CLARENDON, CONSTITUTIONS OF, a body of Eng lish laws issued at Clarendon in 1164, by which Henry II. endeav oured to settle the relations between church and state. They pur ported to declare the usages on the subject in the reign of Henry I. They were never accepted in full by the clergy and after Becket's murder Henry II. was unable to maintain them all. Of the 16 provisions the one which provoked the greatest opposition was that which declared in effect that criminous clerks were to be summoned to the king's court, and from there, after formal accu sation and defence, sent to the proper ecclesiastical court for trial. If found guilty they were to be degraded and sent back to the king's court for punishment. Another provision, which in spite of all opposition obtained a permanent place in English law, declared that all suits, even between clerk and clerk, concerning advowsons and presentations should be tried in the king's court. By other provisions appeals to Rome without the licence of the king were forbidden. None of the clergy was to leave the realm, nor were the king's tenants-in-chief and ministers to be excom municated or their lands interdicted without the royal permission. Pleas of debt, whether involving a question of good faith or not, were to be in the jurisdiction of the king's courts. Two interest ing provisions, to which the clergy offered no opposition, were : (I) if a dispute arose between a clerk and a layman concerning a tenement, which the clerk claimed as free-alms (frankalmoign) and the layman as a lay-fee, it should be determined by the recognition of 12 lawful men before the king's justice whether it belonged to free-alms or lay-fee, and if it were found to belong to free-alms then the plea was to be held in the ecclesiastical court, but if to lay-fee, in the court of the king or of one of his mag nates; (2) a declaration of the procedure for election to bishop rics and royal abbeys, generally considered to state the terms of the settlement made between Henry I. and Anselm in I I07.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-J. C. Robertson, Materials for History of Thomas Bibliography.-J. C. Robertson, Materials for History of Thomas Becket, Rolls Series (1875-85) ; Sir F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland, History of English Law before the Time of Ed. I. (1898), and F. W. Maitland, Roman Canon Law in the Church of England (1898) ; the text of the Constitutions is printed by Stubbs in Select Charters (1913). (G. J. T.)