Still there are various circumstances which tend to explain this process and show how a general consent upon this subject did gradually prevail. From the first moment when the clergy appear as a separate class from the whole body of the faithful, they appear as a body formed upon the plan and guided by the maxims of the Jewish hierarchy. While the church was literally performing the command of the Saviour,—when those who had anything, sold all they had and gave it to the poor, through the hands of the Apostles,—there was no particular necessity to define very closely the functions or the remuneration of the ministers; these gave their services as others did their wealth, as an acceptable sacrifice to the Giver of all good things. But when the number of the congregations increased, when compromises were made, and more complicated duties were imposed upon the ministers of the church, it was only reasonable that some arrangement should be made for their support, and some rule imposed for their direction. It was not too much to require that they should devote their whole time and talents to the service of the congregation, and that these in turn should relieve them from the necessity of daily labour for subsistence. When the duty of teaching, as well as visiting the sick, distributing the alms of the faithful, and providing for the due celebration of the religious rites, principally devolved upon them, it would have been as impolitic as unjust to have condemned them to uncertainty or anxiety as to their daily bread. At a very early period the voluntary oblations of the faithful were duly apportioned, and a part devoted to the support of the clergy. But no one, I imagine, will consider this to be a perfectly satisfactory mode of providing for the ministers of the church: its inconveniences are daily manifested in our own time, and would now probably not be submitted to at all, had opposition not lent a dignity to the principle, and did the case present any but the actual alternative. It nevertheless seems that for nearly four hundred years this was the only mode of providing not only for the maintenance of the clergy, but for the acts of charity which the Christian congregations considered their especial duty[[973]]; although perhaps here and there the wealthier or more pious communicants might have charged their estates with settled payments at fixed times; or the liberality of individuals might have presented estates to the church of particular districts; or some imperfect system of funding might have been adopted by the managers to equalise the otherwise irregular income of various years.
The growing habit of looking upon the clergy as the successors and representatives of the Levites under the Old Law, may very likely have given the impulse to that claim which they set up to the payment of tithes by the laity. But it is also probable that in course of time tithes had actually been given to them among other oblations, and had so helped to strengthen the application of the Levitical Law by an apparent legal prescription. There is not the least reason to doubt that payments of a tenth had been in very common use before the introduction of Christianity, and among people who have a decimal system of notation, a tenth is not an unlikely portion to be claimed as a royalty, a recognitory service, or a rent. The emperors had royalties of a tenth in mines: the landlords very frequently reserved a tenth in lands which they put out on usufructuary tenure. These rents and royalties, like other property, had been granted to the church. Again the piety of the laity had occasionally remitted the tenths due upon the lands in the holding of the clergy, which was in fact equivalent to a grant of the tithe[[974]]. And lastly tithe being paid on some estates to the clergy as landlords, there was a useful analogy, and colourable claim of right: and thus sufficient authority was found in custom itself to corroborate pretensions set up on grounds which could not be very satisfactorily or safely demurred to, in the fourth and fifth centuries.
But there is not the slightest proof that tithe of increase was demanded as of right even in the fifth century, in all the churches; although a growing tendency in that direction may be detected in the African and the Western establishments. Nor does any general council exist containing any regulation on the subject[[975]], till far later periods. But in 567 the clergy at the synod of Tours for the first time positively called upon the faithful to pay tithes[[976]], and eighteen years later at the Council of Macon, the command was enforced, as a return to a just and goodly custom which had fallen into desuetude, but which had the sanction of “the divine law, specially taking care of the interests of priests and ministers of churches.” The daringly false assertions by which this usurpation was attempted to be justified are recorded in the annexed note, if indeed the acts of this council are genuine[[977]]: I have only to add that they were subscribed by forty-six bishops, and the representatives of twenty more,—making a total of sixty-six prelates, a number quite sufficient in the year 585 to gain currency for any fabrication however impudent. The clergy however still thundered in vain; nor was it till 779 that they succeeded in getting legislative and state authority for their claim through the political interests of the Frankish princes. The Capitulary of that year enacts that every one shall give tithes, and that these shall be distributed by the direction of the bishop[[978]].
Ten years after the council of Macon had thus boldly announced its views with regard to tithe, Augustine set out for England.
The question as to the origin of tithes in England, as to its date, and the authority on which the impost rested, has been much discussed, but not altogether satisfactorily. Nevertheless when divested of the extraneous difficulties with which polemical zeal, and selfish class-interests have overwhelmed it, it does not seem incapable of a reasonable solution. It is well known that the earliest legislative enactment on the subject in the Anglosaxon laws is that of Æðelstán, bearing date in the first quarter of the tenth century; and that nearly every subsequent king recognized the right of the clergy to tithe, and made regulations either for the levying or the distribution of it[[979]]. But although this is the case, I entertain no doubt whatever that the payment of tithe was become very general in England at an earlier period. It is recognised in the articles of the treaty of peace between Eádweard the elder and Guðorm, in A.D. 900 or 901, in such a way as to assume its being a well-known and established due to the Church[[980]], even though no legislative enactment on the subject can be shown in the Codes of Ælfred, Ini or the Kentish kings[[981]]. The well-known tradition of Æðelwulf’s granting tithe, throughout at least his kingdom of Wessex, carries it back still half a century. But even this falls short of the antiquity which we must assume for the custom, if we believe in the genuineness of the ancient Poenitentials and Confessionals. In the eighth century Theodore determines, in a work especially intended for the instruction of the clergy, “Tributum aecclesiae sit, sicut est consuetudo provinciae, id est, ne tantum pauperes in decimis, aut in aliquibus rebus vim patiantur. Decimas non est legitimum dare, nisi pauperibus et peregrinis[[982]].”
The Excerptions of Archbishop Ecgberht[[983]] contain a prohibition against subtracting tithes from churches of old foundation, on pretence of giving them to new oratories. And further, the following exhortation respecting this payment[[984]]: “In lege Domini scriptum est: ‘Decimas et primitias non tardabis offerre.’ Et in Levitico: ‘Omnes decimae terrae, sive de frugibus, sive de pomis arborum, Domini sunt; boves, et oves, et caprae, quae sub pastoris virga transeunt, quicquid decimum venerit, sanctificabitur Domino.’ Non eligetur nec bonum nec malum, nec alterum commutabitur. Augustinus dicit: Decimae igitur tributae sunt aecclesiarum et egentium animarum. O homo, inde Dominus decimas expetit, unde vivis. De militia, de negotio, de artificio redde decimas; non enim eget Dominus noster, non proemia postulat, sed honorem.” The same ancient authority thus also impresses upon priests the duty of collecting and distributing the tithe[[985]]:—“Ut unusquisque sacerdos cunctos sibi pertinentes erudiat, ut sciant qualiter decimas totius facultatis aecclesiis divinis debite offerant. Ut ipsi sacerdotes a populis suscipiant decimas, et nomina eorum quicumque dederint scripta habeant, et secundum auctoritatem canonicam coram [Deum] timentibus dividant; et ad ornamentum aecclesiae primam eligant partem; secundam autem, ad usum pauperum atque peregrinorum, per eorum manus misericorditer cum omni humilitate dispensent; tertiam vero sibimetipsis sacerdotes reservent[[986]].”
When we consider the growing tendency in the clergy to make payment of tithe compulsory, the repeated exhortations of provincial synods to that effect, and the universal ignorance of the people, we shall have little difficulty in acknowledging that the English prelates laid a good foundation for the custom of tithing, long before they succeeded in obtaining any legal right from the State. In the course of three centuries which preceded Eádweard’s reign they had ample time and opportunity to threaten or cajole a simple-minded race into the belief that they had a right to impose the levitical obligations upon them: in the seventh century Boniface testifies to the payment of tithe in England, nearly a century before the state enacted it in Germany: about the same period Cædwealha of Wessex, though yet nominally a pagan, tithed his spoils taken in war; and I have little doubt that at least prædial tithe was almost universally levied long before the Witena gemót made it a legal charge, though I cannot concur with Phillips in believing that it was so decreed by Offa, or confirmed by Æðelwulf[[987]], for the whole kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex.
We will now return to Æðelwulf’s so-called grant, in which many of our lawyers and historians have been content to see the legal origin of tithing in this country[[988]]; but which I must confess appears to me to have nothing to do with tithing whatever, in the legal sense of the word. The reports of the later chroniclers need not be taken into account; we may confine ourselves to the early and trustworthy sources, whose assertions we are quite as likely to make proper use of as the compilers of the fourteenth century.
Under date of the year 855, the Saxon Chronicle says. “This same year, Æðelwulf booked the tenth part of his land throughout his realm, for God’s glory and his own salvation.” Asser, who was no question well acquainted with the traditions of Æðelwulf’s house, varies the statement: “Eodem anno Æðhelwulfus praefatus venerabilis rex decimam totius regni sui partem ab omni regali servitio et tributo liberavit, in sempiternoque graphio in cruce Christi, pro redemptione animae suae et antecessorum suorum, uni et trino Deo immolavit[[989]].” In this he is followed verbatim by Florence of Worcester. Æðelweard, a direct descendant of Æðelwulf, thus records the grant[[990]]: “In eodem anno decumavit Æðulf rex de omni possessione sua in partem Domini, et in universo regimine principatus sui sic constituit.”
Simeon has:—“Quo tempore rex Ethelwulfus rex decimavit totum regni sui imperium, pro redemptione animae suae et antecessorum suorum.”