A history of tithes

by Henry William Clarke

This last passage is thus translated by Mr. Brewer and endorsed by the new editor, Mr. Lewis T. Dibdin, a barrister: “For those who are living in common (i.e. the monks) I need give no advice about dividing tithes or offerings among them.”[16] It is not only misleading, but bad scholarship to translate “portiones” by “tithes.” Decimæ is always the word used in Latin for tithes.

The quadripartite division of Church funds mentioned here by the Pope existed in Italy and France. In Spain and other countries the tripartite division was the custom.

Pope Sylvester, early in the fourth century, decreed, it is said, but with which I do not agree, that the revenues of the Church should be divided into four parts. One part should be assigned to the bishop for his maintenance; another part to the priests and deacons and the clergy in general; the third part to the reparation of the churches; and the fourth part to the poor, and to the sick and strangers.[17] Pope Simplicius, in the fifth century, mentions the fourfold division of the Church funds in his third epistle. Pope Gelasius (A.D. 501), in his ninth epistle, renews the regulation of Simplicius, and orders the bishops to divide their diocesan revenues into four portions and distribute them as above indicated. This was before the establishment of tithes.

Augustine, being a monk, could have no separate share of his own, and the probability is that all the offerings were divided into three but not necessarily equal parts. One part was for the maintenance and clothing of the bishop and his clergy; a portion was given to the poor and strangers, and a portion went towards the repairs of the church and erecting oratories and schools.

Blackstone states that “At the first establishment of parochial clergy, the tithes of the parish were distributed in a fourfold division: one for the use of the bishop; another for maintaining the fabric of the church; a third for the poor, and the fourth to provide for the incumbent. When the sees of the bishops became otherwise amply endowed, they were prohibited from demanding their usual share of these tithes, and the division was into three parts only.”[18]

Wharton, in his “Defence of Pluralities,” refers to the fourfold and then to the tripartite divisions in England.[19]

The rules and vows of the monks prevented them from being scattered over the diocese. They lived together in common and within their monastery. Their chief functions were to instruct the converts, who, when duly prepared, were sent forth by the bishop as ordained itinerant ministers to convert their countrymen in the distant parts of the diocese where there were no churches but crosses erected at convenient spots, and around these crosses the people assembled to hear the word of God, to have their children baptized, and to partake of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Collections were always made on such occasions, which the preachers brought and deposited at the bishop’s house for the common fund. When the itinerant preachers saw people eager and zealous in their religious duties, they reported the same to the bishop, who caused to be built for them out of the common fund some wooden chapels, which served as chapels of ease to the mother-church. In some cases the bishop had a wooden house constructed close to the chapel, where a priest could permanently reside.

It is very improbable that Augustine preached or solicited the payment of tithes. It is stated in the alleged laws of Edward the Confessor, that “Augustine preached the payment of tithes, which were granted by the king (Ethelbert), and confirmed by the barons and people, but afterwards, by the instigation of the devil, many detained them; and those priests who were rich were not very careful in getting them,” etc.[20]

These so-called laws are pure fabrications. Thorpe takes his text from a Harleian manuscript written about the beginning of the 14th century. Internal evidence condemns their genuineness, for in law xi. there is a reference to the Church having been exempted from paying Danegeld, and adds, “This liberty had been preserved by Holy Church even to the time of William the Younger, called Rufus, who sought aid from the barons of England in order to keep Normandy from his brother Robert when he went to Jerusalem; and they granted him four shillings from every ploughland, not excepting Holy Church,” etc.[21]

The Rev. Morris Fuller, rector of Ryburgh, states, without the slightest authority, “May it not have a reference to the time of Ethelbert, who began to reign in Kent A.D. 566, when tithes were by law paid to the clergy, and the time of Ina, King of Wessex, who began to reign A.D. 688, when there was a law by which they were then paid.”[22] There is not one word about tithes in the laws of Ethelbert and Ina. John Pulman, a barrister, ventilated exactly the same opinions in 1864 in his “Anti-State Church Association Unmasked.” Fuller copied the erroneous views of Pulman.