Ecclesiastical Licences Act 1533
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| Long title | An Acte for the exoneracion from exaccions payde to the See of Rome. |
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| Citation | 25 Hen 8 c 21 |
| Revised text of statute as amended | |
The Ecclesiastical Licences Act 1533 (25 Hen 8 c 21), also known as the Act Concerning Peter's Pence and Dispensations, is an Act of the Parliament of England. It was passed by the English Reformation Parliament in the early part of 1534 and outlawed the payment of Peter's Pence and other payments to Rome. The Act remained partly in force in Great Britain at the end of 2010. It is under section III of this Act, that the Archbishop of Canterbury can award a Lambeth degree as an academic degree.
Peter's Pence was originally an annual tribute of one penny from each householder owning a land of a certain value to the Pope and had been collected in England since the reign of King Alfred. In the twelfth century it was fixed at an annual sum of £200 for the whole realm. It was not the largest payment to Rome but it is argued by Stanford Lehmberg that it was deliberately mentioned in the Act because it was theoretically paid by laymen and thus might have seemed more intolerable than payments affecting clerics only.
The Act abolished Peter's Pence and all other payments to Rome and accorded to the Archbishop of Canterbury the power to issue dispensations formerly given by the Pope. The fees which might have been charged for the dispensations were set and required the Royal Assent, confirmed by the Great Seal of the Realm, in matters for which the usual fee was over £4.
On the 12 March 1534 the Commons passed the Bill and were possibly responsible, argues Lehmberg, for the clauses which claimed that the Act should not be read as a decline from the "very articles of the catholic faith of Christendom". A clause in the Bill gave the Crown the power to conduct visitations of monasteries which had been exempt from the Archbishop's jurisdiction and forbade English clergy from visiting religious assemblies abroad.
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