CLARENDON, Constitutions of, a code of laws limiting the fields of ecclesiastical and secular power in the courts of England, adopted in the reign of Henry II (January 1164), at a council of prelates and barons held at the vil lage of Clarendon, in Wiltshire. These laws, finally digested into 16 articles, were brought forward by the king as "the ancient ctstoms of the realm," and were enacted as such by the council. They consisted, however, partly at least, of reforms introduced by the king him self. Ten of the articles were condemned and six allowed by Pope Alexander III. The six articles approved of were of comparatively slight importance, mostly confirming the privi leges of the ecclesiastical order; among the condemned articles the most important were the first, providing that disputes between laymen and ecclesiastics as to advowsons should be tried in the King's Court; third, that ecclesias tics accused of any offense against justice should be answerable to the civil courts for the civil offense, and to the ecclesiastical courts for the ecclesiastical offense; fourth, that ecclesias tical dignitaries should not go out of the king dom without the king's leave; eighth, that ap peals should be made from the court of the archbishop to the King's Court, and should not go further (that is, to the Pope) without the king's consent; ninth, that in the event of a dispute between a layman and an ecclesiastic as to whether the civil or ecclesiastical court should have jurisdiction in certain cases of ten ure of property, the tribunal should be deter mined by the ldng's chief justice upon a rec ognition of 12 lawful men; 12th, that pleas of debt should belong to the king's jurisdiction.
Notwithstanding the entreaties of the other prelates, and in defiance of the king, Becket, after a momentary appearance of yielding, per emptorily refused his signature to the articles. After the murder of the archbishop, the king, on his reconciliation with the Pope in 1172, was compelled to promise the abolition of all laws and customs hostile to the clergy; and at the Council of Northampton in 1176 the constitu tions of Clarendon were materially modified in favor of the ecclesiastical order, although some of them remained permanent gains to the civil power. Consult Stubbs, 'The Constitutional History of England' (Vol. I, Oxford 1896); Pauli,. 'Geschichte von England' (Gotha 1853— 58) ; and for the text of the "Constitutions," Stubbs, 'Select Charters Illustrative of Eng lish Constitutional History' (7th ed., Oxford 1890).