On 16 December 1376 Edward III ordered the archbishops of Canterbury and York to summon convocations to induce them to grant him an aid. The clergy of the southern province met in convocation on 3 February 1377. Before disbanding on 2 March 1377, they followed the example of the laity in the parliament of January 1377 and granted a poll tax.

The tax was to be levied at two rates. Every beneficed cleric, whether a member of the regular or secular clergy, and every member of the religious (i.e. monastic) orders, of both sexes, exempt or non-exempt, was to pay one shilling. All other clerics, from priest to those with first tonsure, over the age of 14 years, and not a mendicant friar, were to pay 4d. Surviving assessments of clergy in the diocese of Lincoln have been printed in McHardy, |Clerical Poll-Taxes of the Diocese of Lincoln 1377-1381|, pp 1-70.

Commissions for collection were issued on 12 March 1377, with certification of the collectors' names at the Exchequer due on 7 May 1377. A file of certificates sent by various bishops to the Exchequer, giving the names of the collectors, all dated in April or May 1377, is now E 179/67/13. Payment was to be made by 24 June 1377.

The total yield of the tax from both provinces is estimated at £1,100. A small paper roll, compiled in the late 16th-early 17th century, now PRO, E 163/16/11, gives a breakdown of the total amount received by diocese.

(|CCR 1374-1377|, p 469; Weske, |Convocation of the Clergy|, p 259; |CFR 1369-1377|, pp 391-392; McHardy, thesis, pp 112-113, 519; McHardy, |Clerical Poll-Taxes of the Diocese of Lincoln 1377-1381|, pp xvii-xviii, xxiv-xxv; W M Ormrod, |The Reign of Edward III|, p 205)

Enrolled Account: E 359/4B, rots 1-1d; E 359/75, rots 10-10d