_Tithe Act, 1891, pages 225-242._
1. Liability of owner to pay tithe-rent charge, 226. 2. Recovery of
tithe-rent charge through county court, 227. 3. Rules, 229. 4. Lands
occupied rent free, 230. 5. Restrictions as to costs, 231. 6. Rating
of owner of tithe-rent charge, 231. 7. Power of appeal, 232. 8.
Remission of tithe-rent charge when exceeding two-thirds annual value
of land, 233. 9. Definitions, 235. 10. Commencement and application
of Act, 236. 11. Repeal, 237. 12. Extent of Act and short title, 237.
13. Schedule of fees, 238.
_Remarks upon the Act._
One of the main objects in passing this Act, 238. County court, a new
machine, removing friction between tithe-owner and tithe-payer, 239.
The tithe-payer cannot be imprisoned for non-payment, 240. Provision
made to prevent collision between landowner and tithe-payer, 240.
Section 4 upsets the main principle of the Act. 241. The tithe-owner
must pay all rates, etc., 241. The Relief clause quite a misnomer,
242.
_Appendices, pages 243-258._
Tithe-rent charges in 1836 of—
A. Archbishops and Bishops, 243.
B. Chapters, 244.
C. Separate estates of Deans, Precentors, Chancellors,
Treasurers, and Prebendaries, Vicars Choral and
Archdeacons, 245, 246.
Summary of A, B, and C, 246.
D. Universities, public schools, hospitals, charities, etc., 247,
248.
Summary of D, 248.
Beneficial operations of the Ecclesiastical Commission, 249,
250.
Unsatisfactory results of extension of Local Claims in the
Act, 1860, 250, 251.
E. Septennial averages of wheat, barley, and oats for 55 years,
ending 1890, p. 252.
F. Summary by Counties of Tithe-rent charge in England and Wales,
253.
G. Analysis of F, showing the number of old parishes, and the
number appropriated to monasteries, etc., 254, 255.
Explanation of this Analysis, 255, 256.
H. Lands and money payments made in lieu of tithes by the
Inclosure Acts, 257.
I. Gross annual amount of Church Revenues, and number of
Benefices and Parsonage Houses, 258.
_Index, pages 259-268._
INTRODUCTION.
When engaged in writing the History of the Rise, Progress, and Present
Position of the Ecclesiastical Commission for England, I had to deal
with the endowments of the Church. My desire was to collect facts as to
their origin in the Christian Church generally, and in the Church of
England particularly. In searching after truth and facts, I experienced
no little difficulty in arriving at correct conclusions, from the various
contradictory statements on the subject. One party saw in the payment
of tithes a continuity of old Scriptural laws in the Christian Church,
payment which Christians were bound to make, whether they liked it or
not; passages from the Old and New Testaments were distorted, and forced
meanings given to them; apostolical constitutions were forged in support
of their payment. What Isidore did as regards his forged decretals we
find other writers did as regards tithes, and sham miracles are paraded
in their works in support of tithes in the Christian Church. Another
party, of whose views John Selden is the impartial exponent, took a more
correct view of the subject, and denied that the patriarchal custom, or
Mosaic law, bound Christians to the payment of tithes _quâ_ tithes. He
asserted, with truth, that the Divine Founder of the Christian religion
and His apostles left behind them no written instructions for the
payment of tithes, but the latter did state how the ministers were to
be maintained, viz., on the purely voluntary principle. I am certain
it is against the whole tenour of the New Testament writings, that any
funds for the support of those who minister at the altar, or in building
or repairing sanctuaries for divine worship, should be collected _vi et
armis_. It is revolting to all Christian principles enunciated in the New
Testament, that men should be imprisoned, or their goods seized, or, even
as it has happened in Ireland within this century, be shot dead, because
they refuse to pay tithes. But there have been, and there are still,
men in England who unblushingly justify all the above means by which an
odious and unscriptural tax should be collected for the support of the
ministers of the Church of England. Some foolish writers assert that the
payment of tithes is not a tax. It is unquestionably a tax. On the other
hand, there have been, and there are still, in England noble-minded,
sympathetic, and large-hearted Christians, who have conscientiously
opposed such taxation as unscriptural.
For centuries after the Christian Era, the Christians paid no tithes
_quâ_ tithes. In some of the episcopal writings of the second and third
centuries suggestions are thrown out, but nothing more, recommending the
payment of tithes according to the Mosaic law; certainly not with the
view of handing over to the ministers all the proceeds of such payments,
but to supplement the Church funds for the support of the poor, the
fabric of the churches, and the ministers. According to the Mosaic law,
the priests received but the one-hundredth part of the tithes, for the
Levites had also to be provided for.
It was not until the fifth century that canons were passed for the
payment of tithes. They were unknown in the British Church when Augustine
landed on our shores, at the end of the sixth century. His mission was
a mixture of good and evil. It was good, because it introduced among
the Anglo-Saxons an active evangelical spirit. It was evil, because it
formed the first link of an alliance between the Church of England and
the Church of Rome. From that time forward the bishops of Rome interfered
in the discipline and doctrines of the English Church. They sent their
legates to England to attend provincial synods and to pass canons for
the payment of tithes, without consulting the laity. The Church of Rome
never allows the laity to have a share or a voice in any ecclesiastical
matters. That was always, and is still, the most prominent feature in her
organization. In the eighth century, tithe free-will offerings were first
given in England by a few individuals. In the ninth century Charlemagne
passed the first lay law for the payment of tithes in his dominions. This
was a great victory gained by the Church. His father, in A.D. 755, gave
Ravenna to Pope Stephen III., and thus initiated the temporal territorial
power of the popes. Milman in his history gives a sad account of the
working of the tithe law in the Emperor’s territories, so different to
the teaching and spirit of the Gospel! The laity, however, refused to pay
the tax.
In England, the _custom_ of giving tithes as free-will offerings
gradually began, as I stated above, in the eighth century, or eleven
hundred years ago. The clergy were then quite satisfied with such
voluntary offerings. A few only at first gave them; then the number
gradually increased, by means of the pressure exercised in the
confessional box, in the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries, until it
finally became _customary_ for _all_ to pay their tithe offerings. The
usual question put by the priest from the confessional box was, Did
they duly pay their tithes to God? In A.D. 850 a German bishop in his
visitations had specially this article of inquiry, “Si decimas recte
darent?” The custom in England gradually changed into a _common right_,
and it was by virtue of this common right that people were legally bound
to pay tithes. There was no positive law made for their payment. But
here is their injustice. When this _custom_ commenced, the population
of England and Wales could not have exceeded 160,000, with less than a
quarter of a million of acres under cultivation, and yet this _custom_,
originating under the above circumstances, generated a _common law
right_, which legally bound all subsequent generations to the payment
of predial, mixt, and personal tithes. I call this barefaced injustice.
It is utterly wrong to state, as some Church defenders do, that all the
parochial tithe endowments were _voluntarily_ bestowed on the Church
by the landowners. In a subsequent part I have explained the 2 and 3
Edw. VI., c. 13, s. 5, about barren and waste grounds brought into
cultivation, and also the lands and corn rents awarded in lieu of tithes
by the various Inclosure Acts passed in the last and present centuries.
Certain writers argue in the most unreasonable manner against the
division of tithes in England, and assert that the parson was legally
entitled to, and had enjoyed, all his tithes without diminution. Lord
Selborne, in his recent works, is the latest supporter of this erroneous
view. In another part I have fully explained how untenable these views
are.
The Norman monks initiated the appropriation of tithes to monastic
bodies. The lands belonging to the four privileged orders were specially
exempted from paying tithes, whilst others purchased bulls of exemption
from the popes.
The Third and Fourth Lateran Councils, held in 1180 and 1215
respectively, issued decrees against Infeudations and for the payment
of tithes. The latter council gave the English parson a common right to
parochial tithes. General Councils in which the laity were unrepresented,
had no right to pass decrees for the disposal of the private property of
the laity to whatever religious purpose they wished, or for the payment
of tithes. Their functions were confined to the discipline and doctrines
of the Church.
When monasteries and chantries were swept away by Henry VIII. and his
son, the lands, tithes, and all other kinds of property passed to the
Crown, and the Crown granted the greater part of the tithes to bishops
and chapters in exchange for landed estates which were granted to laymen,
many of whose posterity or assignees hold them at the present day. In
Edward VI.’s reign about six millions of acres were under cultivation,
but from that time to the present over twenty millions of acres of waste
lands have been brought under cultivation, and for which tithes are paid.
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.
After the destruction of the second temple and the dispersion of the
Jews, the payment of tithes among the Jews ceased, because they thought
that Jerusalem alone was the place where tithes ought to be paid, and
also because it became impossible to trace out the tribe and priesthood
to whom alone they were to be paid. It is a question whether the Jews
who were converted to Christianity before the destruction of the second
temple had paid tithes to the Levites.
The heathen nations seem to have copied and adopted the Jewish custom of
paying tithes. We read of the Greeks having paid tithes of the spoils of
war to Apollo, and of the Romans to Hercules. But, properly speaking,
they were not the sort of tithes mentioned in the Mosaic Law. They were
only arbitrary vows and offerings; but no conclusion can be drawn that
they were tithes because tenths were given. Sometimes the heathen
offered more and sometimes less than one-tenth.
Some ardent supporters of the payment of tithes make themselves
ridiculous in tracing their origin to Adam. They state that Adam paid
tithes. Here is their story as stated by Selden: “God charged Adam when
there was but one man in the world that he should give Him the tenth part
of everything, and to teach his children to do the same; but as there
was no man to receive it for Holy Church, God commanded that the tenth
part of everything should be burned. In the offerings of Cain and Abel,
Abel tithed truly of the best, but Cain tithed falsely of the worst. Cain
killed Abel because he said he tithed evil. So people must see that false
tithing was the cause of the first murder, and it was the cause that God
cursed the earth.”[3]
It is very wrong that Scriptural passages, such as that given above,
should be distorted in order to induce people to pay tithes to “Holy
Church.”
CHAPTER II.
_FROM THE CHRISTIAN ERA TO THE COUNCIL OF MASÇON._
In Apostolical times the Christian ministers were supported by voluntary
contributions out of a common fund, and this practice prevailed for four
hundred years.[4] Those who preached the Gospel lived by the Gospel, but
this Scriptural statement did not mean, as some assert, that they were to
live on the payment of tithes, otherwise it would have been stated. St.
Paul ordered weekly collections to be made for the saints in the Churches
of Galatia and Corinth (1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2). The voluntary contributions
of the faithful were collected and put into a common treasure (Acts ii.
44; iv. 34). The liberality of the Christians then far exceeded anything
which could have been collected from tithes. And even if tithes had been
exacted, it is exceedingly doubtful whether the progress of Christianity
would not have been materially checked at its outset.
The Jewish Law, as regards the payment of tithes, was not binding on
Christians, no more than the custom of bigamy and polygamy adopted by the
Israelites is binding on the Christian Church. There is no injunction in
the New Testament binding Christians to pay tithes to their ministers.
And when the payment was first urged in the Christian Church, it was
supported by references to the Mosaic Law and not to St. Paul’s words,
viz., “That those who preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel.”
There was a growing habit of looking upon the clergy as the successors
and representatives of the Levites under the Old Law, and this habit had
given an impulse to that claim which they set up to the payment of tithes
by the laity.[5]
The Apostolical Constitutions for the Christian Church, collected, as it
is alleged, by Pope Clement I., the successor as is said of St. Peter,
first bishop of Rome, were fabricated more than eight centuries after
apostolical times. Cardinal Bellarmine is honest enough to ignore them.
But they imposed on the credulous and were accepted without criticism as
genuine, even by canonists, in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Selden
thinks they were concocted about A.D. 1000; others think in 1042. In
these Constitutions tithes are stated to have been paid by the Christians
to the Apostles. Sir H. Spelman (p. 108) thinks the first thirty-five
canons are very ancient. “Dionysius Exiguus,” he says, “who lived within
400 years after the Apostles, translated them out of Greek.”
The fifth canon ordained that first fruits and tithes should be sent to
the house of the bishops and priests, and not to be offered upon the
altar. The Greek word in the copy is not δεκασμούς. No solid argument
for the payment of tithes can be founded on this canon, for if we take
the custom of the Anglo-Saxon Churches at the end of the sixth century,
which was in accordance with that in primitive times, we find no account
for the payment of tithes. “There is no mention of tithes,” says Lord
Selborne, “in any part of the ancient canon law of the Roman Church,
collected towards the end of the fifth century by Dionysius (called
Exiguus or the Little), a Scythian monk who collected 401 Oriental and
African canons.”[6]
The monks in their cells had sufficient leisure to concoct these
Constitutions, and palm them on the credulous as the genuine production
of the Apostles. The concocted Constitutions were copied and handed down
from century to century without any attempt being made to test their
genuineness and authenticity. It seems exceedingly strange that African
divines and laymen should refer to the Apostolical Constitutions as an
authority for the payment of tithes in apostolic times, although Cardinal
Bellarmine, a great champion of “Holy Church,” ignored them.[7]
Churchmen like Archdeacon Tillesley, many of whom are in the receipt
of tithes or tithe-rent charges, will naturally act like drowning men,
and snatch even at passing straws to save the tithes. Could anything,
for example, be more childish and absurd than the story of tracing the
payment of tithes to Adam? And what makes the case worse is to distort
Scripture so as to deceive the people who could neither read nor write,
and even those who could read had no open Bible to consult to see for
themselves whether these things were so.
Members of the Anglican Church forget when using such weapons as the
“Constitutions” in support of tithes, that the very cause of the English
Reformation in the sixteenth century was the adoption into the English
Church of the traditions and errors of the Church of Rome, which
were said to have been handed down by the Apostles in the so-called
Apostolical Constitutions, although many of them can be shown to be
contrary to the Scriptures. Archdeacon Tillesley does not defend the
whole volume of the so-called Constitutions of Clement I., but he does
that part which deals with the payment of tithes. He evidently had
forgotten the mechanical axiom, that nothing is stronger than its weakest
part. “Because the early Christians,” he says, “were liberal to the
Church, therefore it was reasonable that tithes in the ‘Constitutional
Apostolical’ were true.” Nothing of the sort, because it does not follow
as a logical sequence.
After apostolical times, monthly offerings and oblations, we are
informed, were made in all the churches, and were used for three
purposes. (1) In maintaining the clergy; (2) in supporting the sick
and needy; and (3) in repairing the church fabric. These monthly
contributions were in the third century augmented by grants of lands,
which were annexed to churches, the revenues derived from which were
appropriated to the same three purposes. In A.D. 322 Constantine, the
first Christian emperor, published an edict which gave full liberty to
his subjects to bestow as large a proportion of their property to the
clergy as they should think proper. From all these sources of revenue the
Christian Church was rapidly increasing in wealth. But for more than four
hundred years after the Christian era there was no authoritative Church
canon made for the payment of tithes; and then such canon was founded
upon the Mosaic Law. The question then is, are Christians justified in
adopting the Mosaic Law for the payment of tithes? This law had no force
outside Jewish territory. There is no order in the New Testament for
their payment. Among the Jews we fail to find such anomalies, rather
scandals and misappropriations, in respect to the distribution of tithes,
as are found in England and Wales. The gross amount of tithe-rent charge
is slightly over four millions per annum. Add to this the extraordinary
rent charges on hops, the corn rents and extensive lands awarded in
lieu of tithes by the large number of Inclosure Acts. Among the Jews
we find no record of lay impropriators, schools, colleges, charities
and hospitals receiving tithes. Granted, for argument’s sake, that the
Christian priesthood as succeeding the Mosaic priesthood, claimed the
tithes according to the Mosaic Law, then it is a misappropriation of
tithes to give them to those outside the priesthood, and who perform no
spiritual functions. We must therefore go back to very early times, to
the history of tithes in the Christian Church, for the beginning of the
scandalous misappropriations of tithe endowment for spiritual purposes.
In England the scandal commenced after the Norman Conquest with the
Norman monks who were in English monasteries.
About one-fourth of the whole tithe rent charge is appropriated or
rather misappropriated to lay purposes by laymen, many of whom are quite
unconnected with the religious duties of those parishes from which the
tithes arise. Then, again, we have a large extent of land—formerly
monastic—which is tithe free. There are also lands in the vicinity of
large cities and towns built upon, for which the landlords receive
enormous ground rents, and when the leases expire they take possession of
the house property. But they pay nothing to the Church for the increased
value of their land, which may be one hundred times the yearly value per
acre before it was built upon.
In the Christian Church tithes were _at first_ given by the faithful
as spontaneous offerings, at the urgent solicitations of the clergy.
“Nam nemo compellitur,” says Tertullian, “sed sponte confert.” These
spontaneous tithe free-will offerings were not given in cash but in
kind. Some gave a tithe of sheep, others of wool, or of corn, etc.,
just according to the free-will of the donor. This was the germ of
tithes in the Christian Church, which commenced in the fourth century,
and were ordered to be paid by canon law about the beginning of the
fifth century. These canons were framed and passed by ecclesiastics.
The people who paid had no voice in the matter. The canons which were
framed afterwards had ordered them to be paid as a right, as a divine
law of the Old Testament, and were not to be considered as free-will
offerings. Here is just that specimen of arbitrary conduct on the part of
the ecclesiastics which would only be tolerated in the dark and middle
ages. Tithes were too profitable a source of revenue to be ignored in the
Christian Church. A book entitled, “The Englishman’s Brief on behalf of
his National Church,” has been published by the Society for the Promotion
of Christian Knowledge. A good cause needs no fiction to bolster it up.
In that book there is quite twice as much fiction as fact. The extensive
circulation of this mixture has embarrassed many in gaining a correct
knowledge of the tithe question from the earliest period to the present
time. It is written in the style adopted by special pleaders. It gives a
one-sided account of the subject. It asks questions and then furnishes
the answers. The answers are most misleading and also erroneous, and it
carefully omits a great deal which could be said on the other side. I
strongly object to this way in dealing with so important a subject as the
history of tithes in this country. To be appreciated, the “Brief” should
be impartial, which it is not. It is not my object to review the book
here _seriatim_, and to point out what is fiction and what is fact. In
my statements a good deal of the fiction is refuted indirectly without
reference to the “Brief.” But I may just indicate one remarkable feat
of fiction which appears in it. When the Christian religion was first
propagated, the writer of the “Brief” would have us to believe that the
converted Jews transferred the payment of their tithes from the Jewish
to the Christian ministers, just as easily and as quietly as one could
transfer the payment of a cheque from one bank to another. Here is the
statement, “So that when the Jews and heathen became Christian, throwing
off their old religion and adopting the new religion of Christianity,
they never dreamt of being less liberal to that form of religion which
they loved the more and had adopted, than they had been towards that
which they had loved the less and had discarded. Hence the transfer of
tithes from the old religion to the new religion.”[8] We are not informed
upon what authority this statement is made. There is nothing about it
in Josephus. There is no order in the New Testament for the payment of
tithes. No order of a general or provincial council. We read nothing
of this in the writings of the first and second centuries. We read of
exhortations to pay tithes in the writings of the third and fourth
centuries. We read of canons having been made for their payment in the
fifth century. But I have failed to find any evidence to support the
statement quoted above from the “Brief.”
The Provincial Council of French bishops, held at Masçon in A.D. 586,
is commonly considered to have been _the earliest council_ which
ordained the payment of tithes. It ordained, “Ut decimas ecclesiasticas
omnis populus inferat, quibus sacerdotes aut in pauperum usum, aut in
captivorum redemptionem erogatis, suis orationibus pacem populo ac
salutem impetrent.” Isidore, in his compilation of decrees of councils,
makes no reference to this council. Friar Crab is the first to have
mentioned it in his edition of the councils under Charles V.
Lord Selborne considers the canon of this council as spurious, because it
proves too much, for it wanted to prove that the Mosaic Law, as regards
the payments of tithes, was regarded in A.D. 586 not only as binding
from the first upon Christians, but also as having been for centuries
universally observed. This was going too far, in his lordship’s opinion,
and therefore he stamped it as spurious. Selden was the first to throw
considerable doubt upon the genuineness of this canon at the Council at
Masçon.[9] The mistake originated in calling the offerings and oblations
tithes. The same mistake is repeated by writers at the present time. For
instance, Dr. J. S. Brewer, in his “Endowments and Establishment of the
Church of England,” 2nd Edition, 1885, translates “portiones” (quoted
from Bede), _tithes_. Pope Gregory says in his reply to Archbishop
Augustine’s question, “Communi autem vita viventibus jam de faciendis
_portionibus_, vel exhibenda hospitalite et adimplenda misericordia,
nobis quid erit loquendum.” “But as for those who live in common, why
should we say anything now of making _portions_?” etc. Brewer translates
the passage thus, “As for those who are living in common, I need give
no advice about dividing _tithes_,” etc. Now, the Latin word for tithe
is decima, and is so used in all the monastic charters. The same writer
states, and he is followed by writers of leaflets for the Church Defence
Institution, that the scriptural precept, “To live of the Gospel” (1
Cor. ix. 14), refers to the payment of tithes. I am certain that St.
Paul never intended anything of the sort. I fully admit that the passage
may cover a tithe free-will offering, as it would any other free-will
offering, but I cannot admit that it implies a compulsory payment of
tithes, that is, to carry it to its logical sequence, a distraint on
the goods of a person who is unable or unwilling to pay tithe. Such
compulsion would be contrary to the spirit of the Gospel of Christ.
I hold strongly to the view that free-will offerings are the only
scriptural mode for the maintenance of the Christian ministry, and these
are the same kind of offerings to which Pope Gregory referred in his
answers to Augustine’s questions.
The instances are many in which words of old authors and passages of
Scripture are not only strained but intentionally distorted, in order
to show the early origin of tithes. There is nothing gained, but much
confidence lost, in this critical age by distorting the meaning of,
or giving a forced interpretation to, plain words of Scripture, or of
secular and religious writers.
The Christian religion had been introduced into Britain at a very early
date, and from Britain it passed over to Ireland. Ireland was specially
remarkable for her evangelical missionary monks, who visited Scotland,
England, and the Continent, for the purpose of converting the heathen.
Its geographical position favoured a quiet, retired and contemplative
life. Britain served as a _buffer_ for many centuries against the
piratical devastations of the northern hordes. The inhabitants of Ireland
were therefore left in quiet and undisturbed possession of their lands,
churches, and monasteries at a time when the inhabitants of Britain were
driven from the east and south to the west of the island; their lands
were taken from them, their churches and monasteries were pillaged, and
then burnt down by the invaders.
CHAPTER III.
_THE ROMAN MISSION TO ENGLAND._
In A.D. 596 Pope Gregory, commonly called Gregory the Great, selected
Augustine, prior of St. Gregory’s monastery in Rome, to conduct in
the same year a mission to Britain in order to convert the people to
Christianity. The journey to Britain was then considered a hazardous
undertaking, being thought in so remote a part of the world. Even
this band of Christian pioneers became disheartened on their journey.
Augustine, much discouraged, left his companions in France and returned
to Rome, but Gregory sent him back, urging him and them to valiantly
carry out their mission.
In 597 Augustine and forty companions landed in the Isle of Thanet.
Ethelbert, a noble-hearted, liberal-minded and intelligent heathen, was
then King of Kent; but his wife, Bertha, daughter of Charibert, King of
Paris, was a Christian. Augustine announced his arrival to the king, and
the object of his mission. The king repaired to Thanet and granted an
interview to Augustine and his companions. He was much impressed with
their external ceremonies, and permitted them to reside in Canterbury,
the metropolis of his kingdom. He presented his palace in Canterbury to
Augustine as a residence for himself and his successors. On the 2nd of
June in the same year the king publicly declared himself a Christian and
was baptized. On the 17th November, 597, Augustine went to France and
was consecrated archbishop by the Archbishop of Arles, and returned to
England in 598.
There were at that time in the island some British Churches, bishops and
clergy, but no divisions of parishes, no parish churches, no connection
with the Roman Church, and indubitably no tithes whatever were paid. We
are therefore on solid ground in asserting that during the first six
hundred years of the Christian era there is no genuine record of tithes
in any shape or form having been paid or given to the clergy of this
island.
The Roman Mission subsequently produced mighty changes in the Church of
England through this initial connection. In the several letters which the
popes addressed to the kings and archbishops of England in subsequent
centuries, constant references are made to Augustine’s mission; and the
popes refer to this event as the source of their supreme authority over
the Church of England.
King Ethelbert’s laws which were passed between 596 and 605, recognise
Christianity and the Christian priesthood. Bede informs us that they were
enacted by the advice of his Witan.[10]
Article 1. “The property of God and the Church [when stolen, a fine of]
twelve-fold; a bishop’s property, eleven-fold; a priest’s property,
nine-fold; a deacon’s property, six-fold, etc.”[11] The title runs thus,
“These are the dooms which King Ethelbert established in the days of
Augustine.” The Laws of Ethelbert and other Kentish kings are taken by
Mr. Thorpe from the _Textus Roffensis_, in possession of the Dean and
Chapter of Rochester, and is the only ancient manuscript in which they
are found. The manuscript is of the twelfth century.
“We shall hardly,” says Mr. Kemble, “be saying too much if we affirm
that the introduction of Christianity was at least ratified by a solemn
act of the Witan.”[12]
In 601 Augustine received his pall from Rome, died on the 26th of May,
605, and was buried in St. Augustine’s Abbey, near the high altar. He
was not of the Benedictine order of monks, but followed the order of
Pope Gregory in the cloister which he had founded in Canterbury.[13] In
602 he laid the foundation of his cathedral church in Canterbury. In
604 he ordained Mellitus, one of his companions, bishop of London; and
Justus, another companion, bishop of Rochester. King Ethelbert granted
them London and Rochester respectively as their episcopal sees.[14] These
bishops and their clergy were then but missionaries among the heathen
Saxons in the country, and being monks, had lived together close to their
cathedral churches, from which they proceeded as itinerant preachers to
the neighbouring localities. The bishop’s church was at first the only
one in his diocese, hence it was called _mater ecclesia_. Subsequently it
was called the _Cathedral Church_, because the bishop’s cathedra, sedes,
stool or chair was in the choir and on the same level with the seats of
other members of the choir. But now there are only two cathedral churches
in England in which the bishop’s seat or _throne_ is in the choir, and
that in a raised position. In all the other cathedrals, the _throne_ is
placed outside the choir in a conspicuous part of the church.
The bishop’s circuit or diocese was the parish. It will hereafter
be shown that the origin of parishes was erroneously traced back to
the episcopal division of dioceses, when “parish” and “diocese” were
synonymous.
The bishop was originally both bishop and rector of the parish or
diocese, and the episcopi clerici were his curates.
Augustine, Mellitus, and Justus, and their respective clergy were
supported by the offerings and oblations of their flocks, which were
brought to the bishop’s house, and put into a common fund, which was
disposed of by the bishop himself. Canon law gave the bishop the right
over all these collections.
Augustine asked Pope Gregory, “Into how many portions ought the oblations
given by the faithful to the altar to be divided?” “De his quæ fidelium
oblationibus accedunt altari, quantæ debeant fieri portiones?” He
answered, “That all emoluments which accrue ought to be divided into
four portions, namely, one for the bishop and his family, because of
hospitality and entertainments; another for the clergy; a third for the
poor; and the fourth for the repair of churches.” “Ut in omni stipendio,
quod accedit, quatuor debeant fieri portiones; una, videlicet, episcopo
et familiæ propter hospitalitatem atque susceptionem, alia clero, tertia
pauperibus, quarta ecclesiis reparandis.”
The pope added, “But because your brotherhood has been brought up under
monastic rules, you ought not to live apart from your clergy in the
English Church, which, by God’s assistance, has been lately brought to
the faith; you ought to follow that course of life which our forefathers
did in the time of the primitive Church, when none of them said anything
that he possessed was his own, but all things were in common among them.”
“Sed quia tua fraternitas monasterii regulis erudita, seorsum fieri
non debet a clericis suis in ecclesia Anglorum, quæ, auctore Deo nuper
adhuc ad fidem adducta est, hanc debet conversationem instituere, quæ
initio nascentis ecclesiæ fuit patribus nostris; in quibus nullus eorum
ex his, quæ possidebant, aliquid suum esse dicebat, sed erant eis omnia
communia.”
He further adds, “But as for those who live in common, why need we say
anything of making portions?” “Communi autem vita viventibus jam de
faciendis portionibus, nobis quid erit loquendum.”[15]
This last passage is thus translated by Mr. Brewer and endorsed by
the new editor, Mr. Lewis T. Dibdin, a barrister: “For those who are
living in common (_i.e._ the monks) I need give no advice about dividing
tithes or offerings among them.”[16] It is not only misleading, but bad
scholarship to translate “portiones” by “tithes.” _Decimæ_ is always the
word used in Latin for tithes.
The quadripartite division of Church funds mentioned here by the Pope
existed in Italy and France. In Spain and other countries the tripartite
division was the custom.
Pope Sylvester, early in the fourth century, decreed, it is said, but
with which I do not agree, that the revenues of the Church should be
divided into four parts. One part should be assigned to the bishop
for his maintenance; another part to the priests and deacons and the
clergy in general; the third part to the reparation of the churches; and
the fourth part to the poor, and to the sick and strangers.[17] Pope
Simplicius, in the fifth century, mentions the fourfold division of the
Church funds in his third epistle. Pope Gelasius (A.D. 501), in his ninth
epistle, renews the regulation of Simplicius, and orders the bishops to
divide their diocesan revenues into four portions and distribute them as
above indicated. This was before the establishment of tithes.
Augustine, being a monk, could have no separate share of his own, and the
probability is that all the offerings were divided into three but not
necessarily equal parts. One part was for the maintenance and clothing of
the bishop and his clergy; a portion was given to the poor and strangers,
and a portion went towards the repairs of the church and erecting
oratories and schools.
Blackstone states that “At the first establishment of parochial clergy,
the tithes of the parish were distributed in a fourfold division: one for
the use of the bishop; another for maintaining the fabric 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.”[18]
Wharton, in his “Defence of Pluralities,” refers to the fourfold and then
to the tripartite divisions in England.[19]
The rules and vows of the monks prevented them from being scattered over
the diocese. They lived together in common and within their monastery.
Their chief functions were to instruct the converts, who, when duly
prepared, were sent forth by the bishop as ordained itinerant ministers
to convert their countrymen in the distant parts of the diocese where
there were no churches but crosses erected at convenient spots, and
around these crosses the people assembled to hear the word of God, to
have their children baptized, and to partake of the Sacrament of the
Lord’s Supper. Collections were always made on such occasions, which the
preachers brought and deposited at the bishop’s house for the common
fund. When the itinerant preachers saw people eager and zealous in their
religious duties, they reported the same to the bishop, who caused to be
built for them out of the common fund some wooden chapels, which served
as chapels of ease to the mother-church. In some cases the bishop had
a wooden house constructed close to the chapel, where a priest could
permanently reside.
It is very improbable that Augustine preached or solicited the payment of
tithes. It is stated in the alleged laws of Edward the Confessor, that
“Augustine preached the payment of tithes, which were granted by the king
(Ethelbert), and confirmed by the barons and people, but afterwards, by
the instigation of the devil, many detained them; and those priests who
were rich were not very careful in getting them,” etc.[20]
These so-called laws are pure fabrications. Thorpe takes his text from
a Harleian manuscript written about the beginning of the 14th century.
Internal evidence condemns their genuineness, for in law xi. there is a
reference to the Church having been exempted from paying Danegeld, and
adds, “This liberty had been preserved by Holy Church even to the time
of William the Younger, called Rufus, who sought aid from the barons of
England in order to keep Normandy from his brother Robert when he went to
Jerusalem; and they granted him four shillings from every ploughland, not
excepting Holy Church,” etc.[21]
The Rev. Morris Fuller, rector of Ryburgh, states, without the slightest
authority, “May it not have a reference to the time of Ethelbert, who
began to reign in Kent A.D. 566, _when tithes were by law paid to the
clergy_, and the time of Ina, King of Wessex, who began to reign A.D.
688, _when there was a law by which they were then paid_.”[22] There
is not one word about tithes in the laws of Ethelbert and Ina. John
Pulman, a barrister, ventilated exactly the same opinions in 1864 in his
“Anti-State Church Association Unmasked.” Fuller copied the erroneous
views of Pulman.
CHAPTER IV.
_THE FIRST DOCUMENTARY STATEMENT OF TITHES IN ENGLAND._
The first genuine statement of the payment of tithes in England appears
in the second book of Archbishop Theodore’s (668-690) “Penitential.”
It was not composed by Theodore himself, but was drawn up under his
direction and published with his authority. They are answers given by
him to questions asked him on the subject of penance. It is edited by a
“Discipulus Umbrensium,” or a Disciple of the Umbrians, for the benefit
of the English. There is no doubt that this Penitential is genuine.
Bishop Stubbs, Mr. Haddan and Professor Wasserschleben accept it as
such.[23]
The following three notices of tithes appear in the “Penitential”:
1. “Presbitero decimas dare non cogitur.” The priest is not compelled to
pay tithes.[24]
2. “Tributum ecclesiæ sit, sicut consuetudo provinciæ, id est, ne tantum
pauperes inde in decimis aut in aliquibus rebus vim patientur.” Let the
offering to the church be according to the custom of the province; that
is, that no force should be put upon the poor as to tithes or anything
else.[25]
3. “Decimas non est legitimum dare nisi pauperibus et peregrinis, sivi
laici suas ad ecclesias.” It is not lawful to give tithes except to the
poor and strangers, or laymen to their own churches.[26] This is a
prohibition to the clergy against giving the laity presents out of the
tithes.
“These articles,” says Lord Selborne, “put the payment of tithes on
the footing of custom, depending for its observance upon episcopal
or clerical influence, rather than ecclesiastical censures,”[27] the
anathemas subsequently hurled against all who dared to keep them back
from Holy Church.
Theodore’s “Penitential” was not a code of laws, but its contents are
very important as reflecting the custom and practice existing with regard
to tithes in that early age of the Anglo-Saxon Church.
The silence of Bede on Theodore’s “Penitential” is brought forward
as evidence against it. But Haddan and Stubbs show conclusively that
“Bede either did not know the book, or did not consider Theodore as the
immediate author.”[28]
Bishop Stubbs makes a vital remark on (3). “Tithes are mentioned,” he
says, “by Theodore in the genuine ‘Penitential,’ in a way that proves the
duty of making the payment, _but not the right of the clergy to the sole
use of them_.”[29]
Theodore encouraged landowners to build churches on their estates by
permitting them to have the appointment of the priests who were to
officiate in them.
It is remarkable that Bede, in his ecclesiastical history, mentions the
word “decima” only once. It appears in bk. iv. c. 29. Writing of Bishop
Eadbert, the successor of Bishop Cuthbert at Lindisfarne, he says,
“So that according to the law, he gave every year the tenth part, not
only of four-footed beasts, but also of all corn and fruit, as also of
garments _to the poor_.” [Ita ut juxta legem, omnibus annis _decimam_,
non solum quadrupedum, verum etiam frugum omnium atque pomorum, necnon
et vestimentorum partem, _pauperibus_ daret]. The law referred to here
was the Mosaic or Divine law. Eadbert was made bishop A.D. 688, two
years before Theodore died. He gave the tenth part _to the poor_. Bede’s
history comes down to A.D. 734, and yet this is the only instance in
which tithe is mentioned in his writings, and then it was given to the
poor—strong evidence as to the common law right of the poor to a share of
the tithe.
Dr. Lingard quotes another passage from Bede, which he says appears to
him to allude to tithes, viz., “That there was not a village in the
remotest parts of Northumbria which could escape the payment of TRIBUTE
to the bishop.”[30] If Bede alluded to tithes, he would have written
_decimæ_ and not _tributa_. _Tributum_ is from _tribuo_, which is allied
to _tribus_, _i.e._, _pars_, and so _tribus_ = to divide into parts.
Hence _tributa_ = parts or portions. Bede also uses the word “portiones”
to express the same idea without any reference whatever to tithes.
Theodore, in his “Penitential,” uses the two words, _tributum_ and
_decimæ_ in the same passage with separate meanings. _Tributum_—a tax,
contribution, tribute, collection, subscription.[31]
Before leaving Theodore’s genuine “Penitential,” I must refer to
the second revised edition of Mr. J. S. Brewer’s “Endowments and
Establishment of the Church of England,” by Chancellor Lewis T.
Dibdin, published in 1885. In his preface, the new editor “gratefully
acknowledges the valuable aid he received from Dr. Wace and the Bishop
of Chester (Dr. Stubbs, now Bishop of Oxford) through more than one
difficulty on endowments as to which he was in doubt.”[32]
“With regard,” he says, “to tripartition of tithes, the documents quoted
in support of it are (as far as I am aware) a spurious passage in the
‘Penitential’ of archbishop Theodore; see Stubbs’ ‘Councils,’ iii. 173,
n. 203.”[33] In referring to the volume quoted here, I find that the
writers say nothing about this spurious passage, but at p. 203, Haddan
and Stubbs give the three passages in Theodore’s “Penitential,” which
“Penitential” _they state is genuine_, and to which I referred in a
previous page. Then Mr. Dibdin adds, “An alleged law of Ethelred, 1013.”
Where did he get 1013? He refers to Wilkins’s “Anglo-Saxon Laws,” p. 106,
but Wilkins gives it as a genuine law of Ethelred enacted in 1014. The
fact that he did not transfer this law to his “Concilia” is undoubtedly
no argument against its genuineness as a law. I refer for additional
information on the law of 1014 to another part of this book, where the
Church-Grith law of Ethelred is fully discussed.
“I will not put,” says Blackstone, “the title of the clergy to tithes
upon any Divine right, though such a right certainly commenced, and I
believe as certainly ceased, with the Jewish theocracy. Yet an honourable
and competent maintenance for the ministers of the gospel is undoubtedly
_jure divino_; whatever the particular mode of that maintenance may
be.”[34] I quite agree with these remarks. But as Mr. Serjeant Stephens,
in his Commentaries, says, “The institution of tithes in its specific
form is _odious_ to the people and unsatisfactory to the political
economists.”[35]
LANDOWNERS’ CHURCHES.
The nobility and landed gentry were not slow in fully appreciating the
advantages of resident over itinerant priests. Some of the princes,
in changing from place to place, selected certain of the clergy to
accompany them for the performance of divine service for their families.
The Thanes followed their example and appointed chaplains, for they felt
the great inconvenience, especially in winter, in attending services at
the mother-church, which might have been at a very considerable distance
from their residences. The villagers were even in a worse condition.
To remedy these inconveniences, the landowners commenced slowly to
erect churches on their estates about A.D. 686, but more actively
about A.D. 700. The limits of these were conterminous with the extent
of their properties. Hence we find some of the old parishes of very
unequal extent. It is impossible to state exactly, in the absence of
documentary evidence, the origin of the modern parish churches and much
less their endowments. “At the original endowment,” Blackstone says,
“of parish churches, the freehold of the church, the churchyard, the
parsonage house, the glebe, and the tithes of the parish were vested in
the then parson by the bounty of the donor.” Blackstone states here the
parson’s common law right to the tithes, but after he receives them the
same common law right obliges him to share them according to the usage
and canons of the Church. The bishop was originally the recipient and
distributor of all Church revenues. The parochial incumbents had taken
his place and were bound to distribute them according to the original
custom. It would never suit for the poor to collect their own share of
the tithes. As Bishop Kennett says, _the parish priest was the bank_.
The manorial church was certainly the germ of the modern parish church.
And we can trace this germ back to A.D. 686. From that time to Edgar’s
reign the germ rapidly expanded, and the country became dotted all over
with manorial or landowners’ churches, when Edgar passed his celebrated
law which gave these with burial grounds a legal right to one-third part
of the tithes of the estate. This Act upsets Blackstone’s statement,
that the incumbent received all the tithes of the parish. It is true what
Mr. Freeman says about the opinion of lawyers. “As for modern writers,”
he says, “on the subject of the division of tithes, it is utterly useless
to go to the opinion of mere lawyers, Blackstone or any other, as giving
any help to either side. We may safely go to them to learn what is the
law in force at the present moment; _for historical purposes they are
worse than useless_.”[36] I endorse every word he says. Mr. Fuller did
not take this advice, but quotes Blackstone as above. Lawyers are no
better informed on this point than other men. When Blackstone wrote his
Commentaries, he gave us what was then the accepted law, that the parson
had a right to the tithes, and hence he is quoted as the best authority
on this point. But he omitted to state that although the parson is _the
general collector_, is THE BANK, by common law right, yet as trustee he
is only entitled to a share of church funds, and the poor and the church
building have also a common law right to a share of what the parson
received. Edgar’s law, which was re-enacted by Canute, gave the manorial
priest but one-third. When, then, did he get the whole? This is answered
further on.
Bede gives an account as early as A.D. 686 of the erection of churches by
landowners on their own private estates. “Not very far,” he says, “from
our monastery, about two miles off, was the country house of one Puch,
an earl. It happened that the man of God [Bishop John of Beverley] was
at that time invited thither by the Earl to consecrate a church”[37] [at
South Burton, Yorkshire].
“At another time also [A.D. 686] he [Bishop John] was called to
consecrate the church of Earl Addi.”[38] These landed proprietors,
who also had the advowsons, made a provision for the priests of their
churches by erecting residential houses and attaching to the churches
some glebe lands, from five acres to a hide and more. Add to the glebe
the daily oblations. To the land and oblations were added in course of
time one-third of the tithe of the produce of the manorial lands. Is it
reasonable that a single man should have for his _own personal use all
the tithes_ of the estate, together with the glebe lands and oblations?
No. Originally he had none of the tithes, all of which went to the mother
or parish church. Edgar’s law, giving him one-third, was re-enacted by
Ethelred in 1014, and again re-enacted by Canute, and the one-third of
the tithes to the manorial church is to be seen in the Domesday Survey of
1086. The mother or monastic church discharged the poor man’s common-law
right to a share in the tithes. His common-law right to a share not only
in tithes but in oblations also, was as well established as that of the
parson’s. But the parson in course of time became the recipient of all
the tithes in a manner which I shall hereafter explain, and was obliged
by the canons and custom of the church to distribute a portion to the
poor and to repair the church and defray other church expenses out of the
tithes and oblations after having allowed himself his own share.
As Christianity advanced in England the foundations of private
oratories became very numerous, for almost every great man, as soon as
he was converted to the Christian religion, built an oratory for the
convenience of his family, tenants, and dependents. The bishops had
prudently encouraged laymen to build such churches on their estates,
and allowed them to have the advowsons. Residences for the incumbents
were built close to the churches, and the landowners endowed them with
lands varying in extent from five acres to over a hide as I have
stated before. In course of time, they endowed them with the one-third
of the tithes of their estates, transferring the remaining two-thirds
to the monastic or conventual church, which was the mother-church of
the entire parish. In these churches all seats were free. Pew-rents
were then unknown. The church built by a layman had to be consecrated
by the bishop, but the lay owner had the advowson or nomination of the
incumbent. This was the origin of lay patronage in the Church of England.
The church so built belonged to the manor or estate. When in course of
time the property was sold or otherwise disposed of, the church and
advowson went with the property. In the change of ownerships, the rectory
and advowson were often separated from the manor, and were at first
appropriated by the owner to bishops, chapters, or monasteries. At the
Reformation, churches and advowsons, which became the property of the
Crown, were granted to laymen, and were also granted to archbishops,
bishops and chapters. The Crown separated in some cases the advowson
from the great tithes, and sold or granted both to the same or different
parties. Therefore we find two owners instead of one. The original patron
never anticipated this change. An advowson or a rectory may be and is
possessed in shares or turns by several owners. They are strictly treated
as property and are dealt with accordingly. The sales of advowsons are
carried on at public auctions and by private agents, and are given to the
highest bidder. The public sale-room is now less resorted to, owing to
the scandal thus created. But the sales are still vigorously pushed on
_privately_ by family solicitors and professional agents. A living, for
example, is worth, say, £800 a year from glebe and tithe-rent charge; the
incumbent is old, and the owner of the advowson is desirous of finding a
purchaser of next nomination after the death or resignation of present
incumbent. A life-interest only is thus purchased. There are other cases
in which the advowson is completely sold. The parishioners have no voice
in the matter.
As regards the payment of tithes, I shall show that for many years
the English bishops and their clergy had threatened and cajoled the
simple-minded Anglo-Saxons into the belief that the Church had the right
to impose the Levitical obligations upon them. We have only to read the
miraculous legends recorded by Bede and others to find out the means by
which the clergy had imposed upon the credulity of those simple-minded
people. It was by deceit, trickery, hypocrisy, and sham miracles that
the Anglo-Saxon bishops and their clergy had obtained tithes, first as
free-will offerings, then by legislative enactments, which made these
free-will offerings compulsory.
THE CONFESSIONAL.
The Confessional was a powerful instrument in the hands of the clergy by
which they obtained the payment of tithes. During the archiepiscopate
of Theodore (668-690) auricular confession began to take the place of
public discipline. Theodore’s “Penitentiary,” which was published with
his authority, directed confessors how to conduct themselves in hearing
confessions and how to enjoin penance. Confession to the priest was made
necessary, not in order to obtain his absolution, but to be informed
what sort of penance was required for every offence, and for the several
degrees and circumstances of it. The most difficult part of the priest’s
office was to proportion the private penance to the crime, and Theodore’s
“Penitentiary” was looked upon as the best rule in this particular.[39]
It is remarkable that the earliest mention of tithes in England is found
in Theodore’s “Penitentiary.”
CHAPTER V.
_WORKS ATTRIBUTED TO EGBERT, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK (734-766)._
Briefly stated, they are—
(1) The “Penitential,” a document of the tenth century.[40] There are
four books prefaced with twenty-one canons. The first book only is
Egbert’s.
(2) The “Confessional and Penitential.” The fourth book only of the
“Penitential” is Egbert’s. And as regards the “Confessional,” he _may_
have translated it.
(3) The Excerptions. Mr. Thorpe takes these from Cott.: Nero, A. 1. They
are in Latin, numbering 163. The first twenty-one are ninth century
canons. There is another different compilation of excerpts in Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge, K. 2. The excerptions which appear in these
two manuscripts are not Egbert’s.[41]
Sir H. Spelman, Wilkins,[42] Johnson,[43] Bishop Kennett, Dr.
Lingard,[44] Kemble, Thorpe,[45] and others believed that the Excerptions
were written in the eighth century by the archbishop himself, and some of
these writers have referred to them in support of the threefold division
of tithes. But there is ample internal evidence in the canons themselves
to condemn them as the genuine production of Egbert, or that they could
have been written during his archiepiscopate.
If any one should take the trouble or be obliged to refer to Dr.
Lingard’s History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, published in
two volumes in 1845, he will observe the numerous references which this
Roman Catholic historian makes to Egbert’s Excerptions and Penitentials,
but which are now condemned as spurious. This is a serious matter for his
Church, because he mainly supports many important acts of discipline in
the Anglo-Saxon Church by such references. But when the references are
condemned as spurious, all his arguments founded upon them fall of course
to the ground.
Mr. Haddan and Bishop Stubbs say that the excerptions are not Egbert’s.
What does Mr. Selden say? “An antient collection of divers canons written
about the time of Henry the First, with this inscription of equal age,
‘Incipiunt excerptiones Domini Egberti Archiepiscopi Eburace Civitatis,
de jure sacerdotali’ [= Here begin the excerptions of the Lord Egbert,
archbishop of the city of York, concerning the duty of priests], hath
these words, ‘Ut unusquisque sacerdos cunctos sibi pertinentes erudiat,
ut sciant qualitèr decimas totius facultatis ecclesiis divinis debitè
offerant.’ [That every priest teach all that belong to him to know how
they are to offer the tithes of all their substance in a due manner to
the churches of God.] And immediately follows, ‘Ut ipsi sacerdotes à
populis suscipiant decimas, et nomina eorum, quicunque dederint, scripta
habeant, et secundum authoritatem canonicam coram testibus dividant, et
ad ornamentum ecclesiæ primam eligant partem, secundam autem ad usum
pauperum atque perigrinorum per eorum manus misericorditèr cum omni
humilitate dispensent; tertiam verò sibimet ipsis sacerdotes reservent?”
[That the priests themselves receive the tithes of the people, and write
down their names and what they have given, and divide it according to
canonical authority in the presence of witnesses, and choose the first
part for the ornament of the church, and distribute the second part
with their own hands tenderly and with all humility for the use of the
poor and strangers; and let the priests reserve the third part for
themselves.][46]
“If the credit of this,” continues Selden, “be valued by the inscription,
then it is about 850 years old. For, that Egbert lived Archbishop of York
from the year 743 (?) to 767 (?). But the authority of that title must
undergo censure. Whoever made it, supposed that Egbert gathered that law
and the rest joined with it out of some former church constitutions;
neither doth the name ‘Excerptions’ denote otherwise. But in that
collection some whole constitutions occur in the same syllables, as they
are in the Capitularies of Charles the Great, as that of ‘unicuique
ecclesiæ unus mansque integer,’ etc., and some others, which could not be
known to Egbert, that died in the last year of Pipin, father to Charles.
How came he then by that? And how may we believe that Egbert was the
author of any part of those Excerptions? unless you excuse it with that
use of the middle times which often inserted into one body and under
one name laws of different ages. But admit that; yet, what is ‘secundum
canonicam autoritatem coram testibus dividant’? The ancientest ‘canonica
autoritas’ for dividing tithes before witnesses is an old Imperial,
attributed in some editions to the eleventh year of the reign of Charles
the Great, being King of France; in others to the Emperor Lothar the
First. But refer it to either of them, and it will be divers years later
than Egbert’s death. And other mixed passages there plainly show that
whosesoever the collection was, much of it was taken out of the Imperial
Capitularies, none of which were made in Egbert’s time.”[47]
This is a reasonable and argumentative statement of facts. In addition
to the above, I may refer to the seventh canon, “That all priests pray
assiduously for the life and empire of our lord the emperor, and for
the health of his sons and daughters.” Again, canon 24 is found in
Charlemagne’s Capitulary of A.D. 813. Egbert died on the 19th November,
766,[48] and Charles became King of France in 768. These dates are very
important in this controversy.
The first twenty-one canons are from the Audain manuscript in the
monastery of St. Herbert in the Ardennes. Canons 22 to 28 inclusive are
taken from other Gallican Capitulars. These twenty-eight canons were made
between A.D. 789 and 816. The remaining 135 canons are taken from other
foreign sources.
It is quite unnecessary to introduce into the discussion of the threefold
division of tithes in England, doubtful canons, such as the “Excerptions”
of Egbert and other writings copied from them. There are, without these,
sufficient solid, genuine facts at our command with which to prove the
threefold division of tithes in England, and these are stated further on.
CHAPTER VI.
_THE FIRST PUBLIC LAY LAW FOR THE PAYMENT OF TITHES._
The first law making the payment of tithes legally imperative was enacted
in 779 by Charles, King of France, in a general assembly of his estates,
spiritual and temporal, viz., “Concerning tithes, it is ordained that
every man give his tithe, and that they be distributed by the bishop’s
command.” [De decimis, ut unusquisque suam decimam donet, atque per
jussionem pontificis dispensentur.][49]
Charles’s civil law had only enforced by coercion the existing
ecclesiastical law or custom of payment of tithes; and the ecclesiastical
law was founded upon the Levitical law; but I hold that the Levitical
law, as regards tithes, was not binding on Christians. In the New
Testament there is no reference whatever to tithes to be given to the
Christian priesthood. None of the apostles claimed tithes from their
followers.
“The growing habit,” says Kemble, “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.”[50]
The establishment of the right in England followed the same course as
that in France.
It is important to give Milman’s observations on the working of the above
law.
“On the whole body,” he says, “of the clergy, Charlemagne bestowed the
legal claim to tithes. Already, under the Merovingians, the clergy had
given significant hints that the law of Leviticus was the perpetual law
of God. Pepin had commanded the payment of tithes for the celebration of
peculiar litanies during a period of famine. Charlemagne made it a law of
the empire; he enacted it in its most strict and comprehensive form as
_investing the clergy in a right to the tenth of the substance and of the
labour alike of freemen and serf_.”
“The collection of tithes was regulated by compulsory statutes; the
clergy took note of all who paid or refused to pay; four or eight, or
more, jurymen were summoned from each parish as witnesses for the claims
disputed; the contumacious were three times summoned; if still obstinate,
they were excluded from the Church; if they still refused to pay, they
were fined over and above the whole tithe, six solidi; if further
contumacious, the recusant’s house was shut up; if he attempted to enter
it, he was cast into prison to await the judgment of the next plea of
the Crown. The tithe was due on all produce, even on animals. The tithe
was usually divided into three portions, one for the maintenance of the
Church, the second for the poor, the third for the clergy; the bishop
sometimes claimed a fourth. He was the arbiter of the distribution; he
assigned the necessary portion for the Church, and appointed that of the
clergy. This tithe was by no means a spontaneous votive offering of the
whole Christian people. _It was a tax imposed by imperial authority and
enforced by imperial power._ It had caused one, if not more than one,
sanguinary insurrection among the Saxons. It was submitted to in other
parts of the empire, not without strong reluctance. Even Alcuin ventured
to suggest that if the apostles of Christ had demanded tithes, they would
not have been so successful in the propagation of the Gospel.”[51]
PAPAL LEGATES IN ENGLAND, A.D. 787.
For 190 years no papal legate appeared in England since Augustine landed
on our shores in 597. When Pope Gregory sent his missionaries to England,
he thought the whole country was inhabited by English, and so ordered
that there should be two provinces, each containing twelve Episcopal
sees and governed by two Metropolitans, one at London and the other
at York.[52] Still Gregory must have been aware of the existence of a
British Church in the island, for British bishops were present at the
Synods of Arles, A.D. 314; Sardica, 347; and Rimini, 359.
The following historical facts should be carefully noted. Each of
the several divisions of England—call them the Heptarchy or anything
else—owed its evangelization to a source not exclusively of the Roman
mission. Kent and Essex had certainly remained Christian under the
successors of Augustine; but Wessex, with Winchester as its capital, was
converted by Birinus a missionary from Northern Italy; East Anglia by
Felix, a Burgundian; Northumbria and Mercia by Irishmen; Essex by Cidd
and Sussex by Wilfrid. Therefore the Roman mission, after the death of
King Ethelbert whose successors relapsed into heathenism, was rather
a failure.[53] Augustine was narrow-minded and sectarian, attached to
everything Italian. There were seven British bishops then in England.
In 602 a meeting was held at which representatives of the Italian and
British Churches were present. Augustine demanded that the Celtic Church
should change the time of keeping Easter in order to adopt the Roman
time. The British bishops declined to do anything of the sort, and then
Augustine lost his temper and rebuked them. His conduct thus exasperated
the members of the Celtic Church. The Italians were looked upon as
foreigners seeking to lord it over the native Church, and the Scots and
Britons were determined to yield their independence to neither threats
nor entreaties.
Augustine claimed metropolitan power, but the Celtic bishops haughtily
rejected such a proposal.
On the death of Ethelbert, and when a difference arose between his son
who succeeded him and Laurentius the archbishop, Laurentius, Mellitus and
Justus, were about to throw up the Italian mission in England and retire
to Gaul.[54] London was lost, and the whole aspect of the Roman mission
was gloomy in the extreme, when the second Archbishop died in 619.
Mellitus the third died in 624. Justus who succeeded him had consecrated
Paulinus on the 21st of July, 625, as the first Archbishop of York. In
627 King Edwin held a Witenagemót in a _room_ where the introduction
of Christianity into the Kingdom of Northumbria was discussed. The
result was that the king and his nobles were converted to the Christian
religion.[55] The fact that a room was capable of accommodating the
Witenagemót has led to the conclusion that the number must be small.
Paulinus had fled from York in 633, eight years after his consecration,
and after the battle of Heathfield. But his place was taken by Bishop
Aidan, a missionary from Columba’s Irish monastery in Iona, who had
established an Episcopal see in Lindisfarne.
There is a letter of Pope Boniface V. to Archbishop Justus, written
between April, 624, and October, 625, conferring on him the primacy
of all Britain and ending with these words, “Hanc autem ecclesiam
utpote specialiter consistentam sub potestate et tuitione sanctæ Romanæ
ecclesiæ.”[56] [But this Church as specially remaining under the power
and instruction of the Roman Holy Church.]
In 634, Pope Honorius I. conferred on Archbishop Honorius, seven years
after his consecration, the primacy of all Britain.[57]
But there is no evidence to show that the Celtic bishops acquiesced
in this power of metropolitan over all England conferred by the
Pope on the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was therefore an arbitrary
assumption of ecclesiastical authority exercised by the Pope of Rome
over the Anglo-Saxon Church, simply because a Roman mission was sent to
Christianize the Saxon heathen. But other missionaries were at work in
the same field, who were quite unconnected with Rome or its bishop.
The time of keeping Easter was the terrible stumbling-block in the way of
a union between the Roman and Celtic missionaries.
In A.D. 664, a synod was held at Streaneshalch; the subject of the proper
time of keeping Easter was discussed in the presence of King Oswy of
Northumberland by Bishop Colman and Wilfrid. In the same year Deusdedit,
Archbishop of Canterbury, died. The result was that the king espoused the
Roman style.[58] Then followed an interregnum of four years. Wilfrid’s
strong opinions about Easter kept him out of the archiepiscopate.
It is vitally important to note this turn of the tide to Rome. I take all
particulars from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. If this turn had not
occurred there would have been two separate and independent Churches in
England, the Celtic and the Roman.
In 664 a synod was convened in the monastery of Streaneshalch (Whitby)
presided over by King Oswy, who was at first a follower of the Celtic
ritual, for the discussion of the proper time for keeping Easter. Bishop
Colman spoke for the Celtic Church; Priest Wilfrid for the Roman time.
The latter had previously gone to Rome to learn the ecclesiastical
doctrine. Colman traced the Celtic time to the teaching of St. John the
Evangelist; Wilfrid traced his to St. Peter, and then quoted, “Thou art
Peter and upon this rock I will build My Church and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it; and to thee I will give the keys of the
Kingdom of Heaven.” This quotation turned the scales, as will be seen
from what followed. “Is it true, Colman,” said the King, “that these
words were spoken to Peter by our Lord?” “It is true, O King!” “Can you
show,” said the King, “any such power given to your Columba?” Colman
answered “None.” “Then,” added the King, “do you both agree that these
words were principally directed to Peter, and that the keys of heaven
were given to him by our Lord?” They both answered, “We do.” Then the
King concluded, “And I also say unto you that he is the door-keeper, whom
I will not contradict, but will, as far as I know and am able in all
things, obey his decrees, lest when I come to the gates of the Kingdom of
Heaven, there should be none to open them, he being my adversary who is
proved to have the keys.” The King having said this, all present resolved
to conform to the Roman ritual.[59] This was not the first nor the last
case in England in which St. Peter and the power of the keys did good
duty for the Church of Rome. The result of this discussion turned the
scales from Irish to Roman Christianity as the religion of England.
King Oswy had, before the synod met, held the Celtic views. His son, who
was present, held the Roman views. The result of this discussion led to
serious changes in the Church of England, for in the same year, A.D. 664,
the archbishopric of Canterbury became vacant, and Kings Oswy and Egbert
sent to Rome Wighard, an Englishman, whom they appointed, there to be
consecrated archbishop by the Pope, because there was no metropolitan in
England to perform this duty of consecration. He died there, and then the
Pope was empowered by the same kings to select and consecrate a suitable
person himself. “We have not been able,” writes Pope Vitalian, “now to
find a man docile and qualified in all respects to be a bishop according
to the tenor of your letter.”[60] Again, “King Egbert, being informed by
messengers that _the bishop they had asked of the Roman prelate_ was in
the kingdom of France.”[61]
From these two quotations, it is beyond all doubt or question that the
English kings did ask the Pope to select a qualified person for the see
of Canterbury. And it is absurd for Protestant writers, such as Soames,
in the face of these quotations, to assert that Theodore’s appointment
was a piece of skilful manœuvring on the part of the Pope. It was nothing
of the sort. It is but reasonable to assume that when Wighard died in
Rome, Vitalian wrote at once and informed the English kings of the event,
and that they then, although we have not their letters, asked the Pope
to choose a man for them. He therefore consecrated Theodore, a Greek by
birth and education. We all know what followed. In the same year the Pope
conferred on Theodore the “supremacy over all England.”[62] He landed in
England in 669, and held his see for twenty-one years. The Churches of
the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were independent of each other up to the arrival
of Theodore, who had energetically worked to unite all the Churches under
the metropolitan power of Canterbury. Here then we are on solid ground.
The Pope’s supremacy over all the Churches in England dates from the
archiepiscopate of Theodore.
There is no reference to tithes from the publication of Theodore’s
“Penitential,” probably about A.D. 686, until the two legates came to
England in 787, or a period of one hundred years, Archbishop Boniface
of Mentz, writing to Archbishop Cuthbert between 746 and 749, refers
to tithes having then been received by English bishops, “In daily
offerings,” he says, “and tithes of the faithful, they receive the milk
and wool of the sheep of Christ, but they take no care of the Lord’s
flock.” [“Lac et lanas ovium Christi oblationibus cotidianis ac decimis
fidelium suscipiunt; et curam gregis Domini deponunt.”[63]] Here is an
early instance of endowed bishops neglecting their flocks.
This brief sketch will enable the reader to follow further particulars.
KING OFFA.
Pope Adrian I. had risen from the position of a subject of the empire to
that of a sovereign prince through the instrumentality of Charlemagne.
Jaenbert, archbishop of Canterbury, thought that by the same person he
could exercise sovereign authority, like the Bishop of Rome, over the
kingdom of Kent as feudatory of Charlemagne. Offa, the Mercian king,
had assumed the title of King of Kent and treated it as a province of
Mercia. The King of France was too shrewd a diplomatist to encourage
such a foolish idea as that of the Archbishop against the terrible and
powerful Offa. But Offa found out this prelate’s intrigues, and instead
of sending an army to Kent to crush Jaenbert, he adopted another line of
policy of dividing his ecclesiastical province, and having a full-blown
archbishop in his own kingdom of Mercia, with his seat at Lichfield, and
endowed with the revenues which Jaenbert had drawn from that part of his
province.[64]
Offa had thus touched Jaenbert’s pocket, a very sore point with some
people. In order to carry out his design of changing the bishopric of
Lichfield into an archbishopric with metropolitan powers, he sent a
special mission to the Pope, and it was during this negotiation that the
shrewd Adrian came on the scene in English history. Adrian had reason
to fear Offa’s power, for there is a letter from Offa to Charlemagne,
intriguing to depose Adrian, and put a Frenchman in the chair of St.
Peter.[65]
Higbert, bishop of Lichfield (c. 779), was made archbishop by Offa in
785; he first signs the charter as archbishop in 788, but could not act
as Metropolitan, and so be on an equality with the Metropolitans of
Canterbury and York, without the pallium, which it was taken as granted
could only be given by the Pope. The pallium is a long strip of fine
woollen cloth, ornamented with crosses, the middle of which was formed
into a loose collar resting on the shoulders, while the extremities
before and behind hung down nearly to the feet. This pallium gave him the
power to ordain the bishops of his province, or to summon them to his
synod, or to sit on the archiepiscopal throne. It was the sign of the
Pope’s confirmation of his appointment as archbishop.
The Roman Curia at first hesitated to comply with the King’s request.
Offa was determined to carry his point, and he knew well by what means
he could realize his object. He resorted to wholesale bribery among the
Roman officials, and thus gained his point.[66] Peter’s pence probably
was also part of the bargain.[67]
I have gone into details on this subject on account of the results which
followed. Hitherto the Church of England was practically independent
of the Roman Church. But here was a splendid opportunity for so astute
a diplomatist as Adrian to advance Papal supremacy over the Anglican
Church. Certainly, Theodore’s appointment was a great step in the same
direction.
The Pope proposed, and Offa consented, that a mission should be sent
to England with a view of holding a council in Mercia, and of making
such regulations in the disorganized Church as may be found necessary.
Thus the Anglican Church lost her independence, and subsequently became
a slave to a foreign bishop and the Roman Curia. For what? What was
the _quid pro quo_? To convert the bishopric of Lichfield into an
archbishopric with metropolitan power from 788 to 801. The price was too
much. Higbert was the only person who ever bore the title of archbishop
of Lichfield. He died in 801, and his successor bore the title of bishop.
LEGATINE COUNCILS IN ENGLAND.
In 786, the two papal legates, accompanied by Wighood, a French abbot,
sent by Charlemagne to assist them, reached England with letters from
the Pope to King Offa, Aelfwold, King of Northumbria, and to the two
archbishops.
George, Bishop of Ostia, went to King Aelfwold’s court, and Theophylact,
Bishop of Todi, repaired to Offa’s. These kings then summoned councils
of their chief men, both spiritual and temporal. The Northern Council
assembled in 787; Offa’s Council assembled at Calchyth, _i.e._ Chelsea,
London, in the same year. The legates placed before each Council the
twenty Injunctions, which were drawn up at Rome previous to their
departure. After the Injunctions were read out at each Council, they
were signed by the two kings, the princes, two archbishops, bishops, and
abbots. These ecclesiastical synods, presided over by the kings, were
Witenagemóts, and the twenty Injunctions were so many laws regularly
and legally passed. The 17th Injunction relates to tithes; therefore
the payment of tithes received on this occasion a legal sanction in the
two kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. Here then we put our fingers on
the first case in which tithes in England had been legally ordered to
be paid. Previous to 787 there existed the custom of voluntarily paying
tithes. Some paid, and some did not. But in this year and in these
two kingdoms only, the custom was made a legal obligation by the two
Anglo-Saxon Parliaments.
“What copy,” says Selden, “of this synod the centuriators had, or whence
they took it, I find not. But if it be good authority, _it is a most
observable law to this purpose_. Being made with such solemnity by both
powers of both states of Mercland (Mercia) and Northumberland, which
took up a very great part of England; and it is likely that it was made
general to all England.”[68] It is most important to note that for 120
years after these legatine councils were held, there is a dead silence in
our laws and chronicles as regards the payment of tithes.
The legates, on their return to Rome, made a report to the Pope of their
proceedings in England. The document was published in A.D. 1567 at Basle
by the Magdeburg Centuriators, from a manuscript of which they give no
account.[69] It contains, however, as Lord Selborne admits, abundant
internal proof of authenticity.[70] Yet he adds: “But because it is not
probable that, if the Injunctions which we now know from this source
only had entered into the body of the public law of the three greatest
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the eighth century, they would, in this country,
have entirely disappeared.”[71] When such arguments from negative
evidence as to laws are urged, I always think of Mr. Thorpe’s wise
remarks, that “what we now possess of Anglo-Saxon laws is but a portion
of what once existed.”[72] It contains twenty Injunctions, and was signed
by the two kings and all the bishops, including an Irish and Welsh bishop.
In this document the object of the mission is thus stated: “To travel
through and visit the island, and to confirm the authority of the Roman
Pontiff acquired there formerly through the mission of Augustine.”[73]
FIRST CIVIL LAW IN ENGLAND FOR PAYMENT OF TITHES.
The seventeenth Injunction is this:
“Of giving tithes, as it is written in the law. Thou shalt bring the
tenth part of all thy crops or first fruits into the house of the Lord
thy God. Again, by the prophet: ‘Bring,’ he says, ‘all the tithe into My
barn, that there may be meat in My house, and prove Me upon this if I
shall not open unto you the windows of heaven, and pour out a blessing
even to abundance, and I will rebuke the devourer for your sake, who
eats and spoils the fruit of your land, and your vineyard shall no more
be barren.’ As a wise man says, ‘No man can justly give alms of what
he possesseth, unless he had first separated to the Lord what he from
the beginning directed to be paid to Him.’ And on this account it often
happens that he who does not give a tenth is himself reduced to a tenth.
Wherefore we solemnly enjoin that all be careful to give tithes of all
that they possess, because it is the special part of the Lord God; and
let a man live on the nine parts and give alms, and we advise that these
things should be done secretly, because it is written, ‘When thou doest
thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee.’”[74]
“The terms of this article,” says Lord Selborne, “speak for themselves;
their character is evident, being that of a _pastoral precept, not legal
enactment_.”[75] He therefore rejects this as a civil enactment for
payment of tithes.
“There can be no doubt,” says Haddan and Stubbs, “that the legatine
canon, approved by the kings and Witan, had the force of law, although
it is uncertain by what means the law was enforced, or whether it was
enforced at all.”[76]
And Bishop Stubbs says in his history, “In 787 tithe was made
_imperative_ by the legatine councils held in England, which, being
attended and confirmed by the kings and ealdormen, had the authority of
Witenagemóts.”[77]
On the legal aspect of this question, Bishop Stubbs and Mr. Selden
are correct. The tithe Injunction was not made legal or imperative by
legatine councils _quâ_ legatine councils, but because these councils
were actual Witenagemóts, whose consent gave it the force of law in the
respective kingdoms of the two kings. They made _legal_ what was before
_customary_, without attaching any punishment to its non-fulfilment. It
will be seen as we proceed that the Anglo-Saxon laws had only endorsed
the custom which previously existed of paying tithe. And as this
custom became general, so the law enforced its payment. But this penal
enforcement was not carried out in the laws of 787, because the custom of
paying tithe was not then general.
It is important to notice here that the Anglo-Saxon ceorls, or churls,
or freemen, occupying the social position between the thane and slave,
had no voice whatever in the passing of the laws. The Witenagemóts, which
sanctioned the payment of tithe, and granted away the national property,
called folcland, to bishops, cathedral churches, and monasteries, were
composed of archbishops, bishops, aldermen, abbots, priests, deacons,
princes, dukes, earls, and thanes. In these assemblies, both secular and
ecclesiastical laws were enacted, and charters embodying grants of public
lands by kings were confirmed and ratified.
In the 17th Injunction, quoted above, there are references to Scripture
in support of tithes. The two main positions taken up by Selden in
his history of tithes are (1) that the tithes of the Christian Church
are not the continuation of the tithes of the Levitical law as put
forth by the Church in support of payment, and (2) that tithes had a
legal as opposed to a Divine origin in the Christian Church. These two
positions are impregnable, and can never be overthrown. The Levitical
tithes were given to the Levites, “for the service of the tabernacle
of the congregation.”[78] But charity was at the very root of all
primitive references to the payment of tithes in the Christian Church.
Some writers assent to Selden’s second position as stated above, but
will not admit that they were given for different purposes to those
given to the Levites, and yet they were. In this respect they indicate
inconsistency. They would be consistent if they should assert, which they
do not, that the English parsons receive their tithes by _Divine right,
and in continuation of the Levitical law_; then all the tithes would go
to the parson as they went to the Levites. But the history of the origin
of tithes in the Christian Church is quite opposed to all this. Those
who uphold the Divine right consider the tithes as private professional
incomes, and not as trust funds to be used for the benefit of the people.
Most of the sermons preached in the eighth century placed the summit of
Christian perfection in the payment of tithes. The people in England
reluctantly submitted to a general permanent tribute in the shape of
tithes.
The obligation of paying tithes was originally confined to predial or the
fruits of the earth. But about A.D. 1200 the obligation was extended to
every species of profit, and to the wages of every kind of labour. I have
already stated the passage from the Old Testament on which the Christian
clergy base their claim to personal tithes.
OFFA’S SUPPOSED LAW OF TITHES IN A.D. 794.
Dr. Humphrey Prideaux, Dean of Norwich, published a work on Tithes in
1709, 2nd ed. 1736. The title is, “The Original and Right of Tithes for
the maintenance of the ministry in a Christian Church.”
His main object was to prove the Divine in opposition to the legal right
of tithes. He quotes questionable authorities in support of his views.
In reference to King Offa, he says, “And in imitation [of Charlemagne’s
Capitulars] Offa made a law about the year 794, whereby he gave to the
Church the tithes of all his kingdom, which the historians tell us was
done to expiate for the death of Ethelbert, king of the East Angles, whom
in the year preceding he had caused basely to be murdered on his coming
to his court to marry his daughter.”[79] He quotes as his authority for
this story the chronicle of Bromton, abbot of Jervaulx, in Yorkshire,
who lived towards the end of the 14th century. Now, in referring to this
chronicle, I find that Prideaux made two wrong quotations, viz. (1) that
Offa made a law; (2) that he gave tithes of all his kingdom of Mercia.
Let John Bromton speak for himself. “This Offa, by the wicked advice of
his wife, treacherously (prodicionaliter) put to death St. Ethelbert,
king of the East Angles, who was on a visit to him for the purpose of
marrying his daughter; in atonement for which sin he brought down his
pride to such a degree of humility and penitence that he gave to _Holy
Church a tenth of all that belonged to him_.”[80]
Roger of Wendover gives a very graphic account of the murder of King
Ethelbert by Offa’s wife in 792, in order to add his kingdom to Mercia.
After his death Offa annexed it to his own.[81]
Polydore Vergil followed Bromton, and Holinshed followed Polydore. Selden
quotes from Polydore thus: “Offa’s giving the tithe of his estate _to the
clergy and the poor_.”[82]
Bromton says that he gave the tithe to Holy Church. Polydore explains
what Bromton meant by Holy Church; viz., “The clergy and the poor.”
Polydore was an Italian priest sent to England by the Pope to collect
Peters pence. He was archdeacon of Wells, and wrote a history of England,
which he dedicated to Henry VIII. In this history he explains what was
meant by “Holy Church” thus: “He (Offa) gave the tenth part of all his
goods to priests and other poor men.”[83] Holinshed says, “He granted the
tenth part of his goods unto churchmen and poor people.”[84]
The poor were always considered in grants of tithes or offerings, because
charity was, and is, the basis of the Christian religion. And this
fundamental principle of Christianity runs through all donations to Holy
Church in Anglo-Saxon and Norman times.
Lord Selborne considers Bromton’s statement as regards Offa’s grant of
tithes, as a “mythical story,”[85] because other chroniclers do not
mention it. Is Lord Selborne consistent in pushing on this theory of
ignoring any statement which is not confirmed by some other independent
writer? Let us take for example, the Ordinances made at Habam about A.D.
1012. They are found only in Bromton’s work. They are not confirmed by
any other writer, but are copied by writers from this source. Does Lord
Selborne state that they are “mythical,” because other chroniclers do not
mention them? No. He admits them as genuine.[86] So does Mr. Thorpe.[87]
If Lord Selborne were consistent, he would have rejected them, because
they are not confirmed by other independent writers. No one knows from
what source Bromton had taken his text.
Lord Selborne admits the other two statements made by Bromton; viz., (1)
King Ethelbert’s murder. (2) The grant of Peter’s Pence.
Now, it appears to me that this so-called “mythical story” was not
unreasonable, (1) because King Offa enacted the payment of tithes in his
own kingdom in 787; and (2) because it was a tenth of his own property
which was granted. It certainly was not a general enactment for the
payment of tithes throughout his kingdom.
Kemble says on this point, “I think that in this case he [Bromton] has
probability on his side, if we restrict the grant to Offa’s demesne
lands, or to a release of a tenth of the dues payable to the King on
folcland.”[88] This is exactly my opinion also.
Dean Prideaux is not correct when he states, “This law of Offa was that
which first gave the Church a civil right in tithes in this land, by way
of property and inheritance, and enabled the clergy to gather and recover
them as their legal due by the coercion of the civil power.”[89] This
dignitary of the Church, so often quoted, polluted the tithe question
with so much fiction and ill-digested conclusions that he has made the
true history of tithes very embarrassing. But there is one comfort that
the light which the latest researches have thrown upon the whole tithe
question has completely dissipated the numerous fictions which surround
it.
It is erroneously stated that when tithes originated in England there
were no poor, although our Lord says we should always have the poor among
us; and that the owner of the soil was bound to support all that were
born on his soil; that they worked and lived for him, and therefore there
was no necessity for making provision for the poor out of the tithes.
Now on this special point we have overwhelming genuine documentary
evidence that provision was distinctly made for the poor in the first
mention of tithes being paid in England. “It is not lawful,” says
Archbishop Theodore, “to pay tithes except to the _poor and strangers_.”
This is the first instance in which tithes are mentioned in English
writings. It is therefore wrong to say that there were no poor in this
country when the custom of paying tithes commenced in England. Theodore’s
statement was written not later than A.D. 686. The second reference to
tithes is in Bede’s “Eccl. Hist.,” where he states that Bishop Eadbert
gave (A.D. 686) _one-tenth of his own goods to the poor_.[90] “Not
tithes in particular,” says Lord Selborne, “but all church property
of every kind was from early times, and down even to the fourteenth
century, described as _the patrimony of the poor_. The poor were always,
and almost must be in an especial degree, objects of the Christian
ministry.”[91]
In Anglo-Saxon times the State did not provide for the poor. It
demanded that every man should be answerable for himself in a mutual
bond of association with his neighbour, or should place himself under
the protection of some lord. The man without means or protection was
treated as an outlaw. This was heathenism and not Christianity. The
grand humanitarian, philanthropic principles of the Christian religion
were taught the Saxon heathen from the very first by the Christian
missionaries. Unquestionably these missionaries found poor, outcast
Anglo-Saxons to whom they preached the Gospel, and assisted them
with their charity and protection. This was the special function of
the bishops and their clergy in their dioceses, and monks in their
monasteries. When they appealed to the people for their voluntary
offerings of tithes, the strongest point in that appeal was for means
to help the poor and strangers, and so tithes went partly towards poor
rates, partly towards a church rate to repair the edifice, and partly
towards the clerical sustentation fund. These were originally the three
distinct functions of tithes in England. There is sufficient evidence for
a reasonable conviction on this much-disputed point of the division of
tithes.
CHAPTER VII.
_KING ETHELWULF’S ALLEGED GRANT OF TITHES._
“But this establishment,” says Prideaux, “reached no further than the
kingdom of Mercia, over which Offa reigned, till Ethelwulf, about sixty
years after, enlarged it for the whole realm of England. And because
hereon the civil right of tithes in this land had its main foundation,
and this matter hath been much perplexed by those who have wrote of it,
both _pro_ and _con_, I shall for the clearing of it from all objections
and difficulties raised about it, here give a thorough and full account
of the whole matter,” etc.[92] This erroneous view has been long exploded.
It is amusing to read what Prideaux calls Selden’s able and learned
history of tithes: “Mr. Selden’s wild chimera,” and again, “his
wild conceit”; but nothing could be wilder than his own _conceit_
on the Divine origin of tithes in the Church of England. Another
Dean—Comber—also wrote strongly against Mr. Selden’s “Tithes.”[93]
Mr. Selden had taken Ethelwulf’s charter passed in a Witenagemót, A.D.
844, as the first legal title-deed of granting tithes to the clergy. In
this view he was followed by Prideaux, Hume, Collier, Rapin, Milman,
Echard, and others.
Sir Henry Spelman had taken another view, and supposed the grant to have
been the origin of the glebe-lands of the Church; but this opinion was
wrong, because churches had been endowed with glebe lands prior to these
grants.
The great question at issue is, “Did Ethelwulf’s charters grant a tithe
of yearly increase?” They did not.
I have consulted the following chronicles on this matter:—
(_a_) The Saxon Chronicle under the year A.D. 855 writes: “In this year
Ethelwulf, inscribing in a book the tenth part of the land and also of
his whole kingdom, dedicated it to God’s praise, and thereby seeking also
his own eternal salvation.” [“Decimam terræ suæ et regni quoque totius
partem libro inscribens, in laudem Dei, suæque etiam æternal saluti
consulens, dicavit.”]
(_b_) Simeon has under A.D. 855: “At this time King Ethelwulf tithed all
the empire of his kingdom for the redemption of his own soul and the
souls of his ancestors.” [“Quo tempore rex Ethelwulfus decimavit totum
regni sui imperium, pro redemptione animæ suæ et antecessorum suorum.”]
(_c_) Huntingdon, under A.D. 854, writes: “Ethelwulf in the nineteenth
year of his reign tithed all his land to the uses of the Churches for
God’s love and his own redemption.” [“Ethelwulfus decimo nono anno regni
sui totam terram suam adopus ecclesiarum decimavit, propter amorem Dei et
redemptionem sui.”]
(_d_) Wendover, A.D. 854: “In this same year the magnificent King
Ethelwulf conferred upon God and the blessed Mary and all the saints the
tenth part of his kingdom free from all secular services, exactions, and
tributes.” [“Eodem anno rex magnificus Athelwulfus decimam regni sui
partem Deo et Beatæ Mariæ et omnibus sanctis contulit, liberam ab omnibus
servitiis sæcularibus exactionibus et tributis.”]
(_e_) Malmesbury says: “Ethelwulf granted to Christ’s servants the tenth
part of all the ploughlands within his kingdom, free from all duties,
and discharged from all liability to disturbance.” [“Ethelwulfus decimam
omnium hidarum infra regnum suum Christi famulis concessit, liberam ab
omnibus functionibus absolutam ab omnibus inquietudinibus.”]
(_f_) Asser, surnamed Menavensis, from the place of his birth, writes,
under A.D. 855: “In the same year Ethelwulf released the tenth part
of his whole kingdom from all royal service and tribute, and by a
perpetual inscription offered it as a sacrifice on the cross of Christ
to the Trinity for the redemption of his own soul and the souls of his
ancestors.” [“Eodem anno Æthelwulfus decimam totius regni sui partem ab
omni regali servitio et tributo liberavit, in sempiternoque graphio in
cruce Christi pro redemptione animæ suæ et antecessorum suorum, uni et
trino Deo immolavit.”]
Asser was well acquainted with the traditions of the king’s house, having
been tutor and biographer of Alfred, Ethelwulf’s son.
(_g_) Ingulphus, A.D. 855: “It added to the prosperity of the old age
(of Guthlæ, Abbot of Crowland) that Ethelwulf, the famous king of the
West Saxons, when he recently returned from Rome (where, with his younger
son Alfred, he had visited abroad the thresholds of the Apostles Peter
and Paul and the most holy Pope Leo), with the free consent of all his
prelates and princes who ruled under him, the various provinces of all
England, then first endowed the whole English Church throughout his
kingdom with the tithes of the lands and other goods and chattels, by
a writing under his own hand in this form,” then follows the charter.
[“Accessit ad prosperitatem senii sui, quod inclytus rex west saxonum
Ethelwulphus cum de Roma, ubi limina Apostolorum Petri et Pauli, ac
sanctissimum Papam Leonem, multa devotione una cum juniore filio suo
Alfredo peregre visitaverat, noviter revertisset, omnium Prælatorum ac
principum suorum, qui sub ipso variis provinciis totius Angliæ præerat,
gratuito consensu, tunc primo cum decimis omnium terrarum, ac bonorum
aliorum sive catallorum, universam dotaverat ecclesiam Anglicanam per
suum regium chirographum confectum inde in hunc modum.”][94]
(_a_) Refers to grant of lands, and not tithes; (_b_, _c_) use the word
decimavit; (_d_, _e_, _f_) refer to a grant of lands freed from secular
services, exactions, and tributes; (_g_) refers to tithes.
The word _decimare_ had been often used as regards gifts in tenths quite
apart from the idea of tithes. The whole difficulty in reference to
Ethelwulf’s grants, turns upon his use of the word tenth as a convenient
measure for ecclesiastical and other benefactions. This fact testifies
to another fact; namely, the growing recognition of the tithe as the
clerical portion.[95]
In order to get a correct idea of the application of the charters, it is
essentially necessary to make oneself familiar with the proper meanings
of “Folcland” and “Bocland.”
FOLCLAND AND BOCLAND.
_Folcland_ was the general property of the community—_i.e._, Anglo-Saxon
national property—_terra fiscalis_, and its possessors were bound to
assist in repairing royal vills and in other public works; and were also
liable to have travellers quartered upon them for subsistence. They were
required to give hospitality to kings and great men in their progresses
through the country; to furnish them with carriages and relays of horses,
and to extend the same assistance to their messengers, followers, and
servants, and even to persons who had charge of their hawks, horses,
and hounds. Such are the burdens from which lands were liberated when
converted by charter into bocland. For breach of these conditions they
were liable to forfeiture or witeraeden; that is, fines. Freemen of
all ranks and conditions, as well as common people, held folcland. The
possessor had only a life-interest in it. On his demise the king could
dispose of it to another. The holder may also possess bocland. Every one
was desirous of having grants of folcland, and to convert as much as
possible of it into bocland.
_Bocland_ was land held by book or charter. It had been land severed by
an act of the government from the folcland, and, by a written instrument
was converted into an estate of perpetual inheritance. The possessors
of bocland were released from all services to the public except the
_trinoda necessitas_; that is, contributing to military expeditions,
repairs of castles and bridges. The Church contrived in some cases to
obtain exemption from them, but in general its lands, like those of
others, were subject to them. The greater part of the charters granting
exemptions to the Church, are forgeries. The estates of the higher
nobility consisted chiefly of bocland. Bishops and abbots had bocland
of their own in addition to what they held in right of the Church. _The
Anglo-Saxon kings had private estates of bocland, and these estates
did not merge in the crown, but were devisable by will, gift, or sale,
and transmissible by inheritance in the same manner as bocland held by
a subject._ Among the Anglo-Saxons royalty was elective. It sometimes
happened that on the demise of the king his nearest blood did not succeed
to the throne. The former king’s private estate did not then pass to his
successor, but to his own children. Hence the advantage of a private
estate in addition to the demesne or crown lands. The folcland could not
be converted into bocland without the consent of the king by and with
the advice of his Witenagemót, an expression of the national will in its
distribution. There is hardly a Saxon charter creating bocland, which is
not said to have been granted by the king with the consent and leave of
his nobles and great men. “Cum consilio, consensu et licentia procerum,”
or similar expressions. If that consent were withheld, the king’s grant
would be invalid. There was a case of this sort. Baldred, king of Kent,
had given to Christ Church, Canterbury, the manor of Malling, in the
county of Sussex; but the king having offended his nobles, they refused
to ratify his grant, and therefore the grant had not taken effect until
King Egbert, in 838, with his counsel assembled at Kingston-upon-Thames,
restored the manor to the Church through the action of Archbishop
Ceolnoth.[96]
If the king himself received a grant of folcland, he had first to receive
the consent of his Witan. Ethelwulf booked twenty hides of folcland to
himself in his private capacity, but he had the consent of his Witan;[97]
Offa did the same.
When folcland was appropriated to the king’s subsistence, that is, to
the maintenance of his household, court, etc., it was said to be held
_in demesne_, or let out to farm; afterwards called Terra Regis, or
crownland. A great part of the “Terra Regis” of Domesday was folcland,
or public property of the State, and the king was only the usufructuary
possessor. We have an important definition of Terra Regis at page 75
of the “Exon Domesday,” viz., “The demesne land of the king _belonging
to the kingdom_,” and we find a similar definition in the “Exchequer
Domesday.”[98]
In dealing with Ethelwulf’s charters, it is essentially necessary to
state Mr. Kemble’s six canons of tests by which the Saxon charter may not
only be distinguished from a will or the record of a synodal decree, but
whether it is spurious.
These canons are (1) The Invocation; (2) The Proem; (3) The Grant; (4)
The Sanction; (5) The Date; (6) The Teste.
(1) The Invocation is a short ejaculation which usually forms the first
member of the document. (2) The Proem is a general observation on the
virtue of charity to the Church, the nothingness of earthly possessions,
and the advantage of purchasing with them heavenly treasures. (3) The
Grant, which is the important part of every charter. (4) The Sanction,
by which is meant the punishment attached to the violation of the
premises. It is called the “Si quis” clause. (5) The Date. (6) The Teste
or Subscriptions. In almost all ecclesiastical documents the witnesses
subscribed with their own hands.[99]