Alien Monasteries.
The governing bodies of the foreign or alien monasteries, to which landed estates, tenements, tithes, churches, etc., in England were granted, had built priories in convenient parts of England on their manors, and sent monks from their own monasteries to occupy them. The principal duties which these monks performed, were to collect the revenues from the properties, and transmit the money to the heads of the foreign monasteries. In fact they were their resident agents in this country. It is stated that not less than £2,000 a year, a sum equal to £60,000 at the present time, was forwarded, in the reign of Edward III., to Cluny, in France, by the twenty-six Cluniac priories in England. King Edward I., in his wars with France, was the first to put a stop to the transmission of money from the alien priories in England to the heads of the foreign monasteries in France. They were dissolved by Henry V. and Henry VI.
Owing to the pomp and luxuries of the hierarchy and monastic bodies, a religious revolutionary wave passed over this country in the thirteenth century. The main indications were, (1) the Lateran Council in 1215; (2) the appearance in England in 1217 of the Dominican, and in 1224 of the Franciscan preaching friars; (3) the Mortmain Act of 1279. The religious mania for building and richly endowing monasteries commenced to decline in Edward I.’s reign. The Franciscan order was founded in A.D. 1208, and the Dominican in 1215. Pope Innocent III. approved of both orders in 1215. The ruling idea of these mendicant friars was the elevation of poverty to a virtue; but, strange to say, that before they were in existence many years they became the richest orders in Christendom. Wherever they were located they became the strongest supporters of the papacy, and for two hundred years members of these orders occupied the papal throne.
The friars in England, by their powerful and zealous preaching, had become very popular, to the great loss of the parochial clergy, who were steeped in ignorance and indolence. In their sermons and pamphlets, the friars strongly advised the people to pay no tithes to the parsons; that tithes were but alms, and may be given to any charitable use, and that the parsons had no parochial rights to them. The result was that the people gave the tithes to the friars, both personal and predial, as alms. The parish priests seriously felt the diminution of their revenues. Convocation, of course, moved vigorously in the matter.[267]
The begging friars knew how to draw water to their own fountains, and succeeded well. But “Holy Church” proved too powerful for them. They were pronounced heretics for preaching against the payment of tithes to the parsons, and for receiving the parsons’ tithes themselves. But those cunning, crafty friars were only changing the course of the “alms” into their own channel. Apostolic poverty was written high on their banners, and yet they soon surpassed the parsons in luxury and indolence.
A truly sincere and honest Englishman then appeared on the scene. John Wickliffe, rector of Lutterworth, who died A.D. 1384, preached the same views about tithes as the friars did. He strongly asserted that tithes were only alms, and may be given for any religious use, or retained, according to the will of the donor. The Church, of course, considered his statement rank heresy, and a council of ecclesiastics condemned his opinions as heretical. The cry, “the Church in danger,” was then heard as loudly as in our own times whenever any salutary changes for her improvement have been suggested, or when scandals and abuses are attempted to be removed. The most important and latest example occurred in 1840, when the so-called Cathedral Act was passed.[268] Oxford and Cambridge Universities petitioned Parliament against this Act. Oxford took the lead and strongly protested against all church reforms and improvements originating within the Church (which our leading statesmen then advocated) by means of a better and an equal distribution of church revenues. Oxford urged in 1840 that a large State grant should be made to the Church in order to supply the existing deficiencies of religious instruction. This was simply an impertinent application for State aid when the revenues of the Church were wasted in a disgraceful manner by her own officers. The twenty-six archbishops and bishops appointed before 1836, had received five and a half millions of money from their episcopal revenues alone. Counsel were actually engaged, who appeared at the bar of the House of Lords to oppose the Cathedral Act of 1840, which has turned out one of the most beneficial acts for the amelioration of the Church which our leading statesmen could then devise. Sir R. Inglis, M.P. for Oxford, called the Bishops Act of 1836 and the Cathedral Act of 1840, “Confiscations which were leading to the utter destruction of the Church of England.” Let us compare this statement with that made in Parliament in 1882 by Sir John Mowbray, who now represents the same constituency. “The Ecclesiastical Commissioners,” said Sir John, “augmented the value of livings in upwards of 4,700 out of 15,000 parishes into which England and Wales are divided. From 1836 to 1882 they added £19,000,000 to the property of the Church, besides eliciting £4,000,000 from private sources in the shape of contributions, making a total of £23,000,000, which represents an annual income of £690,000.”[269]
In the 43rd Report (1891) of the Commissioners, the following statement appears: “During a period of fifty years, from 1840 (when the Common Fund was first created) to 31st October, 1890, the Commissioners have augmented and endowed upwards of 5,700 benefices with annual payments charged on the fund, or by the annexations of lands, tithes, etc., or by the grant of capital sums for the erection of parsonage houses, etc., to the value of about £781,400 per annum, in perpetuity, equivalent to a capital sum of about £23,469,000. The value of benefactions from private sources, of lands, tithes, stock, cash, etc., secured to various benefices, and met for the most part by grants from the Commissioners, exceeds £164,340 per annum in perpetuity, equivalent to a permanent increase of endowment of say £4,930,000, apart from a sum of about £26,000 per annum, contributed by benefactors to meet the Commissioners’ grants for curates in mining districts. Thus the total increase in the incomes of benefices made by the Commissioners or resulting from the benefactions accepted, and met by them, exceeds £971,700 per annum, and may be taken to represent a capital sum of about £29,179,000.”[270]
The foregoing statement is the best proof as to the absurd and short-sighted remarks of Sir. R. Inglis and his followers in 1840. The net income of the Common Fund is now over one million per annum. It has taken more than 125 Acts of Parliament directly and indirectly relating to the Church, and some thousands of Orders in Council to drag the State Church out of the sink of abuses in which it was found in 1832 when the first Reform Act was passed.
There were also grave and serious abuses in the Church in Wickliffe’s days. He was as hostile to the Pope’s supremacy as he was to the compulsory payment of tithes. He held that kings were superior to popes, and therefore that appeals from spiritual to temporal tribunals were just, right, and lawful. Time proved that his opinion on this point was correct. He must have been a man of great boldness to question in those days the supremacy of the popes. We, living in the end of the nineteenth century, can take a historical survey of the various changes and struggles which occurred, as regards the popes’ supremacy, since Wickliffe’s time. He utterly detested the monks for their luxurious and worldly habits. The parochial clergy also did not escape his lash. He preferred the good old custom of one paying one’s tithes, according to one’s own free-will, to good and godly men, who were able to preach the gospel; and he condemned in his complaint to King Richard II. and his Parliament, the practice of compelling people to pay tithes.[271]
If we examine the charters which appropriated tithes to monasteries, we shall find that the tithes are stated therein to be given as alms in perpetuity. As regards tithes given to rectors and vicars of parishes, the usual style of the grant ran thus: “The tithes were granted as free, pure, and perpetual alms for ever.” The words in italics are most remarkable. Richard de Clare, Earl of Herts, gave the rectorial tithes of Brenchley and Yalding, in Kent, to Tunbridge Priory in pure and perpetual alms. Robert de Crevequer, founder of Leeds Abbey about 1137, gave the canons there in free and perpetual alms, all the churches on his estates, with their glebe lands, tithes, and advowsons. King John had appropriated the rectory of Bapchild, in Kent, to the Dean and Chapter of Chichester, on the recommendation of the Bishop of Chichester, to be held in free, pure, and perpetual alms. The chapter received £437 a year tithe-rent charge; vicar, £167. William de Auberville, in 1192, gave to the priory of West Langdon the rectories of Oxney and of St. Mary’s, Liddon, in pure and perpetual alms.[272] I have given here only a few examples to show how the tithes had been granted by the owners to parishes and monasteries. Yet in the face of these grants, episcopal, cathedral and parochial, incumbents claim the tithes as their own exclusive property. But Wickliffe and the friars were much better judges of the facts than church defenders at the present time. They truly asserted that the tithes were by custom originally given as alms or free-will offerings without any compulsion whatsoever; and Wickliffe gave some additional information, viz., that they were given only to good and godly men who were able to preach the gospel. The fact that the landowners had given their tithes for any religious use to monks who were mostly laymen, to nuns, to the religious military orders, to foreign monasteries, I say that this proves to demonstration that tithes were not due by divine or legal right to the evangelical priesthood; that tithes were property which could have been and were disposed of, like any other kind of property, to whatever use the benefactor or owner wished. But by clerical pressure at home, by threats of anathemas and excommunications, by the power of the confessional box, and by ecclesiastical pressure from Rome, the English landowners, and also those who paid personal tithes, had slowly come round to the practice of paying them to the parochial clergy not as their exclusive income, but as trustees reserving an adequate portion of the tithes for their own personal use, and dividing the remainder among the poor and stranger, and for repairing the church. But the trustees appropriated all the tithes to their own personal use, and relieved the poor and repaired the church out of alms and contributions of the parishioners. These are the real facts of this disgraceful case of clerical trustees misappropriating the tithes to their own personal use, and this misappropriation has been going on at least 500 years, which gives them a prescriptive right to all the tithes. I have already sketched out how this misappropriation commenced, and the inability of the poor to obtain redress.
The following extract, taken from one of the charters granting tithes to monasteries, indicates how tithes were given:—
Charter of Earl Randulph Gernons of Chester to the Monastery of Chester.
“Universitati vestræ notum facio me dedisse in elemosina in perpetuum Deo et S. Mariæ ecclesiæ S. Werburgæ et Rudulpho abbati et conventui dictæ ecclesiæ pro salute animæ Hugonis comitis, prædictæ ecclesiæ fundatoris ac pro salute animæ Randulphi comitis patris mei, et antecessorum meorum, et pro salute animæ meæ, et Christianorum omnium, omnem decimam integriter et plenariè omnium reddituum meorum civitatis Cestriæ,” etc.[273]
This earl died in A.D. 1153. Earl Hugh Lupus, the refounder, who died in 1101, granted many manors, churches, and tithes, as alms in perpetuity. All the early parochial records are lost, and therefore in dealing with the old parishes we are at a great disadvantage. It is not so with the monasteries. The monastic bodies, free from Danish invasions, had carefully preserved all their charters of grants, because they had often to produce their title deeds when claims were made by others to some of the property which they possessed, and also when some of their property had been lost or taken from them by force or by kings. It was not so with regard to lands and tithes held by parochial incumbents.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE DISSOLUTION OF MONASTERIES.
What precedents had Henry VIII. to guide him in dissolving the monasteries?
(1) Edward I., in A.D. 1295, seized the property of the alien priories.
(2) In 1324 (17 Edward II.) the lands and tenements held in England by the Templars were, by Act of Parliament, seized and transferred to the Knights Hospitallers, when the services of the former were no longer required for purposes for which the property had been assigned to them.
(3) Edward III., in 1337, seized the alien priories, and let out the lands and tenements, until there was peace with France in 1361. The most valuable of them were naturalized, and thus became free from the yoke of any foreign monastery, and could elect their own priors.
(4) Richard II. bestowed on the Carthusians several of the smaller alien priories which Edward III. had seized.
(5) In the reign of Henry IV. the House of Commons suggested, in 1404, that the clergy, including the religiosi, should be deprived of all their temporalities, in order to furnish funds for the defence of the kingdom and for the maintenance of a large army. A similar proposal was made in 1410, but the king, directly influenced by the Archbishop of Canterbury, would not listen to the suggestions. These facts indicate the growing unpopularity of the Church even at that early period of the life of the House of Commons. The Statute of Mortmain in 1279, the Statutes of Provisors in 1351 (25 Edward III. c. vi.), and 1353 (27 Edward III.), the Statute of Premunire in 1393, are all so many previous illustrations of the growing hostile feeling of Parliament towards the Church, monastic establishments, and the pope of Rome.
(6) In the reign of Henry V. another attack was made upon the property of the Church by the Parliament which met in 1415, but the tact of the Archbishop of Canterbury on this occasion, as well as in 1404 and 1410, saved the property. The Parliament granted the King, however, all the property of the alien priories, except those which were free and could elect their own priors. Henry V. built and endowed six colleges and three religious houses, principally out of the property of the suppressed priories.
(7) Henry VI. founded and endowed Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge, out of the same suppressed property.
(8) Cardinal Wolsey, with the approval of King Henry VIII. and the Pope, suppressed over twenty small religious houses in A.D. 1523, in order to furnish funds to build and endow his college—Cardinal College, now Christ Church, Oxford—the richest in that University.
These are instructive and interesting facts. Large monastic endowments were devoted to building and richly endowing colleges and schools for the sons of the wealthy men of the country. In the Appendices will be found a complete account of the gross amounts of tithe-rent charges which the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, and some of the public schools receive. I should also gladly give the monastic manors and glebe lands, quite separate from the vicarial glebe lands, which these colleges and schools also received, but I have not the information. But I supply the large patronage they have at their disposal. And I may state that of all Church patronage, the most objectionable is collegiate and public school patronage. Broken-down old dons, fellows, and teachers of schools, men full of eccentricities, totally unfit for parish work, are pensioned off with college livings, which are generally well endowed with glebe lands and tithes, and each with a rural population of a few hundreds. Here they end their days in ease and quietness, after giving the best and most active part of their lives to tutorial work in their respective colleges and schools. The wealthy parochial endowments of the collegiate and scholastic livings are out of all proportion to the population and parish work, which in their cases is nil. In purchasing advowsons, the colleges select country parishes with large endowments, small areas, and small populations.
I have stated eight cases for Henry VIII.’s guidance in dissolving the monasteries. I shall now state his own action in the matter.
In 1533 (24 Henry VIII. c. xii.) the Statute for the Restraint of Appeals to Rome was passed. In 1534 Parliament made him “Supreme head of the Church of England.” He therefore took the Pope’s place, and received the firstfruits and tenths. In 1535 Commissioners were appointed to take the value of all ecclesiastical benefices, in order to settle the firstfruits and tenths. In 1536 the valuation was completed. In 1535, by 27 Henry VIII. c. xx., for tithes to be paid throughout the realm. In 1536 (28 Henry VIII. c. xvi.), the power of the Pope over tithes in England was finally extinguished. The monks viewed the King’s conduct in taking the Pope’s place with the most bitter hostility. They constantly used their influence to excite the feelings of the people against the King. Henry knew all this, and that he could never alienate them from the Pope. The subsequent conduct of the King and his ministers was guided more by political expediency than on religious or moral grounds. There was but one course open to the King, and that was to dissolve all the religious houses. It was a bold, arduous, and dangerous step. The morality of these houses was the only vulnerable point in which he thought he could successfully carry out his plan. He first obtained an Act of Parliament empowering him “to visit, order, and reform all errors and abuses in religion.” This was the lever which Henry’s agents used to expose every real and imaginary immoral act, and thus create hostility in the minds of the people against them. A Royal Commission was issued in 1535 with unlimited power to visit the monasteries. In 1536 the report was finished. But the original was destroyed in Queen Mary’s reign. We must be careful as to what credence should be given to evidence taken down and reported upon by such Commissioners as Leigh and Leyton, who had not scrupled to suborn witnesses. An Act was passed in 1536 (27 Henry VIII. c. xxviii.), which dissolved every monastery with a revenue of less than £200 per annum, and transferred to the King all the monasteries, priories, and other religious houses, all the sites, circuits, churches, chapels, advowsons, patronage, manors, granges, lands, hereditaments, tithes, pensions, annuities, rights, etc., which belonged to such monasteries; and that “The king shall have them in as large and ample a manner as the governors of those houses possessed them. That he was to have and to hold them, his heirs and assigns, to do and use therewith his and their own wills, to the pleasure of God and to the honour and profit of this realm.” And the Act further states that “Those who take the above property from the king shall have, hold, and enjoy the same in like manner, form, and condition as before the Act of Dissolution.” Those who took the property were therefore subject to the same limitations, privileges, and burdens as the religiosi were. By this Act, 376 houses were dissolved and their properties vested in the Crown. The King received £32,000 per annum from the estates, and also he received jewels and personal effects valued at £100,000. He gave small pensions to some abbots, priors, and monks; others he transferred to larger monasteries. The houses were stripped of their lead, bells, glass, and materials, which were sold to the neighbouring gentry.
The conditions upon which all the vast monastic property was given by Parliament to the King were, “That they were to be used to the pleasure of God and to the honour and profit of this realm.” Did Henry VIII. or his successors carry out these conditions? They certainly did not. The property of the alien priories was insignificantly small as compared with the enormous properties which Parliament granted to Henry VIII. But there was this distinction between them. Almost all the former properties were devoted to religious and educational purposes. Laymen received little or nothing. But the case was very different with Henry VIII.’s confiscations. The courtiers and favourites were most eager to share, and did obtain, monastic estates and tithes, and also episcopal and capitular landed estates, which some of their successors still hold, others sold them, and thus much of the property has been handed down to the present time through a long line of purchasers.
Henry VIII. intended to create twenty-one new bishoprics, and out of the proceeds of the monastic properties to suitably endow them. But he created and endowed only six. The courtiers and favourites of Henry, Edward, and Elizabeth, who received inferior monastic lands, induced these sovereigns to make certain of the archbishops, bishops, and chapters exchange their good lands for the inferior lands of the courtiers and favourites, and also to exchange impropriated tithes for lands of equal value belonging to episcopal and capitular corporations. These exchanges were very numerous in the reigns of Edward and Elizabeth. Hasted, in his “History of Kent,” makes the following remark, “Cranmer observing that his stately palaces excited the envy of the courtiers, passed them away with their estates to the King.” For example, Otford Palace and its beautiful parks. Archbishop Warham spent £33,000, an enormous sum in those days, in rebuilding the palace. Cranmer, in 1538, was ordered to surrender the palace and the manor of Otford and Sergeants Otford to Henry VIII. Edward VI. granted the Little Park of Otford on lease to Sir Henry Sidney. Elizabeth granted Sergeants Otford and the Little Park on lease to Sir Robert Sidney. James I. granted the palace and Greater Park to Sir Thomas Smith. Edward VI. granted the parsonage and advowson of Shoreham with the Chapel of Otford to Sir Anthony Denny, who exchanged them with the Dean and Chapter of Westminster for the advowson of Cheshunt in Herts. The Chapter had £702, tithe rent charge from Otford; there was no vicar; and £806 10s. from Shoreham; total £1,508 16s.
Hasted says of Knole manor and manor house: “Cranmer observing murmurings among the hungry courtiers of the archbishop’s palaces, compounded with Henry VIII. to give up the best and richest manors; therefore, in 1538, Cranmer gave to the King the manors of Otford, Wrotham, Bexley, Northflete, Maidstone, Knole, Sergeants Otford, Sevenoke, Shoreham, Chevening, Panters, and Brytains, with their appurtenances.” Here were twelve manors given in one swoop to satisfy Henry VIII.’s “hungry courtiers,” who were “murmuring” for the spoils. The reader will have to consult Hasted’s “Kent,” to know the courtiers and favourites to whom these manors were granted.
An Act was passed, 1 Elizabeth c. xix., which authorized the Queen to take in her hands, on the voidance of any bishopric, so much of the lands belonging to it as should be equal in value to the monastic confiscated rectorial tithes belonging to the Crown in that diocese, and to exchange such tithes for lands. Some of these lands were then given to her ministers and favourites, some were kept by the Crown, and others sold to furnish funds for national purposes, so as to prevent application to Parliament for money. It was in this manner that bishops and cathedral chapters lost so much landed property which the Crown granted as above stated, and the court favourites, soon after they received the grants, sold the estates and parsonages to the highest purchaser. Here then were landed estates, with endowments and advowsons of the churches belonging to such estates freely granted away. Lord Cobham’s to the Cecils, for instance, who almost immediately sold the properties which they freely received from the Crown, and applied the proceeds to their own personal use.
Now, as regards the suppression of the larger monasteries, they were to be carried out, if possible, by voluntary surrender. I shall show that this was purely a sham. The Commissioners, no doubt, tried in every way to persuade them to surrender by promising the abbots and priors good pensions during life, because no charges of immorality could have been preferred against them. In 1536-7, there were but three surrenders. In 1537-8 there were twenty-four. The Commissioners induced those who surrendered to persuade others to follow their example, for it was the King’s policy to let the public see that the surrenders were voluntarily made. When persuasion failed, the Commissioners used threats, and so we read that the monks of the Charterhouse were committed like common felons to Newgate, where five of them died, and five more were on the point of death from the cruel and barbarous treatment they received within the walls of that prison. But the most revolting act of pure despotism on the part of Henry VIII. was the execution of Whiting, abbot of Glastonbury, Coke, abbot of Reading, and Beche, abbot of St. John’s, Colchester. These despotic acts drove terror into those who had not yet surrendered. In 1538-9, one hundred and seventy-four surrendered, and in 1539-40, seventy-six. In April, 1539, a slavish Parliament ratified the surrenders up to that time, and allowed the King to extend the Act to all the other monasteries which had not yet surrendered, by 31 Henry VIII. c. xiii., “An Act for the dissolution of monasteries and abbeys,” by which about 277 monasteries of the value of £200 a year or upwards, were dissolved; and what makes their dissolution more remarkable and important, is that all the property of 193 of them was and is discharged of tithes up to the present time. Over 653 monasteries were dissolved by the Acts of 1536 and 1540, with properties equal to £250,000 per annum. In the preamble of the above Act we do not find those grave charges hurled against monks which appear in the Act which suppressed the smaller monasteries in 1535.
In order to pass the above Acts, some of the nobility were promised estates by free gifts from the King, others obtained them by easy purchase. The members of the House of Commons were also promised large shares, and of course Henry’s agents dangled before the people: “No more subsidies, no fifteenths, no loans, no common aids,” as the wealth of the dissolved monasteries was considered ample to maintain an army of 40,000 men, and so all taxation may in future be dispensed with! The Church was also to be conciliated. There were to be twenty-one bishoprics created, with cathedrals, deans, and chapters all endowed out of the property. This number was, however, reduced to six. Westminster existed only for about nine years. Five now exist. Gloucester and Bristol were united in 1836; but when sufficient funds are collected to endow the Bristol bishopric, they are to be separated.
In 1540, there were 653 monasteries suppressed. In 1546, 90 colleges, 110 hospitals, and 2,347 chantries, with all their properties, were handed over to the King by 1 Edward VI. c. xiv., the preamble of which runs thus: “To convert to good and godly uses the chantries, or in erecting grammar schools to the education of youth in virtue and godliness, and in further augmenting of universities and better provision for the poor and needy.” This provision for the use of the chantry estates lamentably failed. Neither the universities nor the poor were benefited. Like the monastic estates, the hungry and avaricious courtiers who surrounded the young king, had received the property for their own personal use.
The capital value of all the property handed over to Henry VIII., Edward VI. and Elizabeth would equal £200,000,000 at the present time.
The 27 Henry VIII. c. xx. (1536) provides that “all tithes should be paid according to the ecclesiastical laws and ordinances of the Church of England, and after the laudable usages of the parish or place where the party dwelt.”
The 32 Henry VIII., c. vii. s. 5 (1541): “No tithes are to be paid for lands discharged from paying tithes, or are not chargeable in the payment of tithes.”
CHAPTER XVII.
TITHES IN THE CITY AND LIBERTIES OF LONDON.
In the early history of the Christian Church, the citizens of London made oblations or offerings at every mass on Sundays and holidays, and such oblations were applied to the relief of the poor, the repairs of the church and the support of the clergy. From these purely voluntary oblations grew up a custom in the City of London, that every person paying 20s. a year rental should give to God and the Church, ½d. for every Sunday or Apostle’s day, the vigil of which was a fast. If he paid only 10s. a year rental, he was to give ¼d. This amounted in the former case to 2s. 6d. in the pound, and 1s. 3d. in the latter, per annum. These were customary payments, and were applied for the same three purposes—poor, fabric and clergy. As these customary payments were found to decrease, it was deemed necessary to promulgate an order to permanently fix the customary payments. Bishop Roger took up the subject immediately after his consecration as Bishop of London. The following are the facts of the case:—
(1) In A.D. 1228, in the reign of Henry III., Bishop Roger, surnamed Niger, or Le Noir, of London, made a constitution or modus, that every occupier of a house should offer as his tithe to his parish church, ½d. for 20s. a year rental, and ¼d. for 10s. a year rental, for every Sunday and every Apostle’s day, whereof the evening was fasted. There were fifty-two Sundays and eight Apostles’ days in the year that were fasted. Two shillings and sixpence a year was then the amount of the modus decimandi which the former occupier had to pay, and one shilling and three pence a year the latter. The amounts would be less when any of the Apostles’ days fell upon Sundays.
The above particulars appear in the Records in the Town Clerk’s office, London. It is a well-known point in law that a house quâ house is not liable for the payment of tithes. Tithes were paid for what issued or grew out of the ground. Enormous house properties have been erected in and around all our cities and towns, for which one penny as tithe-money has never been paid, and yet the house property in the City and Liberties of London, and landed property throughout the country, have to pay a modus and tithe-rent charges.
(2) Bishop Roger’s modus was paid for 160 years, viz., from 1229 to 1389, when Archbishop Arundel, of Canterbury, interfered with the arrangement in the latter year. He was not satisfied with the interpretation put upon Bishop Roger’s Constitution as regards the number of Apostles’ days, and so he added twenty-two more saints’ days, thus increasing the payments from 2s. 6d. to 3s. 5d. a year, and this he did without consulting the payers. The citizens of London were quite indignant at the additional number of saints’ days, and placed on record their protest against the same for the information of future generations. There were constant quarrels between the citizens and their clergy in the ecclesiastical courts, and at the Pope’s court at Rome, with regard to the payment of the extra 11d. The Archbishop appealed to the Pope as to the soundness of his interpretation, and as a matter of course, Pope Innocent VII., in 1403, confirmed the interpretation. But the Pope’s bull did not pacify the citizens of London. They considered the additional 11d. a cheat—a fraud. Besides, the Pope’s bull could not compel them to pay the additional amount. In 1453, however, it appears, by a record in the Town Clerk’s office,[274] that Archbishop Arundel’s order is declared by the Common Council to be “destructory rather than declaratory, and that it was obtained surreptitiously and deceptiously, without assent on the part of the citizens, or summoning them.” I should imagine that the Church, with its terrible ecclesiastical courts made them pay the 3s. 5d., for we find no change in the payment until 1535, when the whole subject was considered by the Privy Council, who made an order for the payment of 2s. 9d. in the pound. Therefore in the same year an Act was passed,[275] authorizing the citizens of London to pay their tithes at the rate of 2s. 9d. in the pound. Ten years later another Act was passed,[276] “That the citizens and inhabitants of the City of London and Liberties of the same shall yearly, without fraud or covin, for ever pay their tithes to the parsons, vicars, and curates of the said City, and their successors for the time being, after the following rate: For every 10s. rent by the year of all houses, shops, warehouses, cellars, tables, etc., within the City and Liberty, 16½d.; and for every 20s. rent by the year, 2s. 9d.; and so above the rent of 20s. by the year, ascending from 10s. to 10s., according to the rate aforesaid.”
(3) The next account of tithes in London was after the great fire in 1666. An Act which I call the first Fire Act was passed in 1670,[277] for the better settlement of the maintenance of the parsons, vicars and curates in the parishes of the city of London burnt by the great fire. The preamble runs thus:—
“Whereas the tithes in the city of London were levied and paid with great inequality, and are, since the late dreadful fire there, in the rebuilding of the same, by taking away some houses, altering the foundations of many, and the new erecting of others, so disordered, that in case they should not for the time to come be reduced to a certainty, many contrivances and suits of law might arise, be it enacted that the annual certain tithes of every parish in the City of London and its Liberties, whose churches have been demolished or in part consumed by the late fire, be paid according to the sum opposite each.”
Sec. 3. “Which respective sums of money to be paid in lieu of tithes within the said respective parishes, and assessed as hereinafter is directed, shall be and continue to be esteemed, deemed and taken to all intents and purposes, to be the respective annual maintenance (over and above glebes and perquisites, gifts and bequests to the respective parson, vicar and curate of any parish for the time being, or to their successors respectively, or to others for their use) of the said respective parsons, vicars and curates, who shall be legally instituted, inducted and admitted in the respective parishes.”
In subsequent sections assessments were ordered to be made before the 24th July, 1671, upon all houses, shops, warehouses, cellars, and other hereditaments, except parsonage and vicarage houses.
Three transcripts were to be made by the assessors, containing the respective sums to be payable out of all the premises within each parish; one was for the Lord Mayor, the second for the Bishop of London’s registry, and the third was to remain in the vestry. The payments were to be made in four quarterly payments.
If any inhabitant should refuse payment the Lord Mayor should issue his warrant of distress on his goods. If the Lord Mayor should refuse to issue his warrant, then it shall be lawful for the Lord Chancellor, or Keeper of the Great Seal, or any two or more of the barons of his Majesty’s Court of Exchequer to issue warrants of distress.
The payments made by 22 & 23 Car. II. c. xv. (1670) were increased by 44 George III. c. lxxxix. (1804).
As the City and Liberties of London are converted into offices, banks, warehouses, etc., and are almost depopulated, it is important and instructive to give the names of the parishes which appear in the Fire Act of 1670, with the respective annual sums allowed in 1670 and the modified annual sums allowed in 1804. The first sum is for 1670, the second for 1804, and the third shows net income in 1890, with population from Clergy List, 1891.
| H = house. | A.D. 1670. | A.D. 1804. | Net Income in 1890. | Pop. | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ | s. | £ | s. | d. | £ | ||||
| 1. | All Hallows, Lombard Street | 100 | 0 | 200 | 0 | 0 | [278] | ||
| 2. | S. Bartholomew, Exchange | 100 | 0 | 200 | 0 | 0 | [278] | ||
| 3. | S. Bridget, alias Brides | 120 | 0 | 200 | 0 | 0 | [278] | ||
| 4. | S. Bennet Fink | 100 | 0 | 200 | 0 | 0 | [278] | ||
| 5. | S. Michael, Crooked Lane | 100 | 0 | 200 | 0 | 0 | [278] | ||
| 6. | S. Dionis Backchurch | 120 | 0 | 200 | 0 | 0 | [278] | ||
| 7. | S. Dunstan-in-the-East | 200 | 0 | 333 | 6 | 8 | 536 | 442 | |
| 8. | S. James’, Garlickhithe | 100 | 0 | 200 | 0 | 0 | [278] | ||
| 9. | S. Michael, Cornhill | 140 | 0 | 233 | 6 | 8 | now 935 | H | 227 |
| 10. | S. Michael Bassishaw | 132 | 11 | 220 | 18 | 4 | 250 | 215 | |
| 11. | S. Mary, Aldermanbury | 150 | 0 | 250 | 0 | 0 | 250 | 168 | |
| 12. | S. Martin, Ludgate | 160 | 0 | 266 | 13 | 4 | [278] | ||
| 13. | S. Peter, Cornhill | 110 | 0 | 200 | 0 | 0 | 2,150 | H | 196 |
| 14. | S. Stephen, Coleman Street | 110 | 0 | 200 | 0 | 0 | 750 | 1,800 | |
| 15. | S. Sepulchre | 200 | 0 | 333 | 6 | 8 | 536 | H | 4,570 |
| 16. | All Hallows, Bread Street, and S. John Evangelist | 140 | 0 | 233 | 6 | 8 | [278] | ||
| 17. | All Hallows the Great, and All Hallows the Less | 200 | 0 | 333 | 6 | 8 | 618 | 92 | |
| 18. | S. Albans, Wood Street, and S. Olaves, Silver Street | 170 | 0 | 283 | 6 | 8 | 680 | 258 | |
| 19. | S. Anne and Agnes, and S. John, Zachary | 140 | 0 | 233 | 6 | 8 | 400 | H | 273 |
| 20. | S. Augustin and S. Faith | 172 | 0 | 286 | 13 | 4 | 638 | 554 | |
| 21. | S. Andrew, Wardrobe, and S. Anne, Blackfriars | 140 | 0 | 233 | 6 | 8 | 320 | H | 1,118 |
| 22. | St. Antholin and St. John Baptist | 120 | 0 | 200 | 0 | 0 | [278] | ||
| 23. | S. Bennet, Gracechurch, and S. Leonard, Eastcheap | 140 | 0 | 233 | 6 | 8 | [278] | ||
| 24. | S. Bennet, Paul’s Wharf, and S. Peter’s, Paul’s Wharf | 100 | 0 | 200 | 0 | 0 | [278] | ||
| 25. | Christ Church, Newgate Street, and S. Leonard, Foster Lane | 200 | 0 | 333 | 6 | 8 | 461 | H | 1,386 |
| 26. | S. Edmund the King and S. Nicholas Acons | 180 | 0 | 300 | 0 | 0 | 1,150 | H | 222 |
| 27. | S. George, Botolph Lane, and S. Botolph, Billingsgate | 180 | 0 | 300 | 0 | 0 | 380 | H | 195 |
| 28. | S. Lawrence, Jewry, and S. Magdalen, Milk Street | 120 | 0 | 200 | 0 | 0 | 683 | 216 | |
| 29. | S. Margaret, Lothbury, £100; and S. Christopher £120 | 220 | 0 | 366 | 13 | 4 | [278] | ||
| 30. | S. Magnus and S. Margaret, New Fish Street | 170 | 0 | 283 | 6 | 8 | [278] | ||
| 31. | S. Michael Royal and S. Martin Vintry | 140 | 0 | 233 | 6 | 8 | 235 | 208 | |
| 32. | S. Matthew, Friday Street, and S. Peter, Westcheap | 150 | 0 | 250 | 0 | 0 | [278] | ||
| 33. | S. Margaret Pattens, and S. Gabriel, Fenchurch | 120 | 0 | 200 | 0 | 0 | now 830 | H | 178 |
| 34. | S. Mary-at-Hill and S. Andrew Hubbard | 200 | 0 | 333 | 6 | 8 | 400 | H | 295 |
| 35. | S. Mary Woolnoth, and S. Mary Woolchurch | 160 | 0 | 266 | 13 | 4 | now 800 | H | 319 |
| 36. | S. Clement, Eastcheap, and S. Martin Orgar | 140 | 0 | 233 | 6 | 8 | 350 | H | 238 |
| 37. | S. Mary Abchurch, and S. Lawrence, Pountney | 120 | 0 | 200 | 0 | 0 | 590 | H | 236 |
| 38. | S. Mary, Aldermary, and S. Thomas the Apostle | 150 | 0 | 250 | 0 | 0 | [278] | ||
| 39. | S. Mary-le-Bow; S. Pancras, Soper Lane, and All Hallows, Honey Lane | 200 | 0 | 333 | 6 | 8 | [278] | ||
| 40. | S. Mildred, Poultry, and S. Mary Colechurch | 170 | 0 | 283 | 6 | 8 | [278] | ||
| 41. | S. Michael, Wood Street, and S. Mary Staining | 100 | 0 | 200 | 0 | 0 | 255 | 172 | |
| 42. | S. Mildred, Bread Street, and S. Margaret, Moses | 130 | 0 | 216 | 13 | 4 | 280 | 76 | |
| 43. | S. Michael, Queenhithe, and Trinity | 160 | 0 | 266 | 13 | 4 | [278] | ||
| 44. | S. Mary Magdalene, Old Fish Street, and S. Gregory by S. Paul | 120 | 0 | 200 | 0 | 0 | [278] | ||
| 45. | S. Mary Somerset, and S. Mary Mounthaw | 110 | 0 | 200 | 0 | 0 | [278] | ||
| 46. | S. Nicholas, Cole Abbey, and S. Nicholas, Olave | 130 | 0 | 216 | 13 | 4 | [278] | ||
| 47. | S. Olave, Old Jewry, and S. Martin Pomroy | 120 | 0 | 200 | 0 | 0 | [278] | ||
| 48. | S. Stephen, Walbrook, and S. Benet, Sherehog | 100 | 0 | 200 | 0 | 0 | 774 | H | 127 |
| 49. | S. Swithin and S. Mary, Bothaw | 140 | 0 | 233 | 6 | 8 | 451 | 243 | |
| 50. | S. Vedast, Foster Lane, and S. Michael-le-Quern | 160 | 0 | 266 | 13 | 4 | [278] | ||
| Total | £7,164 | 11 | £12,240 | 18 | 4 | £15,702 | 14,024 | ||
With respect to other parishes in the City and Liberties of London which are not included in the Fire Act, the incumbents received the tithes specified in the Acts 27 Henry VIII., c. xxi. and 37 Henry VIII. c. xii., viz., 2s. 9d. in the pound upon the rentals of the houses. The whole sum was paid into the common treasury of the parish, and was applied to three purposes, viz. (1) the support of the clergy; (2) the relief of the poor; and (3) the repairs of the church. Here is the tripartite division.[279] By the London (City) Tithes Act, 27, 28 Vict. c. cclxviii. (1864), annual fixed sums are paid in lieu of tithes, but subject to a revision on the first avoidance of the benefice that happens after the expiration of a period of 28 years from the passing of the Act.
These are the benefices:—
| £ | Pop. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| S. Andrew Undershaft | Fixed sum per annum | 2,500 | 315 |
| S. Katherine Colman | ” | 1,550 | 277 |
| S. Olave, Hart Street | ” | 2,600 | 255 |
| All Hallows, London Wall | ” | 1,700 | 535 |
| All Hallows, Barking | ” | 2,000 | 350 |
| S. Ethelburga | ” | 950 | 199 |
| Total | £11,300 | 2,106 | |
Sec. 17 of this Act made legal the prospective agreements between the incumbent and vestry as regards the fixed annual sums in lieu of tithes, viz.:—
| £ | Pop. | |
|---|---|---|
| S. Alphege, London Wall,—as appeared in London Gazette, 31 Aug., 1869 | 1,350 | 31 |
| St. Martin Outwich, Threadneedle Street,—as appeared in London Gazette, 24 Feb., 1871 | 2,250 | |
| St. Peter-le-Poer, Broad Street, as appeared in London Gazette, 27 Sept., 1864 | 1,725 | 530 |
| £5,325 |
By Sec. 18, All Hallows Staining, Mark Lane. Population, 175.
Agreement published in the London Gazette, 21 March, 1865, Tithes commuted for fixed annual sum of £1,600. Out of the proceeds of this tithe-rate, two new churches—All Hallows, Bromley, and S. Anthony, Stepney—have been built, and their vicars endowed each with £500 per annum, and the balance is accumulating for the erection of a third church and the endowment of its vicar.
The tithes of the following parishes have been commuted by local Acts.
| £ | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| S. Andrew, Holborn. 4 George IV. c. cxviii. | Fixed annual net sum | 700 | |
| S. Giles, Cripplegate. 7 George IV. c. liv. | ” | 1,800 | [280] |
| S. Botolph without, Bishopsgate. 6 George IV. c. clxxvi. | ” | 2,500 | [281] |
The rector of S. Giles-in-the-Fields has a charge of £300 net a year on next avoidance of S. Botolph without, Bishopsgate.
Under the London (City) Tithes Act, 1879, portions of the sums payable as above have been redeemed, the consideration being such sum as will, if invested in 3 per cent. consols., produce an annual sum equal as near as may be to the annual amount of such rent-charge. The consideration is paid to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who pay the dividends on the stock to the incumbents.
It is important to give seriatim some further particulars about the above benefices.
(1) Of the £2,500 of S. Andrew Undershaft, w. S. Mary-at-Axe, eight parishes receive in the aggregate £500 a year.[282] The Bishop of London is patron; the rector is Bishop Billing, his suffragan; his net income is £2,057, with £375 a year for house rented; total, £2,432. Church accommodation, 210; population, 315.
(2) The fixed tithe of S. Catherine Colman is £1,550, out of which six parishes at Bethnal Green receive in the aggregate £400, S. Thomas Charterhouse £150, the rectors of S. Giles-in-the-Fields £100, and S. Mary, Whitechapel, £500 per annum.[283] Bishop of London, patron; rector, Bishop Wilkinson; income, £1,500 per annum, including £1,100 a year from rentals. Church accommodation, 290; population, 277.
Here are two rich London benefices in the gift of the Bishop, who gave them to his two suffragan bishops; the Bishop of London sticks fast to his own £10,000 a year, and gives nothing to his suffragans from this immense income.
(3) S. Olave, Hart Street, w. All Hallows Staining. Rector’s gross income, £2,050,[284] of which S. Olave’s, Mile End, has £600 per annum, and house. Church accommodation, 250; population, 430.
(4) All Hallows, London Wall; fixed tithe £1,700; church accommodation, 250; population, 535; patron, Lord Chancellor; present rector was appointed in 1834; on next vacancy £1,400 will be divided into four parts; the rector will take one part £350 + £300 = £650; Holy Trinity, Barking Road, £350; S. Gabriel, Canning Town, £350; St. Luke, Victoria Dock, £350.
(5) All Hallows Barking; fixed tithe, £2,000; church accommodation, 600; population, 350; the incumbent has 4 curates for a population of 350 (!); they are all well looked after.
(6) S. Ethelburga; fixed tithe, £950; income, £1,050; church accommodation, 300; population, 199. On next avoidance, £400 a year will be given to S. Botolph without, Aldgate.
(7) S. Alphege, London Wall; fixed tithe, £1,350; church accommodation, 200; population, 31; on which S. George-in-the-East has a charge of £500 per annum. The rector has £925 for 31 of population!
(8) S. Martin Outwich, Threadneedle Street, was pulled down and sold; fixed tithe, £2,250. Three churches erected out of proceeds, and vicars endowed, thus. The charges on this tithe are £600 Holy Trinity, Dalston; £300 Christ Church, Stepney; £592 S. Peter’s, Limehouse; rector of S. Helen, Bishopsgate with S. Martin Outwich, receives £858 per annum, with house. Population, 541.
(9) S. Peter-le-Poer w. S. Benet-Fink; fixed tithe, £1,725; church accommodation, 690; population, 530. The charges on this tithe are £125, S. Mary Charterhouse; £200 a year each to Holy Trinity, Haverstock-hill; Old Saint Pancras; St. Peter’s, Regent Square; S. Mary, Somers Town; and; £100 to Holy Cross, S. Pancras. The rector has a gross income of £1,000 a year.
(10) S. Giles’, Cripplegate; commuted tithe, £1,800; subject to revision every ten years; in 1890 the value = £1,100, with house; population, 2,473; S. Luke’s, Old Street, has a charge of £200 a year net.
(11) S. Martin, Ludgate, w. S. Mary Magdalene and S. Gregory by S. Paul. The tithes of S. Gregory were commuted under sect. 12 of S. Paul’s Cathedral Minor Canons Act, 1875, by agreement published in the London Gazette of 19th March, 1878, for a fixed annual sum of £4,000, receivable by the holder of the beneficial lease granted by the minor canons. When the lease will lapse, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners will receive the £4,000 per annum. What does the vicar get who has to look after the 1,200 parishioners? £468, plus £100 from the E.C., arising out of local claim. The minor canons must have received £10,000 at least for that lease.
(12) S. Mary Abchurch w. S. Laurence; income, £590, with house; population, 236.
(13) S. Catherine Cree w. S. James, Duke’s Place; income, £583; population, 1,480. The latter was united to former by Order in Council, Gazette, 6th May, 1873, taking £300 net a year, which it had from 1867, from S. Peter’s, Cornhill.
(14) S. Dunstan-in-the-East; income, £536, from house property chiefly; population, 442.
(15) S. Bartholomew the Great w. Smithfield; income, £650; population, 2,373.
(16) S. Botolph without, Aldersgate. By 7 Geo. IV. c. cxvi., the tithes were commuted for a fixed sum of £1,150 per annum payable to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster as rectors. This sum, less £300 a year payable to the vicar, they leased, and the lessee retains £850 a year. Income of vicar, £390; population, 3,330.
(17) S. Botolph without, Bishopsgate, has been given. Has a house.
(18) S. Dunstan-in-the-West, Fleet Street. By 1 Geo. IV. c. lix., the tithes were commuted to an annual payment by the ratepayers of £359, of which £5 went to the Crown. By an order in Council dated 16th April, 1886, S. Thomas in the Liberty of the Rolls was united to the above parish, but the church of S. Thomas was taken down and the site and materials sold. The proceeds are to go towards building another church elsewhere, erecting a new parsonage for the rector of S. Dunstan and augmenting his income, which is £500 per annum; population, 2,300.
These eighteen incumbents receive £18,632, or average of over £1,000 each per annum. But it must be noted that the lessees of three parishes receive £11,350 per annum, in lieu of tithes, from the ratepayers, viz.: S. Botolph without, Aldgate, £6,500; S. Gregory-by-S.-Paul, £4,000; and S. Botolph without, Aldersgate, £850. This £11,350 is not included here in any of the incumbent’s incomes.
But here arises the public scandal. Eleven of these eighteen incumbents receive £13,341 per annum for an aggregate population including children, of 3,886, or £3 9s. per head.
The populations are taken from the census of 1881; and it is probable that a considerable reduction in population will appear from the census returns of 1891. But the clerical incomes are not reduced.
Again, twenty-six incumbents of Fire parishes receive £15,702 for a population of 14,000. If we compare the income of £350 for the incumbent of only one of the parishes in Bethnal Green, with a population of close on 14,000, with the £15,702 for a similar population in the aggregate, we at once perceive the public scandal.
Again, eleven incumbents of the Fire parishes have £8,050 for an aggregate population of 7,000. If we take a single parish outside of the City and Liberties of London, we shall find it with a population much larger than 7,000, and yet the incumbent would consider himself fortunate to receive a net income of £300 per annum.
I have now given sufficient data to prove that there exists reasonable grounds for the public scandal as regards the parishes in the City and Liberties of London. It is not my province to suggest remedies, but to indicate facts and figures.
But eleven incumbents to receive £13,341 for an aggregate population of 3,886 forms the coping-stone not to a public scandal, but to a public disgrace, in this Christian country.
But the greatest public disgrace of all is to see the Bishop of London himself receiving £10,000 net per annum, with three suffragan bishops not paid by him, but paid out of parochial revenues.
Then, on the top of the hill, is S. Paul’s Cathedral, with a net income of £25,000 per annum, and with palatial residences, which recently cost £20,000, close to the cathedral, for the canons. Truly it may be said of them, Lac et lanas ovium Christi suscipiunt, sed curam gregis Domini deponunt.
The City of London Tithes Act of 1879 (42 & 43 Vict. c. clxxvi.) provides for the commutation of tithes and payments in lieu of tithes arising or growing due in certain parishes in the City of London, and for the redemption of rent-charges charged upon lands under the above Act.
By the Christ Church (City) Tithe Act, 1879 (42 & 43 Vict. c. xciii.), S. Bartholomew’s Hospital receives in lieu of tithes the annual sum of £1,800, which is levied and collected as tithe rates by the hospital from persons rateable to poor rates in that parish. Tithes in arrears are recoverable by distress in the same manner as stated in the Commutation Act of 1836. The vicar of Christ Church, Newgate Street, with S. Leonard, Foster Lane, has £456 per annum; population, 1,380. This is a Fire parish.
Mr. Edward Jeffries Esdaile and his successors are the owners by purchase, £20,000, of the tithes of the parish of S. Botolph without, Aldgate. Disputes arose after the Act of 1879 as to payments to be made to Mr. Esdaile in respect of tithes. An Act was therefore passed in 1881, called, “The City of London Tithes, S. Botolph without, Aldgate,” (42 & 43 Vict. c. cxcvii.) to commute the tithes.
By sec. 3 of this Act, the tithe-owner is to receive £6,500 a year in lieu of tithes, which was to be levied and collected by the churchwardens from the persons by law rateable to poor rates, and shall be assessed on the annual rateable value of the houses assessed for poor rates. The £6,500 a year was to be paid by the churchwardens to the tithe-owner after the 29th September, 1881, by two half-yearly payments. The cost of making and collecting the tithe-rates is to be paid by the ratepayers, and is to be exclusive of the £6,500. The owners of houses can redeem the tithes as if they were rent-charge under the Tithes Commutation Act of 1836.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE COMMUTATION ACT OF 1836[285].
Up to the time that this Act was passed, the tithe-owner claimed in kind the tenth part of the gross produce of the land, without contributing anything towards cultivation or improvement. In fact, the claim retarded both, and the object of the Act was to advance and not to keep back the cultivation and improvement of the land. The tithe was a tax upon labour and capital. The collection of tithes became both unpopular and obnoxious.
“Tithes are a tax,” says Archdeacon Paley, “not only upon industry, but upon that industry which feeds mankind. They operate as a bounty upon pasture. The burden of the whole tax falls upon tillage, that is, upon that precise mode of cultivation which it is the business of the State to relieve and remunerate in preference to every other.”[286]
“The tithe,” says Adam Smith, “is always a great discouragement both to the improvement of the landlords and to the cultivation of the farmers. The one cannot venture to make the most important, which are generally the most expensive, improvements, nor the other to raise the most valuable, which are generally, too, the most expensive, crops, when the Church, which lays out no part of the expense, is to share so very largely in the profit.”[287]
Agricultural depression, during the four years previous to 1836, and the growing discontent of agricultural tithe-payers, demanded a speedy solution of this problem. Statesmen tried to solve it before Lord Russell attempted the task. Lord Althorp tried it in 1833, and again in 1834, but failed on both occasions. His three principal propositions were: (1) To substitute a money payment in lieu of tithes in kind; (2) The rent-charge to bear a fixed proportion to the rent payable on the land; and (3) To redeem the tithe by twenty-five years’ purchase, or the creation of a rent-charge of equal value. The second proposition was the weakest. Any attempt to establish a proportion between the tithe and rent would end in failure, for the two had no similar foundation. Tithe was founded upon produce, but rent was not. Lord Althorp would make tithe to fluctuate with rent, retaining a fixed proportion of rent-charge. In principle it was a tax on capital, and therefore failed.
In 1835, Sir Robert Peel, when Prime Minister, introduced a Bill on the same subject. The principle contained in his Bill was that there should be a fixed money payment in the shape of a corn-rent in lieu of tithes, varying yearly according to the price of the three corns—wheat, barley, and oats; that it should be a voluntary arrangement between the tithe-owner and tithe-payer. The machinery to carry out this Bill was to appoint three Commissioners, viz., two by the Crown, and one by the Archbishop of Canterbury. These Commissioners should appoint Assistant Commissioners. Within a month after he had introduced this Bill, his Government went out of office, on the 8th of April, 1835.
Lord John Russell, a member of Lord Melbourne’s Government which succeeded Sir Robert Peel’s, took up the subject of tithes by introducing a Bill on the 9th of February, 1836. “Tithe,” said his lordship, “was a discouragement to industry, a penalty on skill, a heavy mulct on those who expended the most capital and displayed the greatest skill in the cultivation of the land.” These were true words; and it gives one pleasure to observe that he had the courage to boldly express his opinions. But his boldest statement was that “tithes were the property of the nation.” This remark has again and again been quoted by the opponents of tithes, and it has as often been contradicted by the defenders of tithes.
Lord Russell rejected Lord Althorp’s plan which related to the establishment of a proportion between tithe and rent. He adopted the machinery and some other parts of Sir Robert Peel’s Bill. The principles contained in Lord Russell’s Bill were that the landowner or tenant might agree with the tithe-owner to commute the tithe, whether paid by modus or composition or otherwise, into a corn-rent payable in money and permanent in quantity, but fluctuating yearly in value, so that in future any improved value given to land would not increase the amount of the rent-charge. The corns were to be wheat, oats, and barley. The base of calculation was to be the average tithe paid for the seven years previous to Christmas, 1835. The arrangement was to be voluntary up to the 1st October, 1838, then compulsory. The Bill was at first but tentative, and was materially changed in its progress through the House.
The Commutation Act made a great change. The tithes were no longer to be paid on the produce or increase of the land, as stated in the Mosaic Law, upon which law the payment of tithes in the Christian Church was founded. Before the passing of the Act, the tithe-owner had to sue the tithe-payer for arrears, but after the Act was passed, he had the power to distrain on the land for arrears, and the Act further empowers the tithe-owner to go on any other land belonging to the same landowner which may be in the same parish to recover the arrears of rent-charge, should the land from which the tithe was due be unable to satisfy his claim and costs. The tithe-owner has a prior claim to the landlord’s.
The following statement will serve as an illustration of Lord Russell’s Act. A money payment was fixed by the Tithe Commissioners on an average of seven years’ payment of tithes. Let this be £100; the third of which, or £33 6s. 8d., is for wheat, a similar sum for barley, and oats. The average prices of the three corns per bushel for the seven years’ previous to 1835 was—for wheat, 7s. 0¼d.; for barley, 3s. 11½d.; for oats, 2s. 9d. The tithe-payer has to pay in respect of his £100 rent-charge the price of 94·95 bushels of wheat, 168·42 bushels of barley, and 242·42 bushels of oats. Early in January of every year a duly authorized advertisement is inserted in the London Gazette by order of the Comptroller of Corn, stating the average prices of wheat, barley, and oats for the seven years then next preceding. The serious objection to this plan is that the average prices of the three cereals are calculated on the prices sold to the millers, which included the cost of freight of one or more middlemen, instead of calculating on the prices sold by the farmers. This false system enhances the value of the rent-charge.
Supposing that for any year, say 1885, wheat was advertised in the London Gazette at 5s. 1¾d. per bushel; barley, 3s. 11¾d.; oats, 2s. 8¾d., what has the tithe-owner to receive for £100 tithe-rent charge?
He receives (94·95 × 61¾d. + 168·42 × 47¾d. + 242·42 × 32¼d.) = £90 10s. 3½d.
The 80th section of the Act says that “any tenant who shall pay any such rent-charge shall be entitled to deduct the amount thereof from the rent payable by him to his landlord, and shall be allowed the same in account with his landlord.” There are few instances in which the tenants deduct the tithes from their rents according to this section. The general practice is that the farmer, in his lease or agreement, agrees to pay the tithes himself to the tithe-owner, and the rent is computed accordingly. The tenant therefore pays the rent-charge for the landlord. If a tenant should take a farm without making any such agreement, then the 80th section comes into force. But in the other case the landlord contracts himself out of the 80th section. There is no doubt that the Legislature in 1836 intended that the landlords should pay the rent-charges, and thus prevent any friction which may occur in the collection between the clergyman and his parishioners. To remove this friction, the Government brought in a Bill in 1890.
In the Commutation Act, although the rent-charge is to be paid by the landlord, yet the tithe-owner cannot bring an action against him for any arrears, but is bound by the act to distrain on the land. The tenant has therefore two landlords. Hence we find in years of agricultural depression that tenants who receive a deduction in the half-year’s rents from their landlord, seek also for a deduction from their second landlord, the tithe-owner. These applications are generally made to parochial incumbents, who prefer making the deduction asked for than run the odium resulting from distraints on the lands of their parishioners. Other tithe-owners, such as the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, impropriators, colleges, schools, etc., will make no deduction whatever, but sternly carry out the provisions of the Act by making distraints on the lands. Similar conduct was pursued before the passing of the Commutation Act. The parochial clergy, in the most sympathetic manner, accepted very low tithes in years of agricultural depression, but the clerical appropriators and all the impropriators strictly exacted every part of their tithes.
When the Commutation Bill was passing through Parliament, it was urged that many landlords were often absent from the country for a considerable time, and therefore if the rent-charges were not paid, the tithe-owners would find it very difficult to get payment from absent landlords, who had no agents in the country. The law was therefore framed to enable the tithe-owners to distrain on the lands for arrears, just in the same manner as the landlords could distrain for arrears of rent. This was the origin of dual landlordism as it appears in the Act.
The rent-charges are liable to parliamentary, parochial, county, and other rates, charges, and assessments, to which the tithes were liable. The great injustice of tithe-rent charges is that they are levied only upon agricultural produce, thus leaving free of such charges the extensive city and town lands. The lands in the vicinity of large cities and towns, which produced a rental £3 per acre, and tithe, 10s., when converted to building purposes produce enormous ground-rents, besides a reversion of the house property at the expiration of the leases. In such cases the tithe-owner receives no tithe on the building value. Thus the value of the landlord’s acre is increased one hundredfold, but the tithe is not increased, and thus the growing value of the land leaves no part of it for the support of religion.
Let us take, for example, the enormous house properties in London held by three dukes, viz., Westminster, Portland, and Bedford. They pay but a small amount of rent-charge compared with their rentals.
When the Commutation Act was passed, there was much boasting by the supporters of the Church as to the humility of the clergy who had not petitioned Parliament, or held any meetings to protest against the Bill while passing through Parliament. There was good reason for such silent acquiescence. The Church made a good bargain under the circumstances. The expenses of collecting the tithes in kind sometimes reached 50 per cent, of the gross value. The tithe-owner is now relieved of all this expense and trouble, and the Act has given him a firm security.
Sir James Caird, in his book, entitled, “Landed Interest,” says, “Since the passing of the Tithe Commutation Act, in 1836 to 1876, the rent of tithable land increased from thirty-three millions a year to fifty millions a year. The tithe-rent charge in 1836 was four millions, and is about the same still.” He then asserts that the Church has lost two millions a year by the Act. In 1890, there is a considerable reduction in the rentals throughout the country, owing to agricultural depression. The repeal of the Corn Laws has led to the introduction of such large quantities of wheat from foreign countries, that our farmers, with their heavy rents, rates, taxes, and tithe-rent charges, are unable to compete with foreign producers. It is calculated that what is produced in England and Wales for the maintenance of the population, would only suffice for three months out of the twelve, and that nine months’ provisions are imported from foreign countries and from Ireland and Scotland. It is therefore doubtful that if the Commutation Act were repealed, whether the tithe-owners would receive more from tithes in kind than the gross rent-charge of four millions per annum. But it would be utterly unreasonable, and practically impossible now, to repeal this Act, as Church defenders want, and have a re-valuation; and even some go so far as to assert that the tithe in kind should again be collected. Now, one statement is sufficient to overthrow these assertions. The main object of the Commutation Act of 1836 was to prevent tithe-owners from receiving an increased quantity of tithes from increased agricultural improvements. So long as this system continued, landlords and tenants were always unwilling to sink capital in agricultural improvements, because a large part of the profits would be claimed by the tithe-owners who had not expended a shilling to realize these profits. But all this was changed by the Commutation Act; and, consequently, both landlords and tenants have expended, since 1836, enormous sums of money in improvements. Therefore, if there were now a re-valuation, it would be estimated upon present improvements, which it was the main object of the Commutation Act to prevent. And the re-valuation would be a gross injustice on those who sank their money in improvements. On the other hand, I must admit, in justice to the tithe-owners, that the repeal of the Corn Laws had never been anticipated when the Act of 1836 was passed, and it is an unquestionable fact that the repeal of these laws has brought about the present diminution of rent-charges, which are based upon the prices of three cereals, the most important being wheat, which has been and will be the most important and extensive article of importation from foreign countries, and its growing diminution of cultivation in England and Wales. The tithe, or tithe-rent charge being national property, and no compensation being made when the Corn-Laws were repealed, which obviously would affect, in course of time, the prices of the cereals in England, it seems to me that an act of injustice to this class of property was perpetrated when the Corn-Laws were repealed, and when no counterbalancing compensation was given, or provision made in the Act to meet any future diminution of this property below par, which diminution may be traced to the operations of this Act. This national property should be carefully safeguarded, especially against landlords, who, in the majority, are the law-makers.