A history of tithes

by Henry William Clarke

INTRODUCTION.

When engaged in writing the History of the Rise, Progress, and Present Position of the Ecclesiastical Commission for England, I had to deal with the endowments of the Church. My desire was to collect facts as to their origin in the Christian Church generally, and in the Church of England particularly. In searching after truth and facts, I experienced no little difficulty in arriving at correct conclusions, from the various contradictory statements on the subject. One party saw in the payment of tithes a continuity of old Scriptural laws in the Christian Church, payment which Christians were bound to make, whether they liked it or not; passages from the Old and New Testaments were distorted, and forced meanings given to them; apostolical constitutions were forged in support of their payment. What Isidore did as regards his forged decretals we find other writers did as regards tithes, and sham miracles are paraded in their works in support of tithes in the Christian Church. Another party, of whose views John Selden is the impartial exponent, took a more correct view of the subject, and denied that the patriarchal custom, or Mosaic law, bound Christians to the payment of tithes quâ tithes. He asserted, with truth, that the Divine Founder of the Christian religion and His apostles left behind them no written instructions for the payment of tithes, but the latter did state how the ministers were to be maintained, viz., on the purely voluntary principle. I am certain it is against the whole tenour of the New Testament writings, that any funds for the support of those who minister at the altar, or in building or repairing sanctuaries for divine worship, should be collected vi et armis. It is revolting to all Christian principles enunciated in the New Testament, that men should be imprisoned, or their goods seized, or, even as it has happened in Ireland within this century, be shot dead, because they refuse to pay tithes. But there have been, and there are still, men in England who unblushingly justify all the above means by which an odious and unscriptural tax should be collected for the support of the ministers of the Church of England. Some foolish writers assert that the payment of tithes is not a tax. It is unquestionably a tax. On the other hand, there have been, and there are still, in England noble-minded, sympathetic, and large-hearted Christians, who have conscientiously opposed such taxation as unscriptural.

For centuries after the Christian Era, the Christians paid no tithes quâ tithes. In some of the episcopal writings of the second and third centuries suggestions are thrown out, but nothing more, recommending the payment of tithes according to the Mosaic law; certainly not with the view of handing over to the ministers all the proceeds of such payments, but to supplement the Church funds for the support of the poor, the fabric of the churches, and the ministers. According to the Mosaic law, the priests received but the one-hundredth part of the tithes, for the Levites had also to be provided for.

It was not until the fifth century that canons were passed for the payment of tithes. They were unknown in the British Church when Augustine landed on our shores, at the end of the sixth century. His mission was a mixture of good and evil. It was good, because it introduced among the Anglo-Saxons an active evangelical spirit. It was evil, because it formed the first link of an alliance between the Church of England and the Church of Rome. From that time forward the bishops of Rome interfered in the discipline and doctrines of the English Church. They sent their legates to England to attend provincial synods and to pass canons for the payment of tithes, without consulting the laity. The Church of Rome never allows the laity to have a share or a voice in any ecclesiastical matters. That was always, and is still, the most prominent feature in her organization. In the eighth century, tithe free-will offerings were first given in England by a few individuals. In the ninth century Charlemagne passed the first lay law for the payment of tithes in his dominions. This was a great victory gained by the Church. His father, in A.D. 755, gave Ravenna to Pope Stephen III., and thus initiated the temporal territorial power of the popes. Milman in his history gives a sad account of the working of the tithe law in the Emperor’s territories, so different to the teaching and spirit of the Gospel! The laity, however, refused to pay the tax.

In England, the custom of giving tithes as free-will offerings gradually began, as I stated above, in the eighth century, or eleven hundred years ago. The clergy were then quite satisfied with such voluntary offerings. A few only at first gave them; then the number gradually increased, by means of the pressure exercised in the confessional box, in the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries, until it finally became customary for all to pay their tithe offerings. The usual question put by the priest from the confessional box was, Did they duly pay their tithes to God? In A.D. 850 a German bishop in his visitations had specially this article of inquiry, “Si decimas recte darent?” The custom in England gradually changed into a common right, and it was by virtue of this common right that people were legally bound to pay tithes. There was no positive law made for their payment. But here is their injustice. When this custom commenced, the population of England and Wales could not have exceeded 160,000, with less than a quarter of a million of acres under cultivation, and yet this custom, originating under the above circumstances, generated a common law right, which legally bound all subsequent generations to the payment of predial, mixt, and personal tithes. I call this barefaced injustice. It is utterly wrong to state, as some Church defenders do, that all the parochial tithe endowments were voluntarily bestowed on the Church by the landowners. In a subsequent part I have explained the 2 and 3 Edw. VI., c. 13, s. 5, about barren and waste grounds brought into cultivation, and also the lands and corn rents awarded in lieu of tithes by the various Inclosure Acts passed in the last and present centuries.

Certain writers argue in the most unreasonable manner against the division of tithes in England, and assert that the parson was legally entitled to, and had enjoyed, all his tithes without diminution. Lord Selborne, in his recent works, is the latest supporter of this erroneous view. In another part I have fully explained how untenable these views are.

The Norman monks initiated the appropriation of tithes to monastic bodies. The lands belonging to the four privileged orders were specially exempted from paying tithes, whilst others purchased bulls of exemption from the popes.

The Third and Fourth Lateran Councils, held in 1180 and 1215 respectively, issued decrees against Infeudations and for the payment of tithes. The latter council gave the English parson a common right to parochial tithes. General Councils in which the laity were unrepresented, had no right to pass decrees for the disposal of the private property of the laity to whatever religious purpose they wished, or for the payment of tithes. Their functions were confined to the discipline and doctrines of the Church.

When monasteries and chantries were swept away by Henry VIII. and his son, the lands, tithes, and all other kinds of property passed to the Crown, and the Crown granted the greater part of the tithes to bishops and chapters in exchange for landed estates which were granted to laymen, many of whose posterity or assignees hold them at the present day. In Edward VI.’s reign about six millions of acres were under cultivation, but from that time to the present over twenty millions of acres of waste lands have been brought under cultivation, and for which tithes are paid.