A history of tithes

by Henry William Clarke

Here the “Mirror” distinctly states that by Common Law the parson and his parishioners sustained the poor, and by the same Common Law the parson, as trustee, received all the tithes, and by the same law the poor had a claim to a part of those tithes.

It is a favourite argument with Lord Selborne, and others who follow him, that the part allotted out of the tithes for the poor would be insufficient for their support. But he omits the important fact that in one of Edgar’s canons it was enacted that the people should also distribute alms to the poor, so that the part allotted out of the tithes was not intended to be the whole maintenance which the poor should receive.[236]

In A.D. 960, when Edgar’s laws and canons were enacted, the population of England was about 800,000, with about 1,000,000 acres under cultivation. The provision for the poor was more than sufficient.

Mr. Blunt, in his “History of the Reformation,” tells us that “A large body of almost starving people was formed by the ruined monks, and those who had been maintained by them, either in labour or charity. Rents were enormously raised by those to whom the monastic grants fell by grants or purchase, the new landlords exacting three or four times more than had been required by the old church landlords. The poverty of the poor and the wealth of the rich drew away class from class and introduced that disintegration of society, which caused so much trouble in the 17th century.”[237]

Sir Simon Degge, in his “Parson’s Counsellor,” says “That there are many pluralists in England that hardly see either of their livings in a year; that all the greatest and best livings in the kingdom are now (1676) held by pluralists, and served by mean curates; that thereby many poor souls are neglected in danger to perish; that in many places two great parishes are left to the care of two boys, who came but the other day from school, and perhaps fitter to be there still, while the shepherd that takes the fleece either feasts it out in his lord’s family or takes his ease upon a prebend or deanery; that it is no other than hiring out the sacred trust to pitiful mercenaries at the cheapest rate; that it is a thing of high scandal for one to receive the fees and commit the work to some inferior or raw practitioners; that one end of the law of residence (21 Henry VIII.) was to maintain hospitality; that the best livings in the kingdom are served with poor curates and no hospitality; that we are now in a far worse condition than before making the Act, for that dispensations from Rome were slow and costly, and that there are ten dispensations for pluralities now to one then.” He further added that the revenues of the Church were divided into four parts, and referred to Pope Sylvester as having originated this division; and then used these words:—“And I would wish every clergyman to remember that the poor have a share in the tithes with him.”[238]

Referring to this author’s words, Lord Selborne says, “Sir Simon Degge was a (not particularly distinguished) lawyer of Charles the Second’s time. For his citation of Pope Sylvester, etc., he was called to account in his own day, and in a later edition he defended it lamely enough, maintaining on the authority of some Roman canonists the genuineness of the extracts from synodical Acts of Pope Sylvester published by Isidore, and it must therefore be supposed, of the forgeries in the same collection also.”[239]

He carefully avoids giving us the name of the writer who called Degge to account. It was the Rev. Henry Wharton, the author of the “Anglia Sacra.”

In 1693 this boy pluralist—the author of “A Defence of Pluralities”—published, under the name of Anthony Harmer, “A Specimen of some Errors and Defects,” in Bishop Burnet’s “History of the Reformation.” For an account of the malicious spirit in which this book was written, see Burnet’s Preface to the third volume of his “History of the Reformation.” “Here is a writer,” says the Bishop, “who is wanting in Christian temper and in decency, and I regret to see such facts and industry soured and spoiled with so ill a temper.”[240]

Dr. Cave, author of “Historia Literaria,” who employed Wharton as his amanuensis, in a letter to Archbishop Tillotson, fully corroborates Bishop Burnet’s character of Wharton. The bishop knew who Anthony Harmer was, and his caustic remarks on Wharton’s “Anglia Sacra” were well deserved.[241]