The Confessional.
The Confessional was a powerful instrument in the hands of the clergy by which they obtained the payment of tithes. During the archiepiscopate of Theodore (668-690) auricular confession began to take the place of public discipline. Theodore’s “Penitentiary,” which was published with his authority, directed confessors how to conduct themselves in hearing confessions and how to enjoin penance. Confession to the priest was made necessary, not in order to obtain his absolution, but to be informed what sort of penance was required for every offence, and for the several degrees and circumstances of it. The most difficult part of the priest’s office was to proportion the private penance to the crime, and Theodore’s “Penitentiary” was looked upon as the best rule in this particular.[39] It is remarkable that the earliest mention of tithes in England is found in Theodore’s “Penitentiary.”
CHAPTER V.
WORKS ATTRIBUTED TO EGBERT, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK (734-766).
Briefly stated, they are—
(1) The “Penitential,” a document of the tenth century.[40] There are four books prefaced with twenty-one canons. The first book only is Egbert’s.
(2) The “Confessional and Penitential.” The fourth book only of the “Penitential” is Egbert’s. And as regards the “Confessional,” he may have translated it.
(3) The Excerptions. Mr. Thorpe takes these from Cott.: Nero, A. 1. They are in Latin, numbering 163. The first twenty-one are ninth century canons. There is another different compilation of excerpts in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, K. 2. The excerptions which appear in these two manuscripts are not Egbert’s.[41]
Sir H. Spelman, Wilkins,[42] Johnson,[43] Bishop Kennett, Dr. Lingard,[44] Kemble, Thorpe,[45] and others believed that the Excerptions were written in the eighth century by the archbishop himself, and some of these writers have referred to them in support of the threefold division of tithes. But there is ample internal evidence in the canons themselves to condemn them as the genuine production of Egbert, or that they could have been written during his archiepiscopate.
If any one should take the trouble or be obliged to refer to Dr. Lingard’s History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, published in two volumes in 1845, he will observe the numerous references which this Roman Catholic historian makes to Egbert’s Excerptions and Penitentials, but which are now condemned as spurious. This is a serious matter for his Church, because he mainly supports many important acts of discipline in the Anglo-Saxon Church by such references. But when the references are condemned as spurious, all his arguments founded upon them fall of course to the ground.
Mr. Haddan and Bishop Stubbs say that the excerptions are not Egbert’s. What does Mr. Selden say? “An antient collection of divers canons written about the time of Henry the First, with this inscription of equal age, ‘Incipiunt excerptiones Domini Egberti Archiepiscopi Eburace Civitatis, de jure sacerdotali’ [= Here begin the excerptions of the Lord Egbert, archbishop of the city of York, concerning the duty of priests], hath these words, ‘Ut unusquisque sacerdos cunctos sibi pertinentes erudiat, ut sciant qualitèr decimas totius facultatis ecclesiis divinis debitè offerant.’ [That every priest teach all that belong to him to know how they are to offer the tithes of all their substance in a due manner to the churches of God.] And immediately follows, ‘Ut ipsi sacerdotes à populis suscipiant decimas, et nomina eorum, quicunque dederint, scripta habeant, et secundum authoritatem canonicam coram testibus dividant, et ad ornamentum ecclesiæ primam eligant partem, secundam autem ad usum pauperum atque perigrinorum per eorum manus misericorditèr cum omni humilitate dispensent; tertiam verò sibimet ipsis sacerdotes reservent?” [That the priests themselves receive the tithes of the people, and write down their names and what they have given, and divide it according to canonical authority in the presence of witnesses, and choose the first part for the ornament of the church, and distribute the second part with their own hands tenderly and with all humility for the use of the poor and strangers; and let the priests reserve the third part for themselves.][46]
“If the credit of this,” continues Selden, “be valued by the inscription, then it is about 850 years old. For, that Egbert lived Archbishop of York from the year 743 (?) to 767 (?). But the authority of that title must undergo censure. Whoever made it, supposed that Egbert gathered that law and the rest joined with it out of some former church constitutions; neither doth the name ‘Excerptions’ denote otherwise. But in that collection some whole constitutions occur in the same syllables, as they are in the Capitularies of Charles the Great, as that of ‘unicuique ecclesiæ unus mansque integer,’ etc., and some others, which could not be known to Egbert, that died in the last year of Pipin, father to Charles. How came he then by that? And how may we believe that Egbert was the author of any part of those Excerptions? unless you excuse it with that use of the middle times which often inserted into one body and under one name laws of different ages. But admit that; yet, what is ‘secundum canonicam autoritatem coram testibus dividant’? The ancientest ‘canonica autoritas’ for dividing tithes before witnesses is an old Imperial, attributed in some editions to the eleventh year of the reign of Charles the Great, being King of France; in others to the Emperor Lothar the First. But refer it to either of them, and it will be divers years later than Egbert’s death. And other mixed passages there plainly show that whosesoever the collection was, much of it was taken out of the Imperial Capitularies, none of which were made in Egbert’s time.”[47]
This is a reasonable and argumentative statement of facts. In addition to the above, I may refer to the seventh canon, “That all priests pray assiduously for the life and empire of our lord the emperor, and for the health of his sons and daughters.” Again, canon 24 is found in Charlemagne’s Capitulary of A.D. 813. Egbert died on the 19th November, 766,[48] and Charles became King of France in 768. These dates are very important in this controversy.
The first twenty-one canons are from the Audain manuscript in the monastery of St. Herbert in the Ardennes. Canons 22 to 28 inclusive are taken from other Gallican Capitulars. These twenty-eight canons were made between A.D. 789 and 816. The remaining 135 canons are taken from other foreign sources.
It is quite unnecessary to introduce into the discussion of the threefold division of tithes in England, doubtful canons, such as the “Excerptions” of Egbert and other writings copied from them. There are, without these, sufficient solid, genuine facts at our command with which to prove the threefold division of tithes in England, and these are stated further on.
CHAPTER VI.
THE FIRST PUBLIC LAY LAW FOR THE PAYMENT OF TITHES.
The first law making the payment of tithes legally imperative was enacted in 779 by Charles, King of France, in a general assembly of his estates, spiritual and temporal, viz., “Concerning tithes, it is ordained that every man give his tithe, and that they be distributed by the bishop’s command.” [De decimis, ut unusquisque suam decimam donet, atque per jussionem pontificis dispensentur.][49]
Charles’s civil law had only enforced by coercion the existing ecclesiastical law or custom of payment of tithes; and the ecclesiastical law was founded upon the Levitical law; but I hold that the Levitical law, as regards tithes, was not binding on Christians. In the New Testament there is no reference whatever to tithes to be given to the Christian priesthood. None of the apostles claimed tithes from their followers.
“The growing habit,” says Kemble, “of looking upon the clergy as the successors and representatives of the Levites under the old law may very likely have given the impulse to that claim which they set up to the payment of tithes by the laity.”[50]
The establishment of the right in England followed the same course as that in France.
It is important to give Milman’s observations on the working of the above law.
“On the whole body,” he says, “of the clergy, Charlemagne bestowed the legal claim to tithes. Already, under the Merovingians, the clergy had given significant hints that the law of Leviticus was the perpetual law of God. Pepin had commanded the payment of tithes for the celebration of peculiar litanies during a period of famine. Charlemagne made it a law of the empire; he enacted it in its most strict and comprehensive form as investing the clergy in a right to the tenth of the substance and of the labour alike of freemen and serf.”
“The collection of tithes was regulated by compulsory statutes; the clergy took note of all who paid or refused to pay; four or eight, or more, jurymen were summoned from each parish as witnesses for the claims disputed; the contumacious were three times summoned; if still obstinate, they were excluded from the Church; if they still refused to pay, they were fined over and above the whole tithe, six solidi; if further contumacious, the recusant’s house was shut up; if he attempted to enter it, he was cast into prison to await the judgment of the next plea of the Crown. The tithe was due on all produce, even on animals. The tithe was usually divided into three portions, one for the maintenance of the Church, the second for the poor, the third for the clergy; the bishop sometimes claimed a fourth. He was the arbiter of the distribution; he assigned the necessary portion for the Church, and appointed that of the clergy. This tithe was by no means a spontaneous votive offering of the whole Christian people. It was a tax imposed by imperial authority and enforced by imperial power. It had caused one, if not more than one, sanguinary insurrection among the Saxons. It was submitted to in other parts of the empire, not without strong reluctance. Even Alcuin ventured to suggest that if the apostles of Christ had demanded tithes, they would not have been so successful in the propagation of the Gospel.”[51]