Definition
*Clero concessis* (Latin: "of [divers privileges] granted to the clergy") is the short title of an English enactment of 1315, passed in the reign of Edward II. The instrument purported to confirm and extend a collection of privileges belonging to the clergy of the Church of England, addressing matters including benefit of clergy, ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and the relationship between church courts and the royal courts. It is typically cited by its Latin short title, derived from the subject matter of its provisions.
The enactment is notable as much for its contested legal status as for its substantive content: its standing as a proper act of Parliament was disputed in the centuries following its passage, with some authorities treating it as parliamentary legislation and others classifying it as something less — a capitulary, or ecclesiastical ordinance, rather than a statute with the full force of parliamentary enactment.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encounter *Clero Concessis* primarily in two contexts: historical surveys of benefit of clergy and the broader history of ecclesiastical privilege in English law, and close textual work on the medieval statute book.
The disputed parliamentary status of *Clero Concessis* is a genuine research trap. Sources through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries do not agree on whether it belongs in the canon of English statutes. Burrill flags Barrington's characterization of it as a "capitulary" — a term drawn from Frankish ecclesiastical practice, meaning a set of regulations issued by ecclesiastical or royal authority but outside the formal legislative process. Researchers relying on statute rolls or printed collections of English statutes should be alert to whether a given source includes or excludes *Clero Concessis* from the statutory sequence, as this affects how surrounding materials are numbered and cross-referenced.
Because the instrument dates to 1315, researchers working with it in primary sources will encounter Latin text and medieval diplomatic conventions. Modern English translations are available in standard collections of early English statutes, but translators have not always agreed on how to render the technical ecclesiastical vocabulary of the original.
*Clero Concessis* belongs to a cluster of instruments — including *Articuli Cleri* (1316) and earlier confirmations of Magna Carta — that together define the legal landscape of clergy-Crown relations in the early fourteenth century. Research on any one of these instruments typically requires attention to the others.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the only substantive entry among the shelf sources. Burrill identifies the instrument by its Latin title, gives the regnal date (9 Edward II, A.D. 1315), notes the controversy over its parliamentary status, and cites Daines Barrington's *Observations on the More Ancient Statutes* (5th ed.) at page 195, where Barrington applies the term "capitulary" to it. Burrill does not attempt to resolve the controversy, presenting both positions neutrally.
No other shelf source addresses this term. The entry's brevity in Burrill is representative of how mid-nineteenth-century legal dictionaries treated obscure medieval instruments: short-title identification, date, and a pointer to the primary scholarly authority of the era. Barrington's *Observations* remains the most accessible early analytical treatment; researchers needing fuller treatment should consult the standard histories of English ecclesiastical law and the printed Statutes of the Realm.
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Jurisdictional Note
*Clero Concessis* is exclusively a medieval English instrument. It has no application in American law and is not part of the received common law in any American jurisdiction. Research use is confined to English legal history, ecclesiastical law history, and the history of benefit of clergy.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia:
- *Ecclesiastical Law* — for the framework of clergy privilege and church-court jurisdiction in which *Clero Concessis* operates.
- *Medieval English Statutes* — for the broader canon of early parliamentary and quasi-parliamentary enactments and the problem of disputed statutory status.
- *Benefit of Clergy* — for the doctrine most directly shaped by instruments in this cluster.
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