King Edgar’s Laws.
Edgar succeeded his brother Edwig, or Edwy, in 959; died 975.
In the following law, Mr. Thorpe takes his text from a collection of two important manuscripts; (1) Corpus Christi MS. 265 (K. 2); (2) Cott. Nero, A. 1, both apparently written in the middle of the 11th century.
“This is the Ordinance[153] that King Edgar, with the counsel of his Witan, ordained, in praise of God and in honour to himself and for the behoof of all his people.”
Act 1. “These then are first, that God’s churches be entitled to every right; and that every tithe be rendered to the old minster to which the district belongs, and that be then so paid, both from a thane’s inland[154] and from geneat-land[155] so as the plough traverses it.”
Act 2. “But if there be any thane who on his bocland has a church at which there is a burial place, let him give the third part of his own tithe to his church. If any one have a church at which there is not a burial-place, then of the nine parts, let him give to his priest what he will; and let every church-scot go to the old minster according to every free hearth; and let plough-alms be paid when it shall be fifteen days over Easter.”
Act 3. “And let a tithe of every young be paid by Pentecost; and of the fruits of the earth by the equinox; and every church-scot by Martinmas on peril of the full wite which the doom-book specifies; and if any one will not then pay the tithe, as we have ordained, let the King’s reeve go thereto, and the bishop’s, and the mass-priest of the minster, and take by force a tenth part for the minster to which it is due; and assign to him the ninth part; and let the eight parts be divided into two; and let the landlord take possession of half, half the bishop; be it a king’s man, be it a thane’s.”[156]
In these laws there is a threefold division of churches. (1) The “old minster,” that is the senior church, which name was anciently given to the monastic or cathedral church. (2) A church with a burial place. (3) A church without a burial place. “The old minster,” says Selden, “was the ancientest church or monastery where he hears God’s service, which I understand not otherwise than of any church or monastery, that is his parish church or monastery. They were in many places the only oratories and auditories that the near inhabitants did their devotions in.”[157]
This is the first English law which expressly appropriates tithes. They were previously appropriated according to custom. In the first mention of tithes which is found in Theodore’s “Penitential,” it is a customary and not a legal appropriation.