But the tenacity of Rome was far from loosening its grasp on this source of revenue for all Edward's protests.

Crecy however gave a new boldness to the action of the State, and a Statute of Provisors was passed by the Parliament in 1351 which again asserted the rights of the English Church and enacted that all who infringed them by the introduction of Papal "provisors" should suffer imprisonment.

But resistance to provisors only brought fresh vexations.

The patrons who withstood a Papal nominee in the name of the law were summoned to defend themselves in the Papal Court.

From that moment the supremacy of the Papal law over the law of the land became a great question in which the lesser question of provisors merged.