A history of tithes

by Henry William Clarke

Cnute’s Laws.

These laws are divided into three branches, (1) Ecclesiastical, (2) Secular, (3) Constitutiones de Foresta.

The text from which Mr. Thorpe prints (1) and (2), is Cott. Nero., A. 1, which was written in the middle of the eleventh century. The text of (3) is from Spelman’s “Glossarium Archæologicum.” There are twenty-six laws in (1); eighty-five in (2); thirty-four in (3).[225]

In A.D. 1018 at a Witenagemót at Oxford, Cnute confirmed the laws of Edgar. “The laws of Edgar,” says Lappenberg,[226] “had shown particular regard to the Danes dwelling in England, while in those of Ethelred, as far as we are acquainted with them, similar provisions do not appear.” This was the true reason for Edgar’s laws having been adopted as a model by Cnute. He also made use, however, of Ethelred’s laws, especially those on Ecclesiastical subjects. It is remarkable to find very many of the articles of “Grith and Mund” and of “Church Grith” embodied in Cnute’s laws, although much pains have been taken to prove that these laws were spurious and unauthentic. And yet we find that no less than thirty-six of the forty-four articles in the Church Grith law are incorporated in Cnute’s laws! It is interesting to notice how Lord Selborne disposes of the remaining eight. Five (articles 36 to 39 and 43), he says, are of that historical, rhetorical, expostulatory and didactic character as are not proper for laws which could in that or any similar form be enacted by any legislature. One was omitted apparently as superfluous (i.e. 41: “If a monk or mass-priest become altogether an apostate, let him be for ever excommunicated, unless he the more readily submit to his duty.”) Two remain which were evidently, on consideration, disallowed. One is for the tripartite division of tithes, of which there is no trace in any later collection of Anglo-Saxon laws, and one is rejected (art. 32) which gave extraordinary aid and protection to abbots and their stewards.[227] Now by rejecting article 32, are we to suppose that the abbots and their stewards were not to be protected by the king’s reeves? for the article states, “And the King commands all his reeves in every place that ye protect the abbots on all secular occasions as ye best may; as ye desire to have God’s or my friendship, that ye aid their stewards everywhere to right, that they themselves may the more uninterruptedly dwell closely in their minsters, and live according to rule.”[228]

It has escaped Lord Selborne’s notice that Cnute’s confirmation of Edgar’s law, which grants one-third of the tithes to the manorial priests, comes to the same thing as the threefold division of tithes in the Church Grith law. The principle is the same in both, namely, that the manorial priest, or the priest of the mother church, was legally entitled to no more than one-third part of the tithes, and that the modern use of taking all the tithes was contrary to all rules, laws, and customs. They were never originally given, and would never be given to the priests on any such condition, namely, to convert them all to their own personal use—in fact, to be their own private property or income, as is the case now.

Now the great and important question is, “When and in what way did the manorial priest acquire the other two parts?” How did the third, asks Lord Selborne, pass into the whole? His answer is, “There is not, as far as I know, so much even as a canon of any council, or a decree of any Pope in the nature of a legislative act, enlarging the right, or appropriating tithes generally, to parish churches in England or elsewhere.”[229]

His conclusion is, that as the laity were at liberty to give their tithes to whatever church they wished, “they might with equal right and reason endow parish churches on their own estates with the predial tithes of their lands within the parishes; and the probability was that they would do so. No more likely explanation of the general prevalence of such parochial endowments, where churches were not appropriated to monasteries, has yet been suggested.”[230]

Lord Selborne’s statement is very plausible, but will not stand investigation. The incumbents were only trustees, and as such received all the tithes. They had a common law right to a usufructuary part only, so had the poor and strangers and the church fabric. But in the various changes which took place in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the trustees gave what they liked of the tithes to the poor, and also placed the expenses of repairing the church fabric upon the parishioners. It is too much to assume that the poor and strangers were in a pecuniary position to appeal, as Lord Selborne and others assert, to the superior courts and claim their share of the tithes. A body representing the poor with funds at their disposal might have done so, but it is really too much to expect that the individual poor person had his or her “legal remedy,” as they assert, against the parson for his or her part of the tithes. The fact is, that the incumbents began in the thirteenth century to consider themselves not as trustees but actual owners of all the tithes of their parishes, and doled out to the poor some alms, and therefore kept up a semblance of assisting the poor. It is remarkable that lay and clerical rectors in receipt of the rectorial tithes are bound, up to the present time, to keep the chancel of the church in proper repair, and if blown down, to rebuild it. This is a remnant of the original claim on the tithes to repair the fabric of the church. The monastic rectors set the example of totally neglecting to repair the churches appropriated to them, and the parishioners, for their own comfort and convenience, collected funds among themselves to keep the churches in repair, although it is a fact that the owner of the rectorial tithes was bound by common and canon law to keep in repair the whole church fabric, including not only the chancel but also the body of the church.[231] The secular rectors were not slow in following the example of the religious rectors, and in course of time they saddled the parishioners with the expenses of repairing the body of the church. The present trustees have therefore misappropriated all the tithes to their own use. Again, it is stated by Lord Selborne and others that when the poor laws were enacted, Parliament would have made the tithe-owners contribute to the support of the poor, if it thought they were bound to set apart a portion of the tithes for this purpose. But who were then the law-makers? The majority of them were then in possession of the extensive monastic tithes, and landed properties. It is well known that the properties were handed over to them subject to the same burdens which had been attached to the same properties when they were in possession of the monastic bodies; but the new owners ignored these burdens.

CHAPTER XI.
THE FIRST POOR LAW ACT.

The first Act for the relief of the poor was passed in 1535 (27 Henry VIII., c. xxv.).

“All governors of shires, cities, towns, etc., shall find and keep every aged poor and impotent person which was born or dwelt three years within the same limit, by way of voluntary and charitable alms, etc., with such convenient alms as shall be thought meet by their discretion,” etc.

It was in this year (1535) that the lesser monasteries were dissolved. So the first poor law was enacted, to provide for the poor and impotent, in the same year in which the dissolution occurred.

The total annual revenue of all the monastic and chantry estates, together with the episcopal and chapter estates surrendered to the Crown, was about £300,000, which, if carefully managed—say by a Board of Commissioners—to provide for the poor, would now realize an annual revenue of eight and a half millions sterling, sufficiently adequate to defray all the expenses of the poor of England and Wales, without a penny expense to the ratepayers. All the vast properties were disgracefully granted away to unprincipled, poor, avaricious favourites and courtiers of Henry VIII., and his children.

It was Cromwell who, in his desire to promote the Reformation, advised the King to divide the abbey lands among the nobles and gentry, either by grant or sale on easy terms; and that by being thus bound by the sureties of private interest, they might always oppose any return towards the dominion of Rome.[232]

Cromwell’s views turned out to be correct, as we know from the conduct of members of Parliament who were in possession of monastic property. In Mary’s reign her Parliament, which was so obsequious in all matters of religion, adhered with a firm grasp to their Church lands. Nor could the papal supremacy be re-established by Mary until her sanction was given that they should be allowed the full enjoyment of their Abbey lands, and we may ascribe the zeal of the same class, in bringing back and preserving the reformed Church under Elizabeth, to a similar motive; that, according to the general laws of human nature, they gave a readier reception to truth, which made their estates more secure.[233] They would be any religion, provided they retained their church lands.[234]

The 31 Henry VIII., c. xiii., expressly states that the laity in possession of the lands of the dissolved monasteries were to maintain hospitality. But they never did any such thing, nor were they required to do so. They increased the rentals of the monastic, episcopal and capitular lands fourfold more than had previously been paid, for ecclesiastical lands were let at about one-fourth of their rack-rental value. A good deal of the land was tithe-free, and therefore higher rentals were demanded than for lands which paid tithes. These men made the poor laws; their increased rentals increased pauperism, but they had only a small fractional part to pay themselves towards the maintenance of the poor; the bulk of the rates for the relief of the poor (increased in number by the conduct of these new landlords) was paid by people unconnected with the land.

“The poor of England,” says Blackstone, “till the time of Henry VIII., subsisted entirely upon private benevolence, and the charity of well-disposed Christians. For though it appears by the ‘Mirror’ that by the Common Law the poor were to be ‘sustained by parsons, rectors of the church, and the parishioners, so that none of them die for default of sustenance;’ and though by the statutes 12 Rich. II., c. vii. and 19 Henry VII., c. xii. the poor are directed to be sustained in the cities or towns wherein they were born or where they had dwelt for three years (which seem to be the first rudiments of parish settlements), yet till the statute of 27 Henry VIII., c. xxvi., I find no compulsory method chalked out for this purpose; but the poor seem to have been left to such relief as the humanity of their neighbours would afford them. The monasteries were, in particular, their principal resource.”[235]

Here the “Mirror” distinctly states that by Common Law the parson and his parishioners sustained the poor, and by the same Common Law the parson, as trustee, received all the tithes, and by the same law the poor had a claim to a part of those tithes.

It is a favourite argument with Lord Selborne, and others who follow him, that the part allotted out of the tithes for the poor would be insufficient for their support. But he omits the important fact that in one of Edgar’s canons it was enacted that the people should also distribute alms to the poor, so that the part allotted out of the tithes was not intended to be the whole maintenance which the poor should receive.[236]

In A.D. 960, when Edgar’s laws and canons were enacted, the population of England was about 800,000, with about 1,000,000 acres under cultivation. The provision for the poor was more than sufficient.

Mr. Blunt, in his “History of the Reformation,” tells us that “A large body of almost starving people was formed by the ruined monks, and those who had been maintained by them, either in labour or charity. Rents were enormously raised by those to whom the monastic grants fell by grants or purchase, the new landlords exacting three or four times more than had been required by the old church landlords. The poverty of the poor and the wealth of the rich drew away class from class and introduced that disintegration of society, which caused so much trouble in the 17th century.”[237]

Sir Simon Degge, in his “Parson’s Counsellor,” says “That there are many pluralists in England that hardly see either of their livings in a year; that all the greatest and best livings in the kingdom are now (1676) held by pluralists, and served by mean curates; that thereby many poor souls are neglected in danger to perish; that in many places two great parishes are left to the care of two boys, who came but the other day from school, and perhaps fitter to be there still, while the shepherd that takes the fleece either feasts it out in his lord’s family or takes his ease upon a prebend or deanery; that it is no other than hiring out the sacred trust to pitiful mercenaries at the cheapest rate; that it is a thing of high scandal for one to receive the fees and commit the work to some inferior or raw practitioners; that one end of the law of residence (21 Henry VIII.) was to maintain hospitality; that the best livings in the kingdom are served with poor curates and no hospitality; that we are now in a far worse condition than before making the Act, for that dispensations from Rome were slow and costly, and that there are ten dispensations for pluralities now to one then.” He further added that the revenues of the Church were divided into four parts, and referred to Pope Sylvester as having originated this division; and then used these words:—“And I would wish every clergyman to remember that the poor have a share in the tithes with him.”[238]

Referring to this author’s words, Lord Selborne says, “Sir Simon Degge was a (not particularly distinguished) lawyer of Charles the Second’s time. For his citation of Pope Sylvester, etc., he was called to account in his own day, and in a later edition he defended it lamely enough, maintaining on the authority of some Roman canonists the genuineness of the extracts from synodical Acts of Pope Sylvester published by Isidore, and it must therefore be supposed, of the forgeries in the same collection also.”[239]

He carefully avoids giving us the name of the writer who called Degge to account. It was the Rev. Henry Wharton, the author of the “Anglia Sacra.”

In 1693 this boy pluralist—the author of “A Defence of Pluralities”—published, under the name of Anthony Harmer, “A Specimen of some Errors and Defects,” in Bishop Burnet’s “History of the Reformation.” For an account of the malicious spirit in which this book was written, see Burnet’s Preface to the third volume of his “History of the Reformation.” “Here is a writer,” says the Bishop, “who is wanting in Christian temper and in decency, and I regret to see such facts and industry soured and spoiled with so ill a temper.”[240]

Dr. Cave, author of “Historia Literaria,” who employed Wharton as his amanuensis, in a letter to Archbishop Tillotson, fully corroborates Bishop Burnet’s character of Wharton. The bishop knew who Anthony Harmer was, and his caustic remarks on Wharton’s “Anglia Sacra” were well deserved.[241]

While Lord Selborne traduced the character of Degge, “as a not particularly distinguished lawyer,” he has not a word to say against Henry Wharton’s legion of blunders. I shall prove that Sir Simon Degge does not deserve the above character.

Sir Simon Degge was a judge of West Wales in 1660; recorder of Derby in 1661; Knighted in 1669; a bencher of the Inner Temple; in 1673 was high sheriff of Derbyshire. His “Parson’s Counsellor and Law of Tithes” was a leading text book for many years. He dedicated it to a bishop, and in his sixth and last edition in his lifetime, he writes: “To the parsons, vicars, and the rest of the reverend clergy of the Church of England. Your kind acceptance of the former impressions of the book has encouraged me this sixth time to appear in public.” He died in 1704.

In this edition he says, “Nor is there any doubt but that by the Canon Law the poor ought to have a share in the revenues of the church, which was all I endeavoured to prove.”[242]

Lord Selborne quotes his closing admonition from the seventh revised edition of 1820, i.e. 116 years after Degge’s death: “By all which it appears that originally the poor had a share of the tithe.”[243] Degge never wrote these words, and it is not fair nor just to a dead author to publish a garbled edition of his work, and to quote against him from this garbled edition. I have given above his own words from his last edition published in 1703.

The 13 Eliz. c. xx. enacts that the lessor absent above eighty days in a year should lose one year’s profits of the benefice, to be distributed by the Ordinary among the poor of the parish.

A subsequent statute (18 Eliz. c. xi. s. 7) confirms the above; and provides that the Ordinary shall grant sequestration of the profits, and in default that every parishioner may retain his tithes; and the churchwarden will take the other profits of the benefice to distribute among the poor.

The rights of the Poor to a portion of the tithes were given by (1) The Act of 1014; (2) 15 Rich. II. c. vi.; (3) 13 Eliz. c. xx.; (4) 18 Eliz. c. xi. s. 7.

When we come to the Act for the relief of the Poor, (43 Eliz. c. ii.) it provides for the taxation of every occupier of lands, houses, tithes impropriate, propriation of tithes, coal mines and underwoods. But it does not take any portion of the tithes for the support of the poor; hence it is argued that the poor had no claim to any portion of the tithes. The fact is, that previously there was no machinery by which their claims could have been carried out. The parochial incumbents were trustees of their property, and as such had many claims on their incomes, the poor had to put up with whatever the trustees wished to give them. And finally the trustees closed upon all the tithes as their own.

There is a remarkable instance on record, in which certain parochial rectors closed upon all the tithes of their parishes.

Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester, founded the Hospital of St. Cross, near Winchester, by his charter dated A.D. 1137, in which he named sixteen churches, with their appurtenances and appendages, with which he endowed the Hospital. The commuted value of the tithes of these sixteen parish churches is £12,006 per annum. Now, the Hospital has only the tithe-rent charges, amounting to £3,462 per annum, of four out of the sixteen. The Hospital lost all the tithes of twelve parishes, and the twelve rectors are now in possession of them, giving in lieu the insignificant sum of £44 per annum, in the aggregate, as pensions.

Now, when did these twelve rectors close upon all the tithes? It was before the Reformation, because in the reign of Henry VIII. the Hospital had only the four churches. It is highly probable that the twelve rectors closed upon all the tithes during the period of the protracted quarrels between the Bishops of Winchester and the Priors of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, as to who should have the appointment of the master of the Hospital.[244]

The parochial incumbents commenced about the beginning of the fourteenth century to close upon all the tithes, and to ignore the claims of poor or church fabric upon these revenues. So at the period of the Reformation, the incumbents claimed to have a prescriptive right to all the tithes.[245]

CHAPTER XII.
CANONS FOR PAYMENT OF TITHES.

Alexander III., who was Pope from 1159-1181, was very active in writing to archbishops and bishops of foreign churches, commanding them to order the people to pay tithes. In 1170 he wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and to the Bishop of Winchester on the subject. The former prelate held a provincial synod in 1175, at Westminster, at which were present King Henry II., his crowned son, and all the bishops and abbots of the province. At this Synod the Pope’s letter for the payment of tithes was read. In compliance with such orders from a foreign bishop, the Synod commanded all tithes to be paid on crops from the ground and from trees, of young animals, wool, lambs, butter, cheese, etc. Anathemas and excommunications were hurled against all and every one who would not pay tithes.

The Archbishop of York, twenty years after (1195), held a similar synod in his province, which also commanded the payment of tithes; and this synod, like that of Westminster, wound up its proceedings with anathemas and excommunications—the great bugbear of those days—against all who would not pay tithes. These archbishops were only acting up to orders from Rome. They were tools in the hands of the Pope, to carry out the orders of a foreign bishop who usurped supremacy over all other Christian churches.

The most important canon of the English canon law for the payment of tithes, was that passed in A.D. 1295 (23 Edw. I.), at a provincial synod held in London by Robert Winchelsey, Archbishop of Canterbury (1294-1313). The canon sets forth that on account of the various quarrels, contentions, and scandal, arising between rectors and their parishioners, as regards several customs then in use of paying tithes, some uniform claim was necessary to be set forth. It then ordains that tithes were to be paid on the gross value of all crops from the ground, from trees, herbs, and hay. It also sets forth how tithes were to be paid on the produce of animals, lambs, and wool. If sheep were fed in one place in winter and in a different place in summer, the tithe was to be divided. Similarly, if any one should buy or sell sheep in the middle of the time, and it was known from which parish they came, the tithe of these sheep must be divided, as it followed the two residences. But if it were not known, then that church should have the whole tithe within whose limits at the time of shearing they were found. It further states how milk was to be tithed, and that tithes were to be paid for the pasture of animals, according to their number, and the number of days. Tithes were to be paid on mills, fisheries, bees, etc., etc., which were yearly renewed. There was nothing in this canon about paying tithes on timber wood, because it was part of the inheritance of the land.

The canon then passed from predial to personal tithes. Artificers and merchants were to pay tithes of the profits of their business; and carpenters, blacksmiths, weavers, and all other workmen working for wages, were to pay tithes of their wages. This meant that after deducting all reasonable and necessary expenses, they were to pay the tenth part of the profits.

The rector was also to receive his mortuary fees, viz., the clothes worn by the person before dying, also a horse and cow. These fees were to be paid as a satisfaction to the Church for the personal tithes which he had forgotten, or wilfully neglected to pay in his lifetime.[246] Henry VIII. fixed a money payment in lieu of the mortuary fees. This was the origin of burial fees. If parishioners would not pay their tithes, they were to be excluded from the Church until they did so; and if they continued contumacious, other ecclesiastical censures would follow. An Act was passed, 2 and 3 Edward VI. c. xiii. s. 9, that modified and limited the payments of personal tithes. “That in all such places where handicraftsmen have used to pay their tithes within these forty years, the same custom of payment of tithes to be observed and to continue; and if any person refuse to pay his personal tithes, etc., it shall be lawful for the Ordinary of the same diocese to call the same party before him, and by his discretion to examine him by all lawful and reasonable means, other than by the party’s own corporal oath, concerning the true payment of the said tithes.”

The main difficulty in collecting personal tithes arises in the want of any method of discovery.

In A.D. 1343, a canon was passed at a provincial synod of Canterbury, held at St. Paul’s, London, that all manner of timber was tithable.[247] This canon led to bitter strife, because wood had not been previously tithable; for, like mines and quarries, it was thought to be a part of the inheritance of the land. Timber was not tithable in the important canon of 1295. It does not yield annual profits; yet the tithe of wood is due by common law right.

In reference to making canons at synodical meetings, it was both profitable and pleasant work for ecclesiastics. The laymen who had to pay were not permitted to be present to express an opinion in the matter. The tithe system was a very elastic band. It was stretched as population and agriculture increased. We have the principle of development exhibited in a remarkable degree in the tithe question. As the power and influence of the bishops of Rome increased in the dark and middle ages, so did tithes. Yet we are unblushingly told that tithes were the free voluntary offerings of private individuals. I admit this to a limited extent. The question is, Did all the landowners freely and voluntarily grant tithes of the produce of their lands to the rectors of parishes? The synodical meetings to which I have referred, prove that they were not so given, but were arbitrarily exacted by the anathemas of the Church, and by ecclesiastical and civil courts.

Things became tithable by the canons of 1295 and 1343, which were not thought of in the days of Kings Offa and Ethelwulf. Provincial synodical canons of the dark and middle ages had a pretending binding force upon the people. But those ecclesiastics had put the last straw upon the donkey’s (people’s) back in their synod of 1343. The young British House of Commons, then only seventy-eight years old, was roused to opposition. In 1343, 1344, 1347, and 1351, the House petitioned Edward III. against the canon of 1343, but the petitions led to no satisfactory result.[248] The Commons succeeded, however, in 1371, in limiting the power of the canon. It was enacted[249] that trees of twenty years’ growth and upward should not be tithable, and that if a suit should be commenced in any spiritual court for the payment of such tithes, a prohibition should issue. This was the first victory gained by the House of Commons as regards tithes. The failures in the above years were caused by ecclesiastical influence exercised over the King. There had been previous Acts on Church questions, such as the Mortmain Act of 1297, which was a much bolder step than that of 1372, but it was rather the production of King Edward I. himself than any action of the House of Commons, owing to the nervous state of feeling among the lay nobility to check the extensive alienation of property to the monasteries which deprived the King of help towards the defence of the country. The nobility were also becoming extremely jealous of the growing power and luxurious living of the monastic bodies, and also of the Church dignitaries.

The Statute of Mortmain had forbidden the King’s subjects from bequeathing lands and tenements to the religiosi without the King’s license. But the shrewd, cunning monks eluded the Act by licenses of alienation. Here we have another instance of ecclesiastical ingenuity in devising plans to evade the law. Testators left property in perpetuity to support priests to pray for their souls. Hence originated thousands of chantries throughout the country, but they followed the same fate as the monasteries. Much landed property had thus indirectly passed into the hands of ecclesiastics. In 1531, an Act was passed that all such wills would not in future hold good for more than twenty years. The Legislature thought that twenty years’ prayers were sufficient to get a testator’s soul out of purgatory, and that twenty years’ revenue amply remunerated the priest for his services.[250]

The House of Commons was not a century old when a Bill was brought in, “That no statute or ordinance of the clergy be granted without the assent of the Commons, and that the Commons be not subjected to any constitutions which the clergy make for their own advantage, without the assent of the Commons, for the clergy do not wish to be subjected to any statute or ordinances made by the Commons without the consent of the clergy.”

From the angry tone of the Commons on the canon of 1343, may we not naturally infer that if the House existed in 1175 or 1195, or at an earlier date, or was a little older in 1295, when the most important canon was passed, that they would have made a similar energetic protest that “They would not be subjected to any canons which the clergy made for their own advantage without the assent of the Commons”? I have already fully explained that the popes, archbishops, bishops, chapters, secular clergy and monks, took advantage of their position in the dark and middle ages in imposing on the credulity of the simple and innocent laypeople, by pretending that the Christian priesthood were the successors of the Mosaic priesthood, and therefore were entitled by Divine right to the tithes enacted by the Mosaic laws, and even a great deal more of the tithes which those cunning and crafty ecclesiastics added thereto by their numerous canons passed by them at councils and synods where no layman dare appear.

In the “Englishman’s Brief for his National Church,” to which I have before referred, it is asked (Q. 21), “Is it not hard on the cultivators of land that they should have to pay tithes on its produce?” The answer given is, that there is really no hardship in the matter. “If a person rents land which in every respect is tithe-free, he pays so much more rent for it; if it be subject to tithes, he pays so much less. In any case he pays the same amount,” etc. This answer was written for the purpose of misleading the reader. The landlord will try to get as high a rent for his land which is not tithe-free as the landlord who has his land tithe-free. But another important question arises. Why should the whole burden of paying tithes fall upon land? There was a time when personal tithes were also paid. Scripture was quoted in support of these tithes. But they are all now abolished, and only land—and not all the land—has to pay tithes.

The Earl of Selborne makes the following remarks in his pamphlet: “The Endowment and Establishment of the Church of England.” “The rectorial tithes of Selborne, which belong to a college at Oxford,[251] were in 1882, £447; the vicarial tithes, which alone belong of right to the Vicar of Selborne, were £336. The rectorial or lay tithes of two parishes in Basingstoke also belong Magdalen, Oxford, were in the same year £1,617. A lady received the rectorial tithes of Bishop’s Sutton, amounting to £1,431; and one of the London Companies, those of Chertsey, amounting to £1,112.” I have placed in the Appendix a statement as to the recipients of the clerical appropriations; also the impropriations of colleges, schools, hospitals and charities, as they appear in the Tithe Commutation Return of 1887.

In the “Brief,” it is asked (Q. 28): “Were not many of the Endowments which the Church of England now holds given to the Church of Rome?” No, is the answer, and it adds, “Not a single endowment was given to the Church of Rome.” Both question and answer are misleading. The Church of England was never the Church of Rome. The correct way to put the question, but which would not suit the misleading object the author of the “Brief” had in view, is, “Were not almost all the endowments, which the Church of England now holds, given to her when she held the same doctrines as the Church of Rome?” Yes. The main object of the grants and endowments of land, churches, tithes, etc. was that perpetual prayers should be offered up by the recipients and their successors for the souls of the benefactors, of their families and relatives. The benefactors believed in the doctrine of purgatory, and in the efficacy of prayers to bring their souls out of it. The Church of England in pre-Reformation days believed and taught the same lucrative doctrine. It also taught that works of charity and not faith were stepping-stones to heaven. Two churches, E and R, held the same doctrines, and both received large endowments in tithes, lands, etc., in support of such doctrines. For centuries E was in possession of such endowments, but in the sixteenth century E repudiated the doctrines by the teaching of which E had obtained the endowments from certain benefactors who otherwise would not have given them. Parliament permitted E to hold the ancient endowments on certain conditions specified in Acts of Parliament, and E now dishonestly ignores the conditions, holds the doctrines repudiated, but keeps a firm grip on the ancient endowments. E has but a parliamentary title to the ancient endowments. And as such, Parliament has the right to change and convert the endowments, if it should think proper, to other purposes. At the period of the Reformation there was no physical transfer of the endowments from the old to the new trustees; from incumbents who would not conform to the Acts of Parliament, to those who did conform. The incumbents who were in possession of the endowments before the Acts were passed, and who conformed to the Acts when passed, were left in possession of them, and as their successors similarly conformed to the Acts, they peaceably entered into possession; so there was no physical transfer of the property, but there was a change of trustees when the old trustees declined to conform to the Acts of Parliament, but no change when they did conform. It is therefore very clear that the Church of England holds her ancient endowments by a parliamentary title, just as the Sovereign does the throne. And the logical sequence is that Parliament has the right, if it should think proper, to convert the endowments to any other use, especially when the present holders are frequently ignoring the conditions upon which they were granted at the Reformation.

It is not quite correct to say at page 52, in the “Brief,” that all the monastic endowments have been swept away and confiscated to the Crown. The properties of the alien priories are now enjoyed by some of our wealthy colleges and public schools. Henry VIII. had endowed, out of the monastic properties, six bishoprics and chapters, of which five bishoprics exist at the present day. Again, Christ Church, Oxford, the aristocratic college for the sons of our nobility, was built and endowed out of the property of over twenty monasteries which were confiscated, with the full sanction of both King and Pope, in order to supply Cardinal Wolsey with funds to build and endow “Cardinal College,” Oxford. This college receives at present £40,000 per annum gross from tithe-rent charges. Again, the eight conventual chapters were not only left in possession of all their monastic endowments, but also received in augmentation of their incomes a great deal of the properties of some of the dissolved monasteries. For example, Canterbury received almost all the endowments of St. Augustine’s monastery.

The year 1836 was a turning-point in the episcopal and capitular endowments; the 6 & 7 William IV. c. lxxvii. created the Ecclesiastical Commission. The commissioners utilized the endowments in order to provide for the spiritual destitution of large parishes. Up to 1890, upwards of 5,700 benefices have received £971,700 per annum in perpetuity towards augmenting the incumbent’s incomes. We must add to this the enormous capital sums which have been expended out of the Common Fund of the Commissioners, in erecting some thousands of new parsonages, repairing and clearing off mortgages of others. The average net income of the “Common Fund” is more than one million a year. The gross income of the “Common Fund” of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, on the 31st August, 1890, was £1,722,709; it disbursed that year £1,140,334, leaving a balance of £582,374.[252]

Fully four-fifths of the properties in the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners has come, partly from the ancient public landed endowments granted to archbishops, bishops, and chapters by Anglo-Saxon kings with the consent of their respective Witenagemóts; and partly from the monastic rectorial tithes which were transferred by the Crown to the above corporations in lieu or exchange of landed estates surrendered to the Crown at the period of the Reformation.

The duties performed by the parochial priests for the tithes were their regular duties, including (1) saying mass, (2) praying for the dead, and (3) invoking the saints. But by Acts of Parliament the mass has been suppressed, the dead by some are not prayed for, and the saints are no longer invoked by some who now enjoy the tithe-rent charges.

It is stated in the “Brief” that “when the principal parochial endowments were given, papal supremacy was not admitted by the Church of England, and Roman doctrines were not held.” I have already explained the active part the popes and legates of Rome had taken to introduce the payment of tithes in England. There is not a shadow of doubt that the supremacy of the popes of Rome was admitted by the Church of England when tithes, the principal endowment, commenced to be paid first by custom and afterwards by compulsion in the Anglo-Saxon Church. The Roman doctrines followed the supremacy. The archbishops from the time of Augustine received their palls from the Pope, and Pope Boniface V., in a letter dated A.D. 624, conferred the primacy of all Britain on Justus, Archbishop of Canterbury. The letter contained these remarkable words, “Hanc autem ecclesiam utpote specialiter consistentem sub potestate et tuitione sanctæ Romanæ ecclesiæ.”[253]

Again in 634 Pope Honorius I. conferred the primacy to Canterbury, and again in 668 Pope Vitalian gave the supremacy over all England to Archbishop Theodore.[254]

It must be noted that the endowments of the Church were not all given at once, but were spread over a period of about six hundred years. The period will be longer if we take the time in which the waste and barren lands of Edward VI.’s Act were brought into cultivation; and again the lands and corn-rents awarded by the Inclosure Acts of last and present centuries in lieu of tithes. So the above quotation from the “Brief,” like a great deal more of the book, is nothing but twaddle. The parochial endowments commenced on a small scale in the latter part of the seventh century, when landowners commenced to build churches upon their own estates, and they increased in the eighth and ninth. First the endowments consisted of church, parsonage and glebe; then tithes were added first as free-will offerings. The Norman Conquest made great changes in the Church of England. The Norman monks, who looked on the Pope and obeyed him as the supreme head of the Church, introduced a new plan by inducing landowners to appropriate their churches with their glebe and tithe endowments to them. To give an idea of the enormous impetus which had been given to the erection of monasteries from 1066 to 1215, or 150 years, there were 427 erected in England, possessing extensive endowments in lands and tithes. Add 130 up to A.D. 1066, and we get 557, as the total number in 1215. I have selected 1215, for by the Council of Lateran tithes were henceforth to be paid to the parochial clergy, thus abolishing from 1215 the system of appropriating parochial tithes to monasteries and other bodies. The decadence of building and endowing monasteries commenced with the reign of Richard I. (1189). Tithes were not given to monasteries until after 1066, and from this year to 1215 they had received the tithes of some thousands of parishes. Of course they put vicars in the parishes to perform the religious duties, and allowed them at first certain stipends, but afterwards the small tithes. The question now is, In what respect did the Church of England differ in doctrines and discipline from the Church of Rome from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries, and from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries? The parochial system continued in course of formation for 600 years. During this time the Church received the principal parochial endowments. It cannot be stated with truth that the “Roman doctrines were not held by the Church of England” during this period of 600 years. Neither can it be said with truth that “papal supremacy was not admitted by the Church of England” during the same period.

There is no doubt whatever that the original donors of Church endowments would never have given them to men who not only ignored but utterly detested their most dearly cherished doctrinal views, viz: (1) the mass, (2) prayers for the dead, and (3) praying to the saints. To support this statement, I shall give a quotation from a speech delivered in the House of Lords by Archbishop Howley, in 1840, when speaking on the Cathedral Bill. “They must consider,” he says, “in what times many of the donations of property were made. The persons who have made them might, and probably would, if living in the present day, wish to see them applied in a very different manner.” These remarks were made in reply to the following observations delivered in the same debate by Dr. Sumner, Bishop of Winchester. “What right” he asked, “had the Legislature so to deal with property given for certain specific purposes, not by the State, but by individuals, for ever?” The Archbishop pointedly stated in the speech quoted above, that the “certain specific purposes” existed no longer.[255]

It is again stated in the “Brief” that tithes are not endowments(!) and that they were given “without any specific conditions being attached to their payment.” Is it reasonable to think that tithes were given to the parish priest without a “quid pro quo”? Is not the “quid pro quo” implied in his office? The “Brief” further observes at p. 52: “It is an interesting work for all zealous people concerned in such matters to see, as a matter of public trust, that those who now possess such property[256] shall fulfil the conditions attached to its original grant or bequest.” I cannot defend for one moment the enrichment of the nobility and gentry of this country with Church spoliation. But I ask myself the question: “Do the Bishops of Chester, Gloucester and Bristol, Oxford and Peterborough and their respective chapters, ‘fulfil the conditions attached to the original grant or bequest of the property which they possess?’” We must not forget that the King who endowed them with monastic property, passed the Act commonly called “The Whip with its Six Strings,” and, further, that he died in the full belief of the doctrines of the Church of Rome, then the doctrines of the Church of England, of which he was the supreme head.

CHAPTER XIII.
APPROPRIATION OF TITHES TO MONASTERIES.

From A.D. 1000 to A.D. 1215 is a remarkable period in the history of the English Church and English monasteries. The monasteries were built and richly endowed with lands, churches, and tithes. All these were conveyed by deeds of gifts to their perpetual use. The benefactions were given for the special purpose of prayers being perpetually said by the monks in their respective churches for the repose of the souls of the donors and their relatives. In some cases the monasteries received the tithes without any churches; but when they received churches with the cure of souls, then the monastic corporations became rectors by virtue of which they were in possession of all the tithes of each parish. For many centuries the benefactions were conveyed by lay owners, without any reference to the king or bishop, for they were considered as private property, which the owner may dispose of to whom he pleased. Subsequently it was necessary, before such grants could be given, to obtain the licence of the king and bishop in order to complete the scheme. After the Conquest, the Norman monks invented the system of having churches with their tithes appropriated to them. Previous to the Conquest there were no appropriation of churches, but patrons granted to monasteries, bishops or chapters the advowsons of the churches. As religious services had to be performed in the church appropriated, the monastic body had either to depute one of their own fraternity in Holy Orders to do the duty, or to appoint a deputy or vicar to act for them and to whom they gave most miserable stipends. This latter alternative became the general rule. But the abbot or prior took care to get the lion’s share of both parochial tithes and offerings. The capitular bodies, nuns and religious military orders imitated the practice of the monks and received similar licences for appropriating churches from the king and bishop. The same system was adopted by single persons, such as deans, chancellors, treasurers, precentors, and archdeacons. Even parochial incumbents had nominated vicars to do their work, and they themselves became sinecure rectors. The pretext which the monks had given to gain appropriations was to obtain two parts of the tithes and profits, leaving a third to the parish. These two parts were for the relief of the poor and the repair of the church; but in course of time they neglected both poor and fabric, and the parishioners, for their own comfort, had actually subscribed towards a fabric fund and hence originated church rates which were, like tithes, at first purely voluntary, but subsequently became compulsory.

When the practice of appropriating churches, with their glebe and tithe endowments, was first introduced by the Norman monks in England, the patrons or owners considered that they were transferring a freehold property, and therefore thought the conveyance did not require the bishop’s confirmation. The patron conveyed his gift by placing the deed of conveyance and a knife or cup upon the altar of the church of the monastery, as this was then the usual mode of livery of seisin. In the deeds of conveyances some are given “Canonicis ibidem Deo servientibus,” etc.; others, “Canonicis regularibus ibidem Deo servientibus,” etc.; and, “Monachis ibidem Deo servientibus,” etc.

The lay patrons sometimes exercised the power of discharging the incumbent of his church and appointing another in his place. The church was not as now, the incumbent’s freehold property. He then held his position according to the will of the patron. We have sufficient evidence on this point. It is stated in the Acts of the Third Lateran Council of A.D. 1179-80, “So far has the boldness of laymen been carried, that they collate clerks to churches without institution from the bishops, and remove them at their will; and, besides this, they commonly dispose as they please of the possessions and goods of churches.” This council condemned “arbitrary consecrations,” as Selden calls them, of laymen. “Before the Council of Lateran (evidently the third), any man might give his tithes to what spiritual person he would.”[257] Four English bishops sat at this council. The Council gave the death-blow to arbitrary appropriations of tithes by laymen, without the consent of the bishop, to whatever church or monastery they pleased. It was ordained by this Council that no religious orders should receive any appropriations of churches or tithes without the assent of the bishop. In Anglo-Saxon times the tithes were given to the parish churches, but from A.D. 1066 to A.D. 1200, they were also given to monasteries, bishops, and capitular corporations. “Arbitrary consecrations of tithes,” says Blackstone, “were in general use till the time of King John, which was probably owing to the intrigues of the regular clergy or monks of the Benedictine and other rules, under Archbishop Dunstan and his successors, who endeavoured to wean the people from paying their dues to the secular or parochial clergy. A layman, who was obliged to pay his tithes somewhere, might think it good policy to erect an abbey, and there pay them to his own monks, or grant them to some abbey already erected, and thus have masses for ever sung for his soul.”[258] Not only had laymen appropriated tithes to episcopal, capitular, and monastic corporations, but, in Lord Selborne’s opinion, they may also have given them to parish churches. Hence, he thinks, the true origin of the endowment of parish churches with tithes.

The decree of the Third Lateran Council, making void arbitrary appropriations of tithes, was at first opposed by the laymen of England, and so the practice continued. But the English hierarchy from that time opposed the practice, and by degrees it gradually ceased.

Pope Innocent III., in a decretal epistle which he addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury about A.D. 1200, owing to the continued arbitrary appropriation of tithes by laymen in face of the decrees of the Third Lateran Council, enjoined the payment of tithes to the parsons of the respective parishes. But the epistle had no binding force on the lay subjects of this kingdom.

The arbitrary appropriation of tithes by landowners to monasteries, although according to their rights, was contrary to canon law.[259] At a national synod held at Westminster in 1125 (25 Henry I.) it was constituted that no abbot, prior, monk, or clergyman should accept a church or tithe or any other ecclesiastical benefice from a layman without the authority and assent of his own bishop. The lay patrons paid no attention to this canon, because they thought it was an ecclesiastical encroachment upon the rights of property. It was a part of the supremacy over the civil power which the Church was then usurping wherever she found weak instruments. In the reigns of Richard I. and John, however, laymen’s investitures gradually ceased. The Church became supreme. Archbishop Anselm was a very strong supporter of papal canons which inhibited the custom of lay investiture. The struggle continued after his death. The practice at the present time is, the patron nominates or presents, the bishop institutes, and the archdeacon inducts. But before the reigns of Richard I. and John, the lay patrons nominated, instituted, and inducted. The bishop had no voice in the matter. The practice, as I have already stated, was condemned and made void by the Third Lateran Council held in 1180.

At the General Council of Lateran, held in 1215, the arbitrary appropriation of tithes to monasteries or other ecclesiastical corporations which were not parochial, was strongly condemned, and the tithes were commanded to be paid in future to the parish churches. This council therefore gave the parsons the parochial right to tithes. It was certainly very wrong to hand over the parochial tithes to outsiders who did no parochial work and took no interest whatever in the parishes from which they drew large incomes, while the parochial clergy who did the work were most miserably remunerated. But we find that when the parsons received the tithes they became wealthy, indolent, and vicious. We have the trustworthy testimony of Wickliffe himself for this statement. No man could possibly write or speak stronger than he did against the conduct of the monks and secular clergy of his time.

In King John’s reign the papal power was supreme in England, and therefore the canon law gained strength as England became weak, particularly after Pope Innocent III. issued his interdict against the kingdom.

The decrees of the Council of Lateran, A.D. 1215, had not disturbed the then existing appropriations of tithes to monasteries, but were directed towards the future, and made void all new grants of tithes to monasteries after the date of this council. The council is a landmark for the following arrangements: (1) The tithes of parishes, which before A.D. 1215 could have been given by the owners of the property to any church they pleased, either in or out of the kingdom, were henceforth to be given only to the parsons of the parishes from which they arose. (2) The tithes which had been appropriated to corporations outside of the parishes, continued to be given to them. (3) The tithes which the parsons possessed before A.D. 1215 could not be appropriated afterwards to any other person. Therefore the tithes which rectors received were those which they possessed at the date of this council, and all tithes created after A.D. 1215.

The parish system which commenced in its germ about A.D. 686 was completed about A.D. 1200, thus covering a period of over five hundred years in its development.

From the beginning of the 13th century, tithes became payable to the parsons of the parishes by common right. But monasteries and chapters had to show their title to them either by grants or by prescriptions. We may thus trace tithes in England from their origin, (1) as free-will offerings; (2) compulsory payment to some religious body, and (3) compulsory payment only to the incumbents of parishes. It is an error to state that all the tithes of England were paid freely. I have stated enough to show that it was not so.

Tithes appropriated to monasteries were of two kinds—(1) Monastical, (2) Parochial. With reference to (1), the monastic bodies performed no spiritual functions for the tithes which the benefactors had granted them out of demesnes which had no churches annexed. For these tithes they had distributed alms to the sick, the poor, and stranger who called at their gates; and said masses perpetually in their own churches for the souls of their founders and benefactors, and those of their heirs and relatives.

As regards the second case, they received churches, with the tithes and glebe lands annexed thereto, as a free gift from the owners, and had therefore the cure of souls. They purchased the advowsons of other churches, and even built churches themselves, of which as owners they possessed the advowsons. At first if the churches were near the monasteries, they sent members of their community, who were in holy orders, to perform the religious duties. But when the churches were situated at a considerable distance, and became numerous, the monastic bodies employed curates or vicars to perform the religious duties. These at first received no part of the tithes as their salaries, but only a small sum of money, just what the monks liked to give, and the miserable sum they allowed varied from year to year as it suited the caprices of the monks, who received all the tithes, offerings, and oblations. In the king’s licence, permitting the appropriation, there was the usual condition which the monks ignored, “that an adequate portion be allowed the vicar out of the profits of the church.” The wretched salaries of the curates or vicars produced great scandal and complaints. As the curate or vicar was liable to be dismissed at any moment by the appropriator, he was not likely to insist too rigidly on the sufficiency of his stipend, and so the miserable salary was continued after the passing of Richard II.’s Act. The bishops were much to blame in this matter. Some of them had been monks themselves from their youth; others were anxious to be buried among the monks, or their anniversaries kept by them. These considerations induced some, but not all of the bishops, to favour the appropriation of churches to monasteries. Again, the rich monasteries were able to bribe the bishops, and even the papal curia, and they did so; they allowed the bishops pensions out of the tithes, and even appropriated some of their churches, i.e. the rectorial tithes of their churches, to the bishop’s table, on condition that he, as bishop, allowed them to receive churches with all their endowments from the lay owners.[260]

The preaching friars and John Wickliffe opened the people’s eyes as to the monastic luxuries, and the poverty of the vicars whom they employed to do their work. The age of building monasteries and granting extravagant endowments had passed, never again to be revived, but there was a growing tendency to sweep all the monasteries away. The scandalous manner in which the monastic bodies had paid the vicars induced Parliament to pass the following Act in 1392.[261]

“In Appropriation of Benefices there shall be Provision Made for the Poor and the Vicar.”

“In every licence from henceforth to be made in the chancery of the appropriation of any parish church, it shall be expressly contained and comprised that the diocesan of the place, upon the appropriation of such churches, shall ordain, according to the value of such churches, a convenient sum of money to be paid and distributed yearly of the fruits and profits of the same churches, by those that shall have the said churches in proper use, and by their successors, to the poor parishioners of the said churches in aid of their living and sustenance for ever; and also that the vicar shall be well and sufficiently endowed.”

Lord Selborne remarks on this statute: “This law had nothing to do with tithes in particular, or with fruits and profits of any churches not appropriated to monasteries. If there had been then (i.e. in 1391) a law for a partition of tithes, as against all rectors, giving the poor one-third, or any other definite share, no such legislation could have been necessary; nothing would have been wanting, except simply to enforce that existing law.”[262]

These remarks are open to grave objections. The law refers to a provision being made for the vicar as well as for the poor. When a church was appropriated to a monastery, it simply meant that the monastic corporation appropriated all the endowments, lands and tithes of that church together with all oblations. The monastic corporation placed a deputy, called a vicar, in the parish to perform the ecclesiastical duties, and allowed him such a wretchedly poor stipend, insufficient to keep soul and body together. As for the poor of the parish, it is too much to expect, as Lord Selborne remarks above, that the poor of 1391, or 500 years ago, had their legal remedy against the powerful and rich monastic corporation in order to enforce their common law and legal rights to one-third of the tithes. Why, in this enlightened and advanced age, as compared with 1391, the poor are coerced and defrauded of their rights by the wealthy, who know that they have not the means “to enforce their rights” in the superior courts—a luxury which can only be enjoyed by those who have a good banking account.

Lord Selborne says the law had nothing to do with tithes in particular, and yet the provision for the vicar, namely the small tithes, formed his main endowments. This law, no doubt, referred to all the endowments of the vicar. The statute did not move the monastic bodies, who had still the power of removing at pleasure the vicar of the parish, until the Act 4 Henry IV. c. xii. (1402) was passed. “That from henceforth in every church appropriated, or to be appropriated, a secular person be ordained perpetual vicar, canonically instituted and inducted to the same, and convenably endowed by the discretion of the Ordinary, to do divine service, to inform the people and to keep hospitality there.” What is meant by keeping hospitality? To provide for the poor out of the endowments. Here is a list of the small tithes:—

Sir John de Cobham, appropriated Horton Kirby Church to Cobham Chantry. The Bishop of Rochester, when confirming this appropriation in 1378, assigned the vicar all the oblations, obventions, the tithe of flax, hemp, milk, butter, cheese, cattle, calves, wool, lambs, geese, ducks, pigs, eggs, wax, honey, apples, peas, pigeons, fisheries of ponds, rivers and lakes, fowling, merchandizing, trade, herbage, pasture, feedings, mills; all the herbage of the churchyard, and all other small tithes arising within the said parish. The bishop taxed all at seven marks = £4 13s. 4d. per annum. The chantry was to repair the chancel and parsonage house, but the vicar was to pay the procurations of the archdeacon. At the dissolution of monasteries, the parsonage and advowson were given to the Crown, who granted them away by sale. At the present time the impropriators receive £848, and Queen’s College, Oxford, £200 12s. tithe-rent charge per annum from Horton parish, whilst the vicar receives £266 12s. from the small tithes above stated, and has thirty-four acres of glebe. The present patron is H. B. Rashleigh, who is also the vicar, and his curate is C. Rashleigh. This is a good specimen parish as regards the distribution of tithes, and also the patronage, for £1,050 of the rent charge is in lay hands, and the advowson or patronage is a marketable commodity, and now in possession of the present vicar. It is also important to note that the vicarage has been augmented by Queen Anne’s bounty by the purchase of an estate at Brockhull in the same parish. We note that J. K. Rashleigh is vicar of Luxulyan, diocese of Truro; patron, Sir C. Rashleigh, Bart. There is an immense number of livings in possession of incumbents, obtained either by purchase or by family patronage.

The appropriator gave the vicar the small tithes because he found them more difficult to collect than the great tithes.

It is unreasonable to state that an unmarried parish priest with a free parsonage house would be allowed to enjoy all these tithes as his own income. No, for he was to keep hospitality. The rectors or monastic bodies, who had the great tithes, kept the chancel of the church in repair. And up to the present time, the owners of the great or rectorial tithes, and not the owners of any other church endowment, are legally bound to keep the chancels in good repair, and if they fall down, to build them up again. What is this but a compliance with the original division of tithes by which a portion was set apart for the repairs of the church. And, as I shall show, these repairs included the whole building, but in course of time the rectors kept the tithes and shifted this responsibility on the shoulders of the parishioners, which led to church rates. They did the same as regards the portion for the poor, who were pecuniarily unable to maintain their claims in the higher courts, to which legal remedy Lord Selborne refers.

In King Edmund’s law[263] the bishops were ordered to keep the churches in repair, as the whole tithes of the parish went to them; but in Canute’s laws of 1018, all the parishioners were ordered to keep their churches in repair. Canute’s change from the bishops to the parishioners can only be explained from the fact that the dilapidated condition of the churches, the result of the Danish invasions, and a general destruction of property throughout the country, made the funds at the bishops’ disposal insufficient for the purpose, and so the burden was thrown generally upon the inhabitants. But when the country increased in riches and prosperity, the liability for the repairs of the chancel was again, and is still, placed on the owners of the great or rectorial tithes.

The following canon 4 is taken from the provincial constitutions of John Stratford, Archbishop of Canterbury, made in a provincial council in London, 10th of October, 1342.

“Whereas ecclesiastical men are entrusted with dispensing of tithes and other things belonging to the church, that the poor by their prudent management may not be defrauded; yet the religious of our province having churches appropriate, do so apply the fruits of them to their own use, as to give nothing in charity to the poor parishioners, being regenerate sons of the churches, to whom they are bound to do this more than to strangers; by which means such as owe tithes and ecclesiastical dues become not only indevout, but invaders, destroyers and disturbers, to the danger of their own souls and theirs, and to the scandal of many; therefore with the approbation of this sacred council, we ordain that the said religious, having ecclesiastical benefices appropriate, be compelled by the bishops every year to distribute to the poor parishioners a certain portion of their benefices, in alms to be moderated at the discretion of the bishops in proportion to the value of such benefices, under pain of sequestration of the fruits and profits thereof, till they yield a reasonable obedience in the premisses.”[264]

The inference to be drawn from this canon, and from the subsequent statute of 15 Richard II. c. vi. (1391), is that the poor had a claim on the tithes and other endowments; and this claim is admitted by Bishop Stubbs. But Lord Selborne, Fuller, and others, stoutly deny this claim. No doubt, the canon and Act refer to appropriated churches, when the avaricious monks retained all the tithes to their own use. But the inference above is generally applicable to all tithes. If not, what right had a provincial synod to make a canon, compelling appropriators who had neglected the poor to distribute to the poor, under the severe penalty of sequestration, a portion of the appropriated property? and almost all this property, unquestionably, consisted of tithes.

The vicar-perpetual of Henry IV.’s Act must not be confounded with the later “perpetual curate,” who by a recent Act is now styled “vicar.” The former is endowed with the small or vicarial tithes; the latter is not so endowed.

The most important parts of Henry IV.’s Act are, (1) permanently endowing the vicar, which, as regards tithes, equalled one-third part; and (2) giving the vicar as permanent a position in the parish as the rector.[265] But the autocratic freehold tenure has been grossly abused. This abuse, within the past thirty years, has much increased, owing to the lack of discipline and inability of the bishops to correct insubordinate and law-breaking parsons.

There is no parochial council to check the conduct and actions of the autocratic endowed incumbent. He snaps his fingers at the parishioners, bishop, archdeacon, rural dean, or any other episcopal officer. He is the bishop of his own parish. His freehold tenure and endowments make him independent and absolute master for life within his parochial limits.

CHAPTER XIV.
INFEUDATIONS—EXEMPTIONS FROM PAYMENT OF TITHES.

Infeudations are the conveyances of the perpetual right of tithes to laymen.

The Third Council of Lateran, held in A.D. 1180, was the first to forbid infeudations. Such conveyances, although frequent on the Continent, were not so in England until the general dissolution of monasteries. Very little of the lands, tenements, and tithes in possession of the alien priories was given away or sold to laymen when Parliament had at various times alienated the same. The properties were bestowed on other monasteries and on colleges for religious and educational purposes. In the latter case, the owners were clergymen. This was not so with the enormous properties of the dissolved monasteries and chantries which Parliament had given to Henry VIII. and Edward VI. The amount of confiscated property was about £250,000 per annum. If this vast property had been placed under the management of Commissioners, it would realize an annual income at the present time, of eight and a half millions, quite sufficient to defray all the expenses which are now paid by the ratepayers for the maintenance of the poor in England and Wales.

I shall deal here only with the tithes, which form but a small part of the immense properties which were then confiscated, and which Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth lavishly bestowed on the numerous poor hungry court favourites and court flunkeys, who were the ancestors of many who are now high in the peerage. The War of the Roses had swept away the ancient nobility of England, and in their places sprang up a crowd of poor hungry men who surrounded Henry VIII. and his children. Nothing could possibly turn out more opportune for them than the confiscation of the vast monastic properties which Parliament handed over to Henry VIII. and Edward VI. to do with them as they thought proper. What could possibly be better for these poor court sycophants? We have only to open out the county histories of the country, and there we shall find very sad accounts of the manner in which the vast monastic estates had been given away to the ancestors of some of the aristocracy. Archbishops, bishops, and chapters had to surrender to the Crown numerous manors which had been given by Anglo-Saxon kings to their predecessors out of folcland which was the national property of the Anglo-Saxons. These manors were afterwards given away by the Crown to these poor hungry court favourites, and thus formed the title-deeds of many aristocratic families who now carry high heads in the country.

The 32 Henry VIII. c. viii. gave the king power (1) to grant the properties to whom he wished; (2) that such persons should be free from the payment of tithes if such lands had been exempted previous to the dissolution; and (3) that the lay-owners of monastic lands could claim tithes from them. So, then, laymen who claimed tithes were called impropriators, because they were improper persons to receive them. But the same may have been said of the lay-monks, nuns, military orders, etc., who had at one time been in the receipt of tithes.

The total tithe-rent charge gross is £4,053,985; of this, lay impropriators receive £962,290, or a little less than one-fourth. Therefore we may take it as a general statement that laymen receive about one-fourth of the tithes. To this must be added the large estates which are tithe-free, and from which enhanced rents are received.