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The Provisions of Oxford

© Wendy J. Dunn

Henry III and his father John had a lot in common. Neither was a good soldier, both had a knack for insulting powerful people and both surrounded themselves with favorites unacceptable to their barons. In one important way, they were so similar as to be indistinguishable from each other. They both so enraged their nobles that they were forced to sign documents limiting their own power.

For John, it was Magna Carta, which Henry had sworn to uphold several times during his own reign. For Henry, the opening act of what came to be known as "The Baron's War", was a document known as the Provisions of Oxford.

It all began because Henry made an agreement with the Pope regarding the Crown of Sicily, which the Pope said he had a right to give away, and which he offered to King Henry for his second son, Prince Edmund. This would have been fine, since it would have added to the luster of the English throne, but it was necessary to conquer the Sicilian Crown before it could be put upon young Edmund's head.

It could not be conquered without money and the Pope ordered the clergy to raise it. The clergy, however, had been disputing with him for some time about his unjust preference of Italian priests in England. They were less than obedient in the matter. In fact, they were downright rebellious. Multiple benefices (the salary paid to a priest by form of tithe by a particular church or parish for the performance of priestly duties) were the source of much of their dissatisfaction. A more egregious example was that of the King's chaplain, whom the Pope allowed to be paid for preaching in seven hundred churches.

'The Pope and the King together,' said the Bishop of London, 'may take the mitre off my head; but, if they do, they will find that I shall put on a soldier's helmet. I pay nothing.' http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/80... The Bishop of Worcester was as bold as the Bishop of London, and wouldn't pay either. Such money as the more timid of the clergy did raise was squandered away, without doing any good to the King, or bringing the Sicilian Crown an inch nearer to Prince Edmund's head. In the end, the Pope gave the Crown to the brother of the King of France (who conquered it for himself), and sent the King of England a bill of one hundred thousand pounds for the expenses of not having won it.