A history of tithes

by Henry William Clarke

In A.D. 1343, a canon was passed at a provincial synod of Canterbury, held at St. Paul’s, London, that all manner of timber was tithable.[247] This canon led to bitter strife, because wood had not been previously tithable; for, like mines and quarries, it was thought to be a part of the inheritance of the land. Timber was not tithable in the important canon of 1295. It does not yield annual profits; yet the tithe of wood is due by common law right.

In reference to making canons at synodical meetings, it was both profitable and pleasant work for ecclesiastics. The laymen who had to pay were not permitted to be present to express an opinion in the matter. The tithe system was a very elastic band. It was stretched as population and agriculture increased. We have the principle of development exhibited in a remarkable degree in the tithe question. As the power and influence of the bishops of Rome increased in the dark and middle ages, so did tithes. Yet we are unblushingly told that tithes were the free voluntary offerings of private individuals. I admit this to a limited extent. The question is, Did all the landowners freely and voluntarily grant tithes of the produce of their lands to the rectors of parishes? The synodical meetings to which I have referred, prove that they were not so given, but were arbitrarily exacted by the anathemas of the Church, and by ecclesiastical and civil courts.

Things became tithable by the canons of 1295 and 1343, which were not thought of in the days of Kings Offa and Ethelwulf. Provincial synodical canons of the dark and middle ages had a pretending binding force upon the people. But those ecclesiastics had put the last straw upon the donkey’s (people’s) back in their synod of 1343. The young British House of Commons, then only seventy-eight years old, was roused to opposition. In 1343, 1344, 1347, and 1351, the House petitioned Edward III. against the canon of 1343, but the petitions led to no satisfactory result.[248] The Commons succeeded, however, in 1371, in limiting the power of the canon. It was enacted[249] that trees of twenty years’ growth and upward should not be tithable, and that if a suit should be commenced in any spiritual court for the payment of such tithes, a prohibition should issue. This was the first victory gained by the House of Commons as regards tithes. The failures in the above years were caused by ecclesiastical influence exercised over the King. There had been previous Acts on Church questions, such as the Mortmain Act of 1297, which was a much bolder step than that of 1372, but it was rather the production of King Edward I. himself than any action of the House of Commons, owing to the nervous state of feeling among the lay nobility to check the extensive alienation of property to the monasteries which deprived the King of help towards the defence of the country. The nobility were also becoming extremely jealous of the growing power and luxurious living of the monastic bodies, and also of the Church dignitaries.

The Statute of Mortmain had forbidden the King’s subjects from bequeathing lands and tenements to the religiosi without the King’s license. But the shrewd, cunning monks eluded the Act by licenses of alienation. Here we have another instance of ecclesiastical ingenuity in devising plans to evade the law. Testators left property in perpetuity to support priests to pray for their souls. Hence originated thousands of chantries throughout the country, but they followed the same fate as the monasteries. Much landed property had thus indirectly passed into the hands of ecclesiastics. In 1531, an Act was passed that all such wills would not in future hold good for more than twenty years. The Legislature thought that twenty years’ prayers were sufficient to get a testator’s soul out of purgatory, and that twenty years’ revenue amply remunerated the priest for his services.[250]

The House of Commons was not a century old when a Bill was brought in, “That no statute or ordinance of the clergy be granted without the assent of the Commons, and that the Commons be not subjected to any constitutions which the clergy make for their own advantage, without the assent of the Commons, for the clergy do not wish to be subjected to any statute or ordinances made by the Commons without the consent of the clergy.”

From the angry tone of the Commons on the canon of 1343, may we not naturally infer that if the House existed in 1175 or 1195, or at an earlier date, or was a little older in 1295, when the most important canon was passed, that they would have made a similar energetic protest that “They would not be subjected to any canons which the clergy made for their own advantage without the assent of the Commons”? I have already fully explained that the popes, archbishops, bishops, chapters, secular clergy and monks, took advantage of their position in the dark and middle ages in imposing on the credulity of the simple and innocent laypeople, by pretending that the Christian priesthood were the successors of the Mosaic priesthood, and therefore were entitled by Divine right to the tithes enacted by the Mosaic laws, and even a great deal more of the tithes which those cunning and crafty ecclesiastics added thereto by their numerous canons passed by them at councils and synods where no layman dare appear.

In the “Englishman’s Brief for his National Church,” to which I have before referred, it is asked (Q. 21), “Is it not hard on the cultivators of land that they should have to pay tithes on its produce?” The answer given is, that there is really no hardship in the matter. “If a person rents land which in every respect is tithe-free, he pays so much more rent for it; if it be subject to tithes, he pays so much less. In any case he pays the same amount,” etc. This answer was written for the purpose of misleading the reader. The landlord will try to get as high a rent for his land which is not tithe-free as the landlord who has his land tithe-free. But another important question arises. Why should the whole burden of paying tithes fall upon land? There was a time when personal tithes were also paid. Scripture was quoted in support of these tithes. But they are all now abolished, and only land—and not all the land—has to pay tithes.

The Earl of Selborne makes the following remarks in his pamphlet: “The Endowment and Establishment of the Church of England.” “The rectorial tithes of Selborne, which belong to a college at Oxford,[251] were in 1882, £447; the vicarial tithes, which alone belong of right to the Vicar of Selborne, were £336. The rectorial or lay tithes of two parishes in Basingstoke also belong Magdalen, Oxford, were in the same year £1,617. A lady received the rectorial tithes of Bishop’s Sutton, amounting to £1,431; and one of the London Companies, those of Chertsey, amounting to £1,112.” I have placed in the Appendix a statement as to the recipients of the clerical appropriations; also the impropriations of colleges, schools, hospitals and charities, as they appear in the Tithe Commutation Return of 1887.

In the “Brief,” it is asked (Q. 28): “Were not many of the Endowments which the Church of England now holds given to the Church of Rome?” No, is the answer, and it adds, “Not a single endowment was given to the Church of Rome.” Both question and answer are misleading. The Church of England was never the Church of Rome. The correct way to put the question, but which would not suit the misleading object the author of the “Brief” had in view, is, “Were not almost all the endowments, which the Church of England now holds, given to her when she held the same doctrines as the Church of Rome?” Yes. The main object of the grants and endowments of land, churches, tithes, etc. was that perpetual prayers should be offered up by the recipients and their successors for the souls of the benefactors, of their families and relatives. The benefactors believed in the doctrine of purgatory, and in the efficacy of prayers to bring their souls out of it. The Church of England in pre-Reformation days believed and taught the same lucrative doctrine. It also taught that works of charity and not faith were stepping-stones to heaven. Two churches, E and R, held the same doctrines, and both received large endowments in tithes, lands, etc., in support of such doctrines. For centuries E was in possession of such endowments, but in the sixteenth century E repudiated the doctrines by the teaching of which E had obtained the endowments from certain benefactors who otherwise would not have given them. Parliament permitted E to hold the ancient endowments on certain conditions specified in Acts of Parliament, and E now dishonestly ignores the conditions, holds the doctrines repudiated, but keeps a firm grip on the ancient endowments. E has but a parliamentary title to the ancient endowments. And as such, Parliament has the right to change and convert the endowments, if it should think proper, to other purposes. At the period of the Reformation there was no physical transfer of the endowments from the old to the new trustees; from incumbents who would not conform to the Acts of Parliament, to those who did conform. The incumbents who were in possession of the endowments before the Acts were passed, and who conformed to the Acts when passed, were left in possession of them, and as their successors similarly conformed to the Acts, they peaceably entered into possession; so there was no physical transfer of the property, but there was a change of trustees when the old trustees declined to conform to the Acts of Parliament, but no change when they did conform. It is therefore very clear that the Church of England holds her ancient endowments by a parliamentary title, just as the Sovereign does the throne. And the logical sequence is that Parliament has the right, if it should think proper, to convert the endowments to any other use, especially when the present holders are frequently ignoring the conditions upon which they were granted at the Reformation.

It is not quite correct to say at page 52, in the “Brief,” that all the monastic endowments have been swept away and confiscated to the Crown. The properties of the alien priories are now enjoyed by some of our wealthy colleges and public schools. Henry VIII. had endowed, out of the monastic properties, six bishoprics and chapters, of which five bishoprics exist at the present day. Again, Christ Church, Oxford, the aristocratic college for the sons of our nobility, was built and endowed out of the property of over twenty monasteries which were confiscated, with the full sanction of both King and Pope, in order to supply Cardinal Wolsey with funds to build and endow “Cardinal College,” Oxford. This college receives at present £40,000 per annum gross from tithe-rent charges. Again, the eight conventual chapters were not only left in possession of all their monastic endowments, but also received in augmentation of their incomes a great deal of the properties of some of the dissolved monasteries. For example, Canterbury received almost all the endowments of St. Augustine’s monastery.