from
Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856)
PRAEMUNIRE. In older to prevent the pope from assuming the supremacy in
granting ecclesiastical livings, a number of statutes were made in England
during the reigns of Edward I., and his successors, punishing certain acts
of submission to the papal authority, therein mentioned. In the writ for the
execution of these statutes, the words praemunire facias, being used, to
command a citation of the party, gave not only to the writ, but to the
offence itself, of maintaining the papal power, the name of praemunire. Co.
Lit. 129; Jacob's L.D. h.t.