Constitutions of Clarendon

Sixteen articles issued by King Henry II of England at a council of bishops and barons held at his hunting lodge in Clarendon, Wiltshire, on 29 January 1164. They set out, as Henry claimed, the customary relationship between crown and church from his grandfather Henry I's time, most controversially asserting royal jurisdiction over clergy convicted of crimes in the church courts (criminous clerks) and restricting appeals to Rome without royal consent. Archbishop Thomas Becket initially assented under pressure, then repudiated his assent and fled into exile in November 1164, the rupture that ended six years later in his murder.