated arrangement was proposed by which cognizance of the case was first to be taken in the King's Court.

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