The smallest living is that of Sandfell í Öræfum = $111·89; the highest that of Hof í Vopnafirði = $1545·33: in Dillon’s day, “Breiðabólstaðr” was the most lucrative benefice. The bishop’s salary is now $3416; and the rector of Reykjavik draws $1524·77. Seven livings pass $1000 per annum; three, $900; six, $800; six, $700; eleven, $600; twenty-four, $500; twenty-seven, $400; thirty-three, $300 (below which sum pay is considered poor); thirty-nine, $200; and twelve, $100. Mr Vice-Consul Crowe (Report, 1865-66) makes the priest’s honorarium average about 300 rixdollars annually, or £34. When Henderson travelled (1818), the richest living, if he be correct, which is open to doubt, was of $200; many were of $36, and some of $5 per annum. Other old travellers speak of $33, and even $30. They justly term these incomes “miserably limited,” but they neglect to add rent-free manse and glebe-land, often some of the best in the county, besides various minor sources of gain. It became the fashion to pity the Icelandic clergy, who were compelled to be farmers, fishermen, and craftsmen after the fashion of St Dunstan. The latter in 1834 are represented to have been especially numerous; but as every man in Iceland is more or less a blacksmith and a carpenter, we may again suspect involuntary misrepresentation. This life of labour is still the case with the Maronites, whose Church is far from being a refugium, peccatorum. The “Prestr,” who had an industrious wife, and no taste for fine wines and tobacco, was better placed than his kinsman the Bóndi,[202] who had to pay, instead of receiving, tithes. And considering the relative value of money, we may doubt if he was ever so severely pressed by the wolf Poverty as many an English ecclesiastic, a scandal which is only now being removed.[203] In 1810 the bishop received, with the contributions of the school-fund, $1800 per annum; this £200 was fully equal in those days to £2000 in modern England. The author, when in Iceland, never saw a parson shoe a horse or take money for his hospitality.

The bishoprics of Skálholt and Hólar at first followed the ecclesiastical regulations drawn up by St Ólafr of Norway. In A.D. 1097 they adopted the tithe laws, which Sæmund the Wise had compiled, which were sanctioned by Bishop Gizur Isleifsson, and which were proclaimed by the President of the Icelandic Republic (Lögsögumaður), Markus Skeggjason. An order of the Althing (A.D. 1100-1275) divided this Tíund into four quarters, paid respectively to the bishop (Biskups-tíund), the priest (Prests-tíund), the church (repairs, etc., Kirkju-tíund), and the poor (Fátækra-tíund); and this division still obtains in the case of tithes from properties exceeding a certain value. After April 16, 1556, the bishop’s portion was appropriated by the sovereign under the name of “Crown tithes.” This form of tax is obsolete in Europe, but it can hardly be altered for the better in a sparsely populated country like Iceland, attached to the mos majorum, where the state of society differs little from that which originated the impost.[204]

In 1810, the Tíund of twelve head of fish, or an equivalent of 27 skillings, then = 1 shilling, was required from every person possessing more than five hundreds,[205] and it increased in uniform ratio with property. The subject of tithes has become a mass of intricacies, and only the outlines of the system can find room. The Tíund (Teind of the Shetlands) is now an impost of one per cent. on the value of all assessable property, viz., on land, boats, horses, cows, and sheep. The tithes of properties not exceeding five “hundreds,” or about $150, are applied undivided to supporting paupers; above that sum, they are quartered, as before mentioned.

Tithes may also be divided into two classes—the first, taken upon all the hundreds of immovable property, land, and houses; the second, levied after the fifth hundred, upon movable goods, money, horses, cattle, and fishing boats with their gear. Formerly every fisherman contributed one share of one day’s fishing to the hospitals; now he pays ½ ell, or 12 skillings, of every 120 heads of fish, and 1 ell, or 24 skillings, for every barrel of shark liver oil (Law 12, Feb. 1872). Church and Crown estates are exempt. Hospital lands, like the property of the governor, the bishop, the amtmenn, and the priests, pay only the “few-taking,” quarter-tithe or poor-tax.

The clergyman also adds to his temporalities by fees for baptisms, marriages, and burials. Each farmer is bound to feed an ecclesiastical mutton from mid-October to mid-May. This is a relic of Catholicism, when the “lamb of SS. Mary and Joseph” was intended as a feast, given by the priest to his parishioners after they had communicated. Now the latter graze the mutton, but do not eat it. The Prestr can also command a corvée of the poorer peasantry for at least one day to get in his hay-crop. And what distinguish his position in Iceland are the high proportion and the comparative value of Church property.

In 1695 the distribution of the 4059 farms upon the island was as follows:

Crown lands,7182212
Church lands,14942212
Freehold lands,1847

Uno Von Troil (1772), quoting the Liber Villarium, or Land-book of 1695, thus distributes the Church property:

Bishopric of Skálholt,304 farms.
” Hólar,345”
Church glebes,640”
Clergy glebes,140”
Glebes of superannuated clergymen,45“
For the poor,16”
For hospitals,4”
Total,1494”

Here, out of a total of 4059, the sovereign, the clergy, and the poor whom they represented, monopolised a total of 2212. And in the present day the whole number of farms being 4357,[206] the clergy still hold the best properties. The total of 87,860 hundreds may now be divided as follows: