The parliament, in the reign of Richard, enacted a law against this abuse: and the king made a general remonstrance to the court of Rome against all those usurpations, which he calls "horrible excesses" of that court.[**] It was usual for the church, that they might elude the mortmain act, to make their votaries leave lands in trust to certain persons, under whose name the clergy enjoyed the benefit of the bequest: the parliament also stopped the progress of this abuse.[***] In the seventeenth of the king, the commons prayed, "that remedy might be had against such religious persons as cause their villains to marry free women inheritable, whereby the estate comes to those religious hands by collusion."[****] This was a new device of the clergy.
* 13 Richard II.cap.3.16 Richard II.cap.

4.
** Rymer, vol.vii.p.

672.
**** Knyghton, p.

27, 38.

Cotton, p.