Arising out of these feudal relations certain rights over the
possessions of ecclesiastics and ecclesiastical bodies were claimed by
the Crown, which were the cause of serious oppression. According to
the Canon Law, the bishop was only the usufructuary of the lands and
revenues belonging to his see. The lands and revenues belonged to the
Church. But inasmuch as these had been originally in most cases the
gift of the Crown, the King claimed to deal with them in the method
applied to feudal holdings. By the right of _regale_, on the
vacancy of a see through death, resignation, or deprivation of the
bishop, the royal officers took possession of the temporalities, that
is, the land and revenues, and administered them for the profit of the
Crown so long as the see was vacant. The Crown did not hesitate to use
the episcopal patronage and to fill up vacant canonries and benefices
with its own followers, and it often took the opportunity to levy upon
the inhabitants of the diocese a special tax--_tallagium_,
_tallage_, or _taille_--which a landlord had a right of
exacting from his unfree tenants. It was to the interest of the Crown
to prolong a vacancy, and attempts to limit the exercise of the right
were of little practical effect.

[Sidenote: Right of spoils.]

An even more extraordinary claim was to the right of spoils (_jus
spolii_ or _exuviarium_). The canonical law forbidding the
bishop to deal by will with the property attached to his see, was
interpreted as applying to everything which he had not inherited. Thus
the furniture of his house and the money in his chest were claimed as
of right by the canons of his cathedral, but were often plundered by
the crowd of the city or by the local nobles. These lawless