Paddington: Past and Present

by William Robins

CHAPTER II.

THE PARSON—ORIGIN AND USE OF TITHE—PARSONAGE, RECTORY, OR VICARAGE—APPROPRIATION, AND IMPROPRIATION—A LIVING—A SINECURE—A CURACY WITHOUT THE MEANS OF CURE.

“A Parson, persona ecclesiae,” says Blackstone, “is one that hath full possession of all the rights of a parochial church. He is called parson, persona, because by his person the church, which is an invisible body, is represented; and he is in himself a body corporate, in order to protect and defend the rights of the church, (which he personates,) by a perpetual succession. He is sometimes called the rector, or governor, of the church: but the appellation of parson (however it may be depreciated by familiar, clownish, and indiscriminate use) is the most legal, most beneficial, and most honourable title that a parish priest can enjoy; because such-a-one (Sir Edward Coke observes) and he only, is said vicem seu personam ecclesiae genere. A parson has, during his life, the freehold in himself of the parsonage-house, the glebe, the tithes, and other dues. But these are sometimes appropriated; that is to say, the benefice is perpetually annexed to some spiritual corporation, either sole or aggregate, being the patron of the living; which the law esteems equally capable of providing for the service of the church, as any single private clergyman. This contrivance seems to have sprung from the policy of the monastic orders, who have never been deficient in subtile inventions for the increase of their own power and emoluments. At the first establishment of the parochial clergy, the tithes of the parish were distributed in a four-fold division; one for the use of the bishop, another for maintaining the fabrick of the church, a third for the poor, and the fourth to provide for the incumbent. When the sees of the bishops became otherwise amply endowed, they were prohibited from demanding their usual share of these tithes, and the division was into three parts only. And hence it was inferred by the monasteries, that a small part was sufficient for the officiating priest; and that the remainder might well be applied to the use of their own fraternities, (the endowment of which was construed to be a work of the most exalted piety,) subject to the burthen of repairing the church and providing for its constant supply. And therefore they begged and bought, for masses and obits, and sometimes even for money, all the advowsons within their reach, and then appropriated the benefices to the use of their own corporation. But, in order to complete such appropriation effectually, the king’s licence, and consent of the bishop, must first be obtained: because both the king and the bishop may sometime or other have an interest, by lapse, in the presentation to the benefice; which can never happen if it be appropriated to the use of a corporation, which never dies: and also because the law reposes a confidence in them, that they will not consent to any thing that shall be to the prejudice of the church. The consent of the patron also is necessarily implied, because (as was before observed) the appropriation can be originally made to none, but to such spiritual corporation, as is also the patron of the church; the whole being indeed nothing else, but an allowance for the patrons to retain the tithes and glebe in their own hands, without presenting any clerk, they themselves undertaking to provide for the service of the church.” [118]

The great modern historian of our ancestors—Mr. Kemble—also informs us that the tithe—that property which cunning and selfish individuals in the course of time, and little by little, appropriated to their own uses—was originally divided into three portions: one for the reparation of the church; a second to the servants of God; “and a third to God’s poor and needy men in thraldom.” And Mr. Kemble further states that when the accidental oblations were replaced by settled payments, whether land or not, they were directed to be applied in definite proportions to these objects.

So that the maintenance of the place of religious worship was as much provided for as the clergy who were to do duty therein; the poor, too, were equally taken care of, at the same time and by the same means; for to use the emphatic words of this great historian, “the state had a poor-law and the clergy were the relieving officers.” Mr. Barnes, the registrar of the diocese of Exeter, in his examination before the select committee of the House of Commons, on the fourth of July, 1851, [119a] says, that he believes Blackstone was mistaken in attributing the charge of the repair of the church to the tithe; but I think Mr. Kemble has fully established the truth of the position taken up by that learned Judge.

And this was not all, the bishops, and clergy, were to feed the poor out of their own incomes. A parson who possessed a superfluity and did not distribute it to the poor was to be excommunicated. And the clergy were to practice handicrafts, “not only to keep them out of mischief, but to help to feed their poor brethren.” Many of them were masons; and Mr. Kemble is of opinion that more churches existed in the tenth century than at the present time.

Before that time there appears to have been “a tendency to speculate in church-building;” for the sake of obtaining “the oblations of the faithful;” the builders claiming for themselves that portion of the church—the altare—on which the offerings were laid.

To ensure the support of the churches so built on speculation, the bishops found it necessary “to insist that every church should be endowed with a sufficient glebe or estate in land: the amount fixed was one hide, equivalent to the estate of a single family. Which, properly managed, would support the presbyter and his attendant clerks.” And this glebe-land the bishop could not afterwards interfere with, or alienate from the church to which it was given.

Mr. Kemble also tells us that by the time of Eàdgàr it had become quite a settled thing to pay tithe; “the English prelates having laid a good foundation for the custom long before they succeeded in obtaining any legal right from the state.”

He also states that “cyricsceat,” (as the church-tax was called,) was “originally a recognitory service due to the lord from the tenants of church-lands. But that in process of time a new character was assumed for it, and it was claimed of all men alike as a due to the clergy.” And then those who refused to pay were visited by the king’s reeve, by the bishop’s, and by the mass-priest of the minster, [119b] and they took “by force a tenth part for the minster whereunto it was due.” A ninth part only was left for the refractory subject. While the other eight parts were divided into two. And of this, says the ordinance, “let the landlord seize half, the bishop half, be it a king’s man or a thane’s.” [120]