A history of tithes

by Henry William Clarke

From A.D. 1547 to 1890, about 5,000 new parishes and districts have been formed, of which 1,530 were formed from A.D. 1547 to 1818, and about 3,470 from 1818 to the end of 1890.

Towards the end of the first quarter of the present century there arose a cry for Church Reform. Dr. Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the first to take steps, in 1829, to reform the then existing abuses in the Established Church, as to episcopal revenues, commendams, non-residence of incumbents, sinecures, pluralities, etc., which were like so many cancers eating away the body politic. This led to Earl Grey’s Royal Commission of Inquiry, dated 23rd of June, 1832; to Sir Robert Peel’s Commission, dated 4th February, 1835; to the five remarkable reports of this Commission; to the Episcopal Act and Tithe Commutation Act of 1836; to the Ecclesiastical Commission for England, 1836; to the Pluralities Act of 1838; to the Cathedral Act of 1840; in fine, to the passing, from 1836 to 1890, or fifty-five years, of about one hundred and thirty statutes directly and indirectly affecting the Church of England, besides some thousands of Orders in Council, having the force of Acts of Parliament when published in the London Gazette. Yet many Churchmen boastingly assert that the Church of England has received no help from the State (!) The Ecclesiastical Commission is actually a State Department. And what amount of money would have remunerated the members of the various successive governments from 1832, who boldly stepped forward to drag the State Church out of that sink of abuses in which the first Reformed Parliament found her? If our leading statesmen in and after 1832 had not promptly and energetically taken steps to reform the flagrant abuses of the Church, it could not possibly long survive as an Established Church.

The Commutation Act of 1836 settled a long-burning question. The gross value of the tithes was about six millions. These were commuted to four millions. The landlords not only gained two millions, but also increased rentals from the improvements which their tenants made when the tithe was commuted into a corn rent payable in money and permanent in quantity, but fluctuating yearly in value, so that any improved value given to land would not increase the amount of the rent charge. Again, the landlords gained about half a million a year by the various changes which were made in the extraordinary tithe rent charges. By the Commutation Act, the landlords and not the tenants are the real tithe-rent payers. But the landlords having contracted themselves out of the 80th clause of that Act, and having arranged with the tenants to pay the tithe rent-charge, a good deal of ill-feeling has sprung up in certain parts of the country, especially in Wales, on the part of the farmers against the tithe-owners. The Tithe Act of 1891 makes the owner of the lands and not the occupier liable for the tithe-rent charge.

Henry VIII., as “Supreme Head of the Church of England,” made no change in her doctrines, and the clergy received their tithes as hitherto for saying masses for the repose of the souls of departed parishioners, granting absolution, teaching transubstantiation and doctrines as regards purgatory. The tithes and landed endowments were originally granted for teaching these doctrines. But in the reigns of his son and Elizabeth changes were made in both ritual and doctrines, and those incumbents who refused to adopt the doctrines, framed in accordance with those used in the Primitive Christian Church, were deprived of their incumbencies and consequently of their tithes and other Church endowments. But there was no physical transfer made then of such endowments, and the Church was the same Church of England, but reformed. Their successors, who embraced the doctrines against masses, purgatory, absolution, confession, transubstantiation, etc., were appointed on the condition of strictly complying with the Act of Uniformity and of the doctrines enunciated in the Thirty-nine Articles. It was in virtue of such compliance that they were put in possession by Acts of Parliament of the tithes and other endowments of the Church, which their predecessors had enjoyed. It was purely a change of usufructuary possessors without the least disturbance of the property. The new tenant solemnly engaged to comply with the new laws of the Church; the old tenant refused to do so, and had therefore to leave. That was all. The incoming trustee held his endowments by a Parliamentary Title. The present usufructuary possessors of Church endowments hold them also on the above conditions, and by the same Parliamentary Title. And as Parliament gave the Title, it can also change the Title. But how do matters stand now? Dr. Vaughan, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Salford, in a small pamphlet recently published, says of the Church of England, “Its bishops, ministers and people are busily engaged in ignoring or denouncing those very articles which were drawn up to be their eternal protest against the old religion. The sacramental power of orders, the need of jurisdiction, the Real Presence, the daily sacrifice, auricular confession, prayers and offices for the dead, belief in purgatory, the invocation of the Blessed Virgin and the saints, religious vows, and the institution of monks and nuns—the very doctrines stamped in the Thirty-nine Articles as fond fables and blasphemous deceits—all these are now openly taught from a thousand pulpits within the Establishment, and as heartily embraced by as many crowded congregations. Even the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary has been recently enthroned upon a majestic altar under the great dome of St. Paul’s.” From these facts Bishop Vaughan claims that England is already “half Catholic.”

A HISTORY OF TITHES.

CHAPTER I.
BEFORE THE CHRISTIAN ERA.

The first instance on record of the payment of tithes is found in Genesis xiv. 20, when Abraham, after having rescued Lot, was returning a victor from the battle with the spoils of war. King Melchizedek met him on the way, and Abraham gave him, in his office of priest of God, “tithes of all.” It is a disputed point whether Abraham meant a tithe of all his property or of all spoils of war which he had with him.

The next instance we find is the vision of Jacob’s ladder. He vowed to God “Of all that Thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto Thee” (Gen. xxviii. 22). It is laid down in the Mosaic law, “And thou shalt surely tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field brought forth year by year” (Deut. xiv. 22). It is important to note the word “increase” in this passage, which in our law courts had often decided disputed cases, whether certain things were tithable or not. For instance, Were all herbs tithable? Only those which man eats. In Leviticus xxvii. 30-32, “All the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord’s: and the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord.” It was the custom for a person to be at the sheep-cot with a coloured rod, and as the sheep came out one by one, every tenth was marked with this rod; and that is what is meant by “passing under the rod.”

The priests at Jerusalem received the first fruits and heave offerings, but not the tithes. The heave offerings were the one-sixtieth of the gross produce. But the tithes were devoted to the whole tribe of Levi at Jerusalem, and they gave the tithe of their tithes to the priests—that is, one-hundredth part. It was from this custom, and in order to support the Crusades, that the popes of Rome exacted, early in the fourteenth century, the first fruits and the tithe of the tithes from the hierarchy and beneficed clergy, who were under their spiritual jurisdiction. And when King Henry the Eighth displaced the pope and assumed the supreme authority in the Church, he also exacted the first fruits and tenths. Queen Anne, by an Act passed in 1704, gave the first fruits and tenths back to the Church for the special purpose of augmenting poor livings.