Bishop Stubbs makes a vital remark on (3). “Tithes are mentioned,” he says, “by Theodore in the genuine ‘Penitential,’ in a way that proves the duty of making the payment, but not the right of the clergy to the sole use of them.”[29]
Theodore encouraged landowners to build churches on their estates by permitting them to have the appointment of the priests who were to officiate in them.
It is remarkable that Bede, in his ecclesiastical history, mentions the word “decima” only once. It appears in bk. iv. c. 29. Writing of Bishop Eadbert, the successor of Bishop Cuthbert at Lindisfarne, he says, “So that according to the law, he gave every year the tenth part, not only of four-footed beasts, but also of all corn and fruit, as also of garments to the poor.” [Ita ut juxta legem, omnibus annis decimam, non solum quadrupedum, verum etiam frugum omnium atque pomorum, necnon et vestimentorum partem, pauperibus daret]. The law referred to here was the Mosaic or Divine law. Eadbert was made bishop A.D. 688, two years before Theodore died. He gave the tenth part to the poor. Bede’s history comes down to A.D. 734, and yet this is the only instance in which tithe is mentioned in his writings, and then it was given to the poor—strong evidence as to the common law right of the poor to a share of the tithe.
Dr. Lingard quotes another passage from Bede, which he says appears to him to allude to tithes, viz., “That there was not a village in the remotest parts of Northumbria which could escape the payment of tribute to the bishop.”[30] If Bede alluded to tithes, he would have written decimæ and not tributa. Tributum is from tribuo, which is allied to tribus, i.e., pars, and so tribus = to divide into parts. Hence tributa = parts or portions. Bede also uses the word “portiones” to express the same idea without any reference whatever to tithes. Theodore, in his “Penitential,” uses the two words, tributum and decimæ in the same passage with separate meanings. Tributum—a tax, contribution, tribute, collection, subscription.[31]
Before leaving Theodore’s genuine “Penitential,” I must refer to the second revised edition of Mr. J. S. Brewer’s “Endowments and Establishment of the Church of England,” by Chancellor Lewis T. Dibdin, published in 1885. In his preface, the new editor “gratefully acknowledges the valuable aid he received from Dr. Wace and the Bishop of Chester (Dr. Stubbs, now Bishop of Oxford) through more than one difficulty on endowments as to which he was in doubt.”[32]
“With regard,” he says, “to tripartition of tithes, the documents quoted in support of it are (as far as I am aware) a spurious passage in the ‘Penitential’ of archbishop Theodore; see Stubbs’ ‘Councils,’ iii. 173, n. 203.”[33] In referring to the volume quoted here, I find that the writers say nothing about this spurious passage, but at p. 203, Haddan and Stubbs give the three passages in Theodore’s “Penitential,” which “Penitential” they state is genuine, and to which I referred in a previous page. Then Mr. Dibdin adds, “An alleged law of Ethelred, 1013.” Where did he get 1013? He refers to Wilkins’s “Anglo-Saxon Laws,” p. 106, but Wilkins gives it as a genuine law of Ethelred enacted in 1014. The fact that he did not transfer this law to his “Concilia” is undoubtedly no argument against its genuineness as a law. I refer for additional information on the law of 1014 to another part of this book, where the Church-Grith law of Ethelred is fully discussed.
“I will not put,” says Blackstone, “the title of the clergy to tithes upon any Divine right, though such a right certainly commenced, and I believe as certainly ceased, with the Jewish theocracy. Yet an honourable and competent maintenance for the ministers of the gospel is undoubtedly jure divino; whatever the particular mode of that maintenance may be.”[34] I quite agree with these remarks. But as Mr. Serjeant Stephens, in his Commentaries, says, “The institution of tithes in its specific form is odious to the people and unsatisfactory to the political economists.”[35]
Landowners’ Churches.
The nobility and landed gentry were not slow in fully appreciating the advantages of resident over itinerant priests. Some of the princes, in changing from place to place, selected certain of the clergy to accompany them for the performance of divine service for their families. The Thanes followed their example and appointed chaplains, for they felt the great inconvenience, especially in winter, in attending services at the mother-church, which might have been at a very considerable distance from their residences. The villagers were even in a worse condition. To remedy these inconveniences, the landowners commenced slowly to erect churches on their estates about A.D. 686, but more actively about A.D. 700. The limits of these were conterminous with the extent of their properties. Hence we find some of the old parishes of very unequal extent. It is impossible to state exactly, in the absence of documentary evidence, the origin of the modern parish churches and much less their endowments. “At the original endowment,” Blackstone says, “of parish churches, the freehold of the church, the churchyard, the parsonage house, the glebe, and the tithes of the parish were vested in the then parson by the bounty of the donor.” Blackstone states here the parson’s common law right to the tithes, but after he receives them the same common law right obliges him to share them according to the usage and canons of the Church. The bishop was originally the recipient and distributor of all Church revenues. The parochial incumbents had taken his place and were bound to distribute them according to the original custom. It would never suit for the poor to collect their own share of the tithes. As Bishop Kennett says, the parish priest was the bank.