Clericis laicos was a Papal bull issued on February 5, 1296 by Pope Boniface VIII in an attempt to prevent the secular states of Europe, in particular France and England, from appropriating church revenues without the express prior permission of the pope. The two expansionist monarchies had come to blows, and the precedents for taxation of the clergy for a "just war" if declared a crusade and authorized by the Papacy had been well established. The position of Boniface was that prior authorization had always been required, and the clergy had not been taxed for purely secular and dynastic warfare.