A history of tithes

by Henry William Clarke

Ethelred had returned from exile in the spring of 1014, after which this law was passed.

In reference to the above words in italics, Lord Selborne says that Edward (975-979) reigned between Edgar and Ethelred, and therefore Edgar could not have been the last;[183] but it must be remarked also that Edred and Edwy who reigned between Edmund and Edgar, are also omitted in this 43rd article. Then why had the framers of the whole law particularized the names of Athelstan, Edmund, and Edgar, and leave out Edred, Edwy, and Edward? If we look at the arrangement of the Anglo-Saxon laws, we find the order as above, viz., the laws of Athelstan, next those of Edmund, and next the laws of Edgar, none by Edward, then come the laws of Ethelred. The 43rd Article referred to these laws, and therefore Edgar’s were the last. So there is no force in Lord Selborne’s remarks.

King Ethelred’s law on the threefold division of tithes has been found so important in the discussion on the tripartite division that Lord Selborne has devoted all his eminent legal powers, though unsuccessfully, to upset this Anglo-Saxon law. (1) His first witnesses are Selden, Spelman, Lambarde, Wheelock, and John Johnson.

“Selden and Spelman,” says Lord Selborne, “were well acquainted with the Worcester (Cottonian) manuscript; and as neither of them made mention of this Church Grith document, it may be inferred that they did not regard it as having the character or the authority of a law.”[184]

“If Lambarde, Wheelock, and John Johnson,” continues Lord Selborne, “were acquainted with either manuscript—Church and Mund, and Church Grith—(the contrary supposition is improbable), the inference as to them also, from their silence about it (i.e. the Church Grith) must be the same,” i.e. that “they did not regard it as having the character or the authority of a law.”[185]

I shall examine these five writers seriatim.

(1) John Selden published his “History of Tithes” in 1618. I have already proved that the Church Grith law was not in Sir Robert Cotton’s library in 1632. It was therefore impossible for Selden to have seen it in the “Worcester manuscript.” The “Worcester (Cottonian) manuscript” is a very vague and loose way to express the Worcester (Cottonian) volume Nero, A. 1. The fact is that Selden had never seen or heard of the Church Grith law, otherwise he would unquestionably have referred to such a law in his “History of Tithes.” In dealing with Egbert’s Excerptions, Selden has quoted largely in his “History of Tithes” from this very volume, which contained the Excerptions, and which volume in his time had no particular name. In his marginal quotation he merely informs his readers that they were taken from a “MS. in the Biblioth. Cottoniana.” We have lost the advantage of his valuable opinion on the Church Grith law, by its absence from the volume from which he had made large quotations on other subjects. I agree with Lord Selborne that Mr. Selden was well acquainted with the contents of the volume; but I totally disagree with his lordship’s inference as regards Selden’s silence on the Grith Law, because that law was not in the volume for him to see or read; nor was it in the library.

(2) Sir Henry Spelman published his first volume of the “Concilia” in 1639. In this volume he gives only two of King Ethelred’s laws out of the nine given by Thorpe. As a matter of fact, he, like Selden, had never seen or heard of the Church Grith law. Spelman was one of Sir Robert’s most intimate friends, and had access to every manuscript and book in his library. Lord Selborne assumes without any authority that the so-called Worcester volume in Cotton’s Library, open to the inspection of Selden and Spelman, contained all the manuscripts which it now contains. If Lord Selborne had only taken the trouble of reading the original list of manuscripts on the first page of the volume, he would see at once that the Church Mund and Church Grith are not in the list of manuscripts contained then in that volume. Therefore Selden and Spelman could not have seen them. The original list, and no more, is in the catalogue of 1632.

(3) William Lambarde, the Kent antiquarian, published his collection of Anglo-Saxon Laws in 1568, in which the Church Grith law does not appear, from which Lord Selborne again infers that Lambarde did not regard it as having the character or the authority of a law. Let us apply his Lordship’s canon of criticism to other omissions made by Lambarde in his collection of Anglo-Saxon laws, and then see to what conclusions such inferences lead.