The total annual revenue of _all_ the mo_A history of tithes

together with the episcopal and chapter estates surrendered to the

Crown, was about £300,000, which, if carefully managed—say by a Board

of Commissioners—to provide for the poor, would now realize an annual

revenue of eight and a half millions sterling, sufficiently adequate to

defray all the expenses of the poor of England and Wales, without a penny

expense to the ratepayers. All the vast properties were disgracefully

granted away to unprincipled, poor, avaricious favourites and courtiers

of Henry VIII., and his children.

It was Cromwell who, in his desire to promote the Reformation, advised

the King to divide the abbey lands among the nobles and gentry, either

by grant or sale on easy terms; and that by being thus bound by the

sureties of private interest, they might always oppose any return towards

the dominion of Rome.[232]

Cromwell’s views turned out to be correct, as we know from the conduct

of members of Parliament who were in possession of monastic property.

In Mary’s reign her Parliament, which was so obsequious in all matters

of religion, adhered with a firm grasp to their Church lands. Nor could

the papal supremacy be re-established by Mary until her sanction was

given that they should be allowed the full enjoyment of their Abbey

lands, and we may ascribe the zeal of the same class, in bringing back

and preserving the reformed Church under Elizabeth, to a similar motive;

that, according to the general laws of human nature, they gave a readier

reception to truth, which made their estates more secure.[233] They would

be any religion, provided they retained their church lands.[234]

The 31 Henry VIII., c. xiii., expressly states that the laity in

possession of the lands of the dissolved monasteries were to maintain

hospitality. But they never did any such thing, nor were they required

to do so. They increased the rentals of the monastic, episcopal and

capitular lands fourfold more than had previously been paid, for

ecclesiastical lands were let at about one-fourth of their rack-rental

value. A good deal of the land was tithe-free, and therefore higher

rentals were demanded than for lands which paid tithes. These men made

the poor laws; their increased rentals increased pauperism, but they had

only a small fractional part to pay themselves towards the maintenance of

the poor; the bulk of the rates for the relief of the poor (increased

in number by the conduct of these new landlords) was paid by people

unconnected with the land.

“The poor of England,” says Blackstone, “till the time of Henry VIII.,

subsisted entirely upon private benevolence, and the charity of

well-disposed Christians. For though it appears by the ‘Mirror’ that by

the Common Law the poor were to be ‘sustained by _parsons_, rectors of

the church, and the _parishioners_, so that none of them die for default

of sustenance;’ and though by the statutes 12 Rich. II., c. vii. and 19

Henry VII., c. xii. the poor are directed to be sustained in the cities

or towns wherein they were born or where they had dwelt for three years

(which seem to be the first rudiments of parish settlements), yet till

the statute of 27 Henry VIII., c. xxvi., I find no compulsory method

chalked out for this purpose; but the poor seem to have been left to

such relief as the humanity of their neighbours would afford them. The

monasteries were, in particular, their principal resource.”[235]

Here the “Mirror” distinctly states that by Common Law the parson and his

parishioners sustained the poor, and by the same Common Law the parson,

as trustee, received all the tithes, and by the same law the poor had a

claim to a part of those tithes.

It is a favourite argument with Lord Selborne, and others who follow

him, that the part allotted out of the tithes for the poor would be

insufficient for their support. But he omits the important fact that

in one of Edgar’s canons it was enacted that the people should also

distribute alms to the poor, so that the part allotted out of the tithes

was not intended to be the _whole_ maintenance which the poor should

receive.[236]

In A.D. 960, when Edgar’s laws and canons were enacted, the population of

England was about 800,000, with about 1,000,000 acres under cultivation.

The provision for the poor was more than sufficient.

Mr. Blunt, in his “History of the Reformation,” tells us that “A large

body of almost starving people was formed by the ruined monks, and those

who had been maintained by them, either in labour or charity. Rents were

enormously raised by those to whom the monastic grants fell by grants

or purchase, the new landlords exacting three or four times more than

had been required by the old church landlords. The poverty of the poor

and the wealth of the rich drew away class from class and introduced

that disintegration of society, which caused so much trouble in the 17th

century.”[237]

Sir Simon Degge, in his “Parson’s Counsellor,” says “That there are many

pluralists in England that hardly see either of their livings in a year;

that all the greatest and best livings in the kingdom are now (1676) held

by pluralists, and served by mean curates; that thereby many poor souls

are neglected in danger to perish; that in many places two great parishes

are left to the care of two boys, who came but the other day from school,

and perhaps fitter to be there still, while the shepherd that takes the

fleece either feasts it out in his lord’s family or takes his ease upon a

prebend or deanery; that it is no other than hiring out the sacred trust

to pitiful mercenaries at the cheapest rate; that it is a thing of high

scandal for one to receive the fees and commit the work to some inferior

or raw practitioners; that one end of the law of residence (21 Henry

VIII.) was to maintain hospitality; that the best livings in the kingdom

are served with poor curates and no hospitality; that we are now in a

far worse condition than before making the Act, for that dispensations

from Rome were slow and costly, and that there are ten dispensations for

pluralities now to one then.” He further added that the revenues of the

Church were divided into four parts, and referred to Pope Sylvester as

having originated this division; and then used these words:—“_And I would

wish every clergyman to remember that the poor have a share in the tithes

with him_.”[238]

Referring to this author’s words, Lord Selborne says, “Sir Simon Degge

was a (not particularly distinguished) lawyer of Charles the Second’s

time. For his citation of Pope Sylvester, etc., he was called to account

in his own day, and in a later edition he defended it lamely enough,

maintaining on the authority of some Roman canonists the genuineness

of the extracts from synodical Acts of Pope Sylvester published by

Isidore, and it must therefore be supposed, of the forgeries in the same

collection also.”[239]

He carefully avoids giving us the name of the writer who called Degge to

account. It was the Rev. Henry Wharton, the author of the “Anglia Sacra.”

In 1693 this boy pluralist—the author of “A Defence of

Pluralities”—published, under the name of Anthony Harmer, “A Specimen

of some Errors and Defects,” in Bishop Burnet’s “History of the

Reformation.” For an account of the malicious spirit in which this book

was written, see Burnet’s Preface to the third volume of his “History of

the Reformation.” “Here is a writer,” says the Bishop, “who is wanting

in Christian temper and in decency, and I regret to see such facts and

industry soured and spoiled with so ill a temper.”[240]

Dr. Cave, author of “Historia Literaria,” who employed Wharton as his

amanuensis, in a letter to Archbishop Tillotson, fully corroborates

Bishop Burnet’s character of Wharton. The bishop knew who Anthony Harmer

was, and his caustic remarks on Wharton’s “Anglia Sacra” were well

deserved.[241]

While Lord Selborne traduced the character of Degge, “as a not

particularly distinguished lawyer,” he has not a word to say against

Henry Wharton’s _legion_ of blunders. I shall prove that Sir Simon Degge

does not deserve the above character.

Sir Simon Degge was a judge of West Wales in 1660; recorder of Derby in

1661; Knighted in 1669; a bencher of the Inner Temple; in 1673 was high

sheriff of Derbyshire. His “Parson’s Counsellor and Law of Tithes” was

a leading text book for many years. He dedicated it to a bishop, and in

his sixth and last edition in his lifetime, he writes: “To the parsons,

vicars, and the rest of the reverend clergy of the Church of England.

Your kind acceptance of the former impressions of the book has encouraged

me this sixth time to appear in public.” He died in 1704.

In this edition he says, “Nor is there any doubt but that by the Canon

Law _the poor ought to have a share in the revenues of the church_, which

was all I endeavoured to prove.”[242]

Lord Selborne quotes his closing admonition from the seventh revised

edition of 1820, _i.e._ 116 years after Degge’s death: “By all which it

appears that _originally_ the poor had a share of the tithe.”[243] Degge

never wrote these words, and it is not fair nor just to a dead author to

publish a garbled edition of his work, and to quote against him from this

garbled edition. I have given above his own words from his last edition

published in 1703.

The 13 Eliz. c. xx. enacts that the lessor absent above eighty days in a

year should lose one year’s profits of the benefice, to be distributed by

the Ordinary among the poor of the parish.

A subsequent statute (18 Eliz. c. xi. s. 7) confirms the above; and

provides that the Ordinary shall grant sequestration of the profits,

and in default that every parishioner may retain his tithes; and the

churchwarden will take the other profits of the benefice to distribute

among the poor.

The rights of the Poor to a portion of the tithes were given by (1) The

Act of 1014; (2) 15 Rich. II. c. vi.; (3) 13 Eliz. c. xx.; (4) 18 Eliz.

c. xi. s. 7.

When we come to the Act for the relief of the Poor, (43 Eliz. c. ii.)

it provides for the taxation of every occupier of lands, houses, tithes

impropriate, propriation of tithes, coal mines and underwoods. But it

does not take any portion of the tithes for the support of the poor;

hence it is argued that the poor had no claim to any portion of the

tithes. The fact is, that previously there was no machinery by which

their claims could have been carried out. The parochial incumbents were

trustees of their property, and as such had many claims on their incomes,

the poor had to put up with whatever the trustees wished to give them.

And finally the trustees _closed upon all the tithes_ as their own.

There is a remarkable instance on record, in which certain parochial

rectors _closed upon all the tithes_ of their parishes.

Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester, founded the Hospital of St. Cross,

near Winchester, by his charter dated A.D. 1137, in which he named

sixteen churches, with their appurtenances and appendages, with which

he endowed the Hospital. The commuted value of the tithes of these

sixteen parish churches is £12,006 per annum. Now, the Hospital has

only the tithe-rent charges, amounting to £3,462 per annum, of four out

of the sixteen. The Hospital lost all the tithes of twelve parishes, and

the twelve rectors are now in possession of them, giving in lieu the

insignificant sum of £44 per annum, in the aggregate, as pensions.

Now, when did these twelve rectors close upon all the tithes? It was

before the Reformation, because in the reign of Henry VIII. the Hospital

had only the four churches. It is highly probable that the twelve rectors

closed upon all the tithes during the period of the protracted quarrels

between the Bishops of Winchester and the Priors of the Knights of St.

John of Jerusalem, as to who should have the appointment of the master of

the Hospital.[244]

The parochial incumbents commenced about the beginning of the fourteenth

century to close upon all the tithes, and to ignore the claims of poor or

church fabric upon these revenues. So at the period of the Reformation,

the incumbents claimed to have a prescriptive right to _all the

tithes_.[245]

CHAPTER XII.

_CANONS FOR PAYMENT OF TITHES._

Alexander III., who was Pope from 1159-1181, was very active in writing

to archbishops and bishops of foreign churches, commanding them to

order the people to pay tithes. In 1170 he wrote to the Archbishop of

Canterbury, and to the Bishop of Winchester on the subject. The former

prelate held a provincial synod in 1175, at Westminster, at which were

present King Henry II., his crowned son, and all the bishops and abbots

of the province. At this Synod the Pope’s letter for the payment of

tithes was read. In compliance with such orders from a foreign bishop,

the Synod commanded all tithes to be paid on crops from the ground and

from trees, of young animals, wool, lambs, butter, cheese, etc. Anathemas

and excommunications were hurled against all and every one who would not

pay tithes.

The Archbishop of York, twenty years after (1195), held a similar synod

in his province, which also commanded the payment of tithes; and this

synod, like that of Westminster, wound up its proceedings with anathemas

and excommunications—the great bugbear of those days—against all who

would not pay tithes. These archbishops were only acting up to orders

from Rome. They were tools in the hands of the Pope, to carry out the

orders of a foreign bishop who usurped supremacy over all other Christian

churches.

The most important canon of the English canon law for the payment of

tithes, was that passed in A.D. 1295 (23 Edw. I.), at a provincial

synod held in London by Robert Winchelsey, Archbishop of Canterbury

(1294-1313). The canon sets forth that on account of the various

quarrels, contentions, and scandal, arising between rectors and their

parishioners, as regards several customs then in use of paying tithes,

some uniform claim was necessary to be set forth. It then ordains that

tithes were to be paid on the gross value of all crops from the ground,

from trees, herbs, and hay. It also sets forth how tithes were to be

paid on the produce of animals, lambs, and wool. If sheep were fed in

one place in winter and in a different place in summer, the tithe was to

be divided. Similarly, if any one should buy or sell sheep in the middle

of the time, and it was known from which parish they came, the tithe of

these sheep must be divided, as it followed the two residences. But if it

were not known, then that church should have the whole tithe within whose

limits at the time of shearing they were found. It further states how

milk was to be tithed, and that tithes were to be paid for the pasture

of animals, according to their number, and the number of days. Tithes

were to be paid on mills, fisheries, bees, etc., etc., which were yearly

renewed. There was nothing in this canon about paying tithes on timber

wood, because it was part of the inheritance of the land.

The canon then passed from predial to personal tithes. Artificers and

merchants were to pay tithes of the profits of their business; and

carpenters, blacksmiths, weavers, and all other workmen working for

wages, were to pay tithes of their wages. This meant that after deducting

all reasonable and necessary expenses, they were to pay the tenth part of

the profits.

The rector was also to receive his mortuary fees, viz., the clothes worn

by the person before dying, also a horse and cow. These fees were to

be paid as a satisfaction to the Church for the personal tithes which

he had forgotten, or wilfully neglected to pay in his lifetime.[246]

Henry VIII. fixed a money payment in lieu of the mortuary fees. This was

the origin of burial fees. If parishioners would not pay their tithes,

they were to be excluded from the Church until they did so; and if they

continued contumacious, other ecclesiastical censures would follow. An

Act was passed, 2 and 3 Edward VI. c. xiii. s. 9, that modified and

limited the payments of personal tithes. “That in all such places where

handicraftsmen have used to pay their tithes within these forty years,

the same custom of payment of tithes to be observed and to continue; and

if any person refuse to pay his personal tithes, etc., it shall be lawful

for the Ordinary of the same diocese to call the same party before him,

and by his discretion to examine him by all lawful and reasonable means,

other than by the party’s own corporal oath, concerning the true payment

of the said tithes.”

The main difficulty in collecting personal tithes arises in the want of

any method of discovery.

In A.D. 1343, a canon was passed at a provincial synod of Canterbury,

held at St. Paul’s, London, that all manner of timber was tithable.[247]

This canon led to bitter strife, because wood had not been previously

tithable; for, like mines and quarries, it was thought to be a part of

the inheritance of the land. Timber was not tithable in the important

canon of 1295. It does not yield annual profits; yet the tithe of wood is

due by common law right.

In reference to making canons at synodical meetings, it was both

profitable and pleasant work for ecclesiastics. The laymen who had to pay

were not permitted to be present to express an opinion in the matter.

The tithe system was a very elastic band. It was stretched as population

and agriculture increased. We have the principle of development exhibited

in a remarkable degree in the tithe question. As the power and influence

of the bishops of Rome increased in the dark and middle ages, so did

tithes. Yet we are unblushingly told that tithes were the free voluntary

offerings of private individuals. I admit this to a limited extent. The

question is, Did all the landowners freely and voluntarily grant tithes

of the produce of their lands to the rectors of parishes? The synodical

meetings to which I have referred, prove that they were not so given,

but were arbitrarily exacted by the anathemas of the Church, and by

ecclesiastical and civil courts.

Things became tithable by the canons of 1295 and 1343, which were not

thought of in the days of Kings Offa and Ethelwulf. Provincial synodical

canons of the dark and middle ages had a pretending binding force upon

the people. But those ecclesiastics had put the last straw upon the

donkey’s (people’s) back in their synod of 1343. The young British House

of Commons, then only seventy-eight years old, was roused to opposition.

In 1343, 1344, 1347, and 1351, the House petitioned Edward III. against

the canon of 1343, but the petitions led to no satisfactory result.[248]

The Commons succeeded, however, in 1371, in limiting the power of the

canon. It was enacted[249] that trees of twenty years’ growth and

upward should not be tithable, and that if a suit should be commenced

in any spiritual court for the payment of such tithes, a prohibition

should issue. This was the first victory gained by the House of Commons

as regards tithes. The failures in the above years were caused by

ecclesiastical influence exercised over the King. There had been previous

Acts on Church questions, such as the Mortmain Act of 1297, which was a

much bolder step than that of 1372, but it was rather the production of

King Edward I. himself than any action of the House of Commons, owing

to the nervous state of feeling among the lay nobility to check the

extensive alienation of property to the monasteries which deprived the

King of help towards the defence of the country. The nobility were also

becoming extremely jealous of the growing power and luxurious living of

the monastic bodies, and also of the Church dignitaries.

The Statute of Mortmain had forbidden the King’s subjects from

bequeathing lands and tenements to the _religiosi_ without the King’s

license. But the shrewd, cunning monks eluded the Act by licenses of

alienation. Here we have another instance of ecclesiastical ingenuity in

devising plans to evade the law. Testators left property in perpetuity

to support priests to pray for their souls. Hence originated thousands

of chantries throughout the country, but they followed the same fate as

the monasteries. Much landed property had thus indirectly passed into the

hands of ecclesiastics. In 1531, an Act was passed that all such wills

would not in future hold good for more than twenty years. The Legislature

thought that twenty years’ prayers were sufficient to get a testator’s

soul out of purgatory, and that twenty years’ revenue amply remunerated

the priest for his services.[250]

The House of Commons was not a century old when a Bill was brought in,

“That no statute or ordinance of the clergy be granted without the

assent of the Commons, and that the Commons be not subjected to any

constitutions _which the clergy make for their own advantage_, without

the assent of the Commons, for the clergy do not wish to be subjected to

any statute or ordinances made by the Commons without the consent of the

clergy.”

From the angry tone of the Commons on the canon of 1343, may we not

naturally infer that if the House existed in 1175 or 1195, or at an

earlier date, or was a little older in 1295, when the most important

canon was passed, that they would have made a similar energetic protest

that “They would not be subjected to any canons which the clergy made for

their own advantage without the assent of the Commons”? I have already

fully explained that the popes, archbishops, bishops, chapters, secular

clergy and monks, took advantage of their position in the dark and middle

ages in imposing on the credulity of the simple and innocent laypeople,

by pretending that the Christian priesthood were the successors of the

Mosaic priesthood, and therefore were entitled by Divine right to the

tithes enacted by the Mosaic laws, and even a great deal more of the

tithes which those cunning and crafty ecclesiastics added thereto by

their numerous canons passed by them at councils and synods where no

layman dare appear.

In the “Englishman’s Brief for his National Church,” to which I have

before referred, it is asked (Q. 21), “Is it not hard on the cultivators

of land that they should have to pay tithes on its produce?” The answer

given is, that there is really no hardship in the matter. “If a person

rents land which in every respect is tithe-free, he pays so much more

rent for it; if it be subject to tithes, he pays so much less. In any

case he pays the same amount,” etc. This answer was written for the

purpose of misleading the reader. The landlord will try to get as high

a rent for his land which is not tithe-free as the landlord who has his

land tithe-free. But another important question arises. Why should the

whole burden of paying tithes fall upon land? There was a time when

personal tithes were also paid. Scripture was quoted in support of these

tithes. But they are all now abolished, and only land—and not all the

land—has to pay tithes.

The Earl of Selborne makes the following remarks in his pamphlet: “The

Endowment and Establishment of the Church of England.” “The rectorial

tithes of Selborne, which belong to a college at Oxford,[251] were in

1882, £447; the vicarial tithes, which alone belong of right to the Vicar

of Selborne, were £336. The rectorial or lay tithes of two parishes in

Basingstoke also belong Magdalen, Oxford, were in the same year £1,617.

A lady received the rectorial tithes of Bishop’s Sutton, amounting to

£1,431; and one of the London Companies, those of Chertsey, amounting to

£1,112.” I have placed in the Appendix a statement as to the recipients

of the clerical appropriations; also the impropriations of colleges,

schools, hospitals and charities, as they appear in the Tithe Commutation

Return of 1887.

In the “Brief,” it is asked (Q. 28): “Were not many of the Endowments

which the Church of England now holds given to the Church of Rome?” No,

is the answer, and it adds, “Not a single endowment was given to the

Church of Rome.” Both question and answer are misleading. The Church

of England was never _the Church of Rome_. The correct way to put the

question, but which would not suit the misleading object the author of

the “Brief” had in view, is, “Were not almost all the endowments, which

the Church of England now holds, given to her when she held the same

doctrines as the Church of Rome?” Yes. The main object of the grants and

endowments of land, churches, tithes, etc. was that perpetual prayers

should be offered up by the recipients and their successors for the souls

of the benefactors, of their families and relatives. The benefactors

believed in the doctrine of purgatory, and in the efficacy of prayers to

bring their souls out of it. The Church of England in pre-Reformation

days believed and taught the same lucrative doctrine. It also taught

that works of charity and not faith were stepping-stones to heaven. Two

churches, E and R, held the same doctrines, and both received large

endowments in tithes, lands, etc., in support of such doctrines. For

centuries E was in possession of such endowments, but in the sixteenth

century E repudiated the doctrines by the teaching of which E had

obtained the endowments from certain benefactors who otherwise would not

have given them. Parliament permitted E to hold the ancient endowments on

certain conditions specified in Acts of Parliament, and E now dishonestly

ignores the conditions, holds the doctrines repudiated, but keeps a firm

grip on the ancient endowments. E has but a parliamentary title to the

ancient endowments. And as such, Parliament has the right to change and

convert the endowments, if it should think proper, to other purposes.

At the period of the Reformation there was no physical transfer of the

endowments from the old to the new trustees; from incumbents who would

not conform to the Acts of Parliament, to those who did conform. The

incumbents who were in possession of the endowments before the Acts

were passed, and who conformed to the Acts when passed, were left in

possession of them, and as their successors similarly conformed to the

Acts, they peaceably entered into possession; so there was no physical

transfer of the property, but there was a change of trustees when the

old trustees declined to conform to the Acts of Parliament, but no

change when they did conform. It is therefore very clear that the Church

of England holds her ancient endowments by a parliamentary title, just

as the Sovereign does the throne. And the logical sequence is that

Parliament has the right, if it should think proper, to convert the

endowments to any other use, especially when the present holders are

frequently ignoring the conditions upon which they were granted at the

Reformation.

It is not quite correct to say at page 52, in the “Brief,” that all

the monastic endowments have been swept away and confiscated to the

Crown. The properties of the alien priories are now enjoyed by some of

our wealthy colleges and public schools. Henry VIII. had endowed, out

of the monastic properties, six bishoprics and chapters, of which five

bishoprics exist at the present day. Again, Christ Church, Oxford, the

aristocratic college for the sons of our nobility, was built and endowed

out of the property of over twenty monasteries which were confiscated,

with the full sanction of both King and Pope, in order to supply Cardinal

Wolsey with funds to build and endow “Cardinal College,” Oxford. This

college receives at present £40,000 per annum gross from tithe-rent

charges. Again, the eight conventual chapters were not only left in

possession of all their monastic endowments, but also received in

augmentation of their incomes a great deal of the properties of some of

the dissolved monasteries. For example, Canterbury received almost all

the endowments of St. Augustine’s monastery.

The year 1836 was a turning-point in the episcopal and capitular

endowments; the 6 & 7 William IV. c. lxxvii. created the Ecclesiastical

Commission. The commissioners utilized the endowments in order to provide

for the spiritual destitution of large parishes. Up to 1890, upwards of

5,700 benefices have received £971,700 per annum in perpetuity towards

augmenting the incumbent’s incomes. We must add to this the enormous

capital sums which have been expended out of the Common Fund of the

Commissioners, in erecting some thousands of new parsonages, repairing

and clearing off mortgages of others. The average net income of the

“Common Fund” is more than one million a year. The gross income of the

“Common Fund” of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, on the 31st August,

1890, was £1,722,709; it disbursed that year £1,140,334, leaving a

balance of £582,374.[252]

Fully four-fifths of the properties in the hands of the Ecclesiastical

Commissioners has come, partly from the ancient public landed endowments

granted to archbishops, bishops, and chapters by Anglo-Saxon kings

with the consent of their respective Witenagemóts; and partly from the

monastic rectorial tithes which were transferred by the Crown to the

above corporations in lieu or exchange of landed estates surrendered to

the Crown at the period of the Reformation.

The duties performed by the parochial priests for the tithes were their

regular duties, including (1) saying mass, (2) praying for the dead, and

(3) invoking the saints. But by Acts of Parliament the mass has been

suppressed, the dead by some are not prayed for, and the saints are no

longer invoked by some who now enjoy the tithe-rent charges.

It is stated in the “Brief” that “when the principal parochial endowments

were given, papal supremacy was not admitted by the Church of England,

and Roman doctrines were not held.” I have already explained the active

part the popes and legates of Rome had taken to introduce the payment of

tithes in England. There is not a shadow of doubt that the supremacy of

the popes of Rome was admitted by the Church of England when tithes, the

principal endowment, commenced to be paid first by custom and afterwards

by compulsion in the Anglo-Saxon Church. The Roman doctrines followed

the supremacy. The archbishops from the time of Augustine received their

palls from the Pope, and Pope Boniface V., in a letter dated A.D. 624,

conferred the primacy of all Britain on Justus, Archbishop of Canterbury.

The letter contained these remarkable words, “Hanc autem ecclesiam

utpote specialiter consistentem sub potestate et tuitione sanctæ Romanæ

ecclesiæ.”[253]

Again in 634 Pope Honorius I. conferred the primacy to Canterbury, and

again in 668 Pope Vitalian gave the supremacy _over all England_ to

Archbishop Theodore.[254]

It must be noted that the endowments of the Church were not all given

at once, but were spread over a period of about six hundred years. The

period will be longer if we take the time in which the waste and barren

lands of Edward VI.’s Act were brought into cultivation; and again the

lands and corn-rents awarded by the Inclosure Acts of last and present

centuries in lieu of tithes. So the above quotation from the “Brief,”

like a great deal more of the book, is nothing but twaddle. The parochial

endowments commenced on a small scale in the latter part of the seventh

century, when landowners commenced to build churches upon their own

estates, and they increased in the eighth and ninth. First the endowments

consisted of church, parsonage and glebe; then tithes were added first

as free-will offerings. The Norman Conquest made great changes in

the Church of England. The Norman monks, who looked on the Pope and

obeyed him as the supreme head of the Church, introduced a new plan

by inducing landowners to appropriate their churches with their glebe

and tithe endowments to them. To give an idea of the enormous impetus

which had been given to the erection of monasteries from 1066 to 1215,

or 150 years, there were 427 erected in England, possessing extensive

endowments in lands and tithes. Add 130 up to A.D. 1066, and we get 557,

as the total number in 1215. I have selected 1215, for by the Council

of Lateran tithes were henceforth to be paid to the parochial clergy,

thus abolishing from 1215 the system of appropriating parochial tithes

to monasteries and other bodies. The decadence of building and endowing

monasteries commenced with the reign of Richard I. (1189). Tithes were

not given to monasteries until after 1066, and from this year to 1215

they had received the tithes of some thousands of parishes. Of course

they put vicars in the parishes to perform the religious duties, and

allowed them at first certain stipends, but afterwards the small tithes.

The question now is, In what respect did the Church of England differ in

doctrines and discipline from the Church of Rome from the seventh to the

thirteenth centuries, and from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries?

The parochial system continued in course of formation for 600 years.

During this time the Church received the principal parochial endowments.

It cannot be stated with truth that the “Roman doctrines were not held by

the Church of England” during this period of 600 years. Neither can it be

said with truth that “papal supremacy was not admitted by the Church of

England” during the same period.

There is no doubt whatever that the original donors of Church endowments

would never have given them to men who not only ignored but utterly

detested their most dearly cherished doctrinal views, viz: (1) the mass,

(2) prayers for the dead, and (3) praying to the saints. To support this

statement, I shall give a quotation from a speech delivered in the House

of Lords by Archbishop Howley, in 1840, when speaking on the Cathedral

Bill. “They must consider,” he says, “in what times many of the donations

of property were made. The persons who have made them might, and probably

would, if living in the present day, wish to see them applied in a very

different manner.” These remarks were made in reply to the following

observations delivered in the same debate by Dr. Sumner, Bishop of

Winchester. “What right” he asked, “had the Legislature so to deal with

property given for _certain specific purposes_, not by the State, but by

individuals, for ever?” The Archbishop pointedly stated in the speech

quoted above, that the “certain specific purposes” existed no longer.[255]

It is again stated in the “Brief” that tithes are not endowments(!) and

that they were given “without any specific conditions being attached to

their payment.” Is it reasonable to think that tithes were given to the

parish priest without a “_quid pro quo_”? Is not the “_quid pro quo_”

implied in his office? The “Brief” further observes at p. 52: “It is

an interesting work for all zealous people concerned in such matters

to see, as a matter of public trust, that those who now possess such

property[256] shall fulfil the conditions attached to its original

grant or bequest.” I cannot defend for one moment the enrichment of

the nobility and gentry of this country with Church spoliation. But I

ask myself the question: “Do the Bishops of Chester, Gloucester and

Bristol, Oxford and Peterborough and their respective chapters, ‘fulfil

the conditions attached to the original grant or bequest of the property

which they possess?’” We must not forget that the King who endowed them

with monastic property, passed the Act commonly called “The Whip with

its Six Strings,” and, further, that he died in the full belief of the

doctrines of the Church of Rome, then the doctrines of the Church of

England, of which he was the supreme head.

CHAPTER XIII.

_APPROPRIATION OF TITHES TO MONASTERIES._

From A.D. 1000 to A.D. 1215 is a remarkable period in the history of

the English Church and English monasteries. The monasteries were built

and richly endowed with lands, churches, and tithes. All these were

conveyed by deeds of gifts to their perpetual use. The benefactions were

given for the special purpose of prayers being perpetually said by the

monks in their respective churches for the repose of the souls of the

donors and their relatives. In some cases the monasteries received the

tithes without any churches; but when they received churches with the

cure of souls, then the monastic corporations became rectors by virtue

of which they were in possession of all the tithes of each parish. For

many centuries the benefactions were conveyed by lay owners, without any

reference to the king or bishop, for they were considered as private

property, which the owner may dispose of to whom he pleased. Subsequently

it was necessary, before such grants could be given, to obtain the

licence of the king and bishop in order to complete the scheme. After the

Conquest, the Norman monks invented the system of having churches with

their tithes appropriated to them. Previous to the Conquest there were no

appropriation of churches, but patrons granted to monasteries, bishops

or chapters the advowsons of the churches. As religious services had to

be performed in the church appropriated, the monastic body had either to

depute one of their own fraternity in Holy Orders to do the duty, or

to appoint a deputy or vicar to act for them and to whom they gave most

miserable stipends. This latter alternative became the general rule. But

the abbot or prior took care to get the lion’s share of both parochial

tithes and offerings. The capitular bodies, nuns and religious military

orders imitated the practice of the monks and received similar licences

for appropriating churches from the king and bishop. The same system

was adopted by single persons, such as deans, chancellors, treasurers,

precentors, and archdeacons. Even parochial incumbents had nominated

vicars to do their work, and they themselves became sinecure rectors. The

pretext which the monks had given to gain appropriations was to obtain

two parts of the tithes and profits, leaving a third to the parish. These

two parts were for the relief of the poor and the repair of the church;

but in course of time they neglected both poor and fabric, and the

parishioners, for their own comfort, had actually subscribed towards a

fabric fund and hence originated church rates which were, like tithes, at

first purely voluntary, but subsequently became compulsory.

When the practice of appropriating churches, with their glebe and tithe

endowments, was first introduced by the Norman monks in England, the

patrons or owners considered that they were transferring a freehold

property, and therefore thought the conveyance did not require the

bishop’s confirmation. The patron conveyed his gift by placing the deed

of conveyance and a knife or cup upon the altar of the church of the

monastery, as this was then the usual mode of livery of seisin. In the

deeds of conveyances some are given “Canonicis ibidem Deo servientibus,”

etc.; others, “Canonicis regularibus ibidem Deo servientibus,” etc.; and,

“Monachis ibidem Deo servientibus,” etc.

The lay patrons sometimes exercised the power of discharging the

incumbent of his church and appointing another in his place. The church

was not as now, the incumbent’s freehold property. He then held his

position according to the will of the patron. We have sufficient evidence

on this point. It is stated in the Acts of the Third Lateran Council of

A.D. 1179-80, “So far has the boldness of laymen been carried, that they

collate clerks to churches without institution from the bishops, _and

remove them at their will_; and, besides this, they commonly dispose

as they please of the possessions and goods of churches.” This council

condemned “arbitrary consecrations,” as Selden calls them, of laymen.

“Before the Council of Lateran (evidently the third), any man might

give his tithes to what spiritual person he would.”[257] Four English

bishops sat at this council. The Council gave the death-blow to arbitrary

appropriations of tithes by laymen, without the consent of the bishop,

to whatever church or monastery they pleased. It was ordained by this

Council that no religious orders should receive any appropriations of

churches or tithes without the assent of the bishop. In Anglo-Saxon times

the tithes were given to the parish churches, but from A.D. 1066 to

A.D. 1200, they were also given to monasteries, bishops, and capitular

corporations. “Arbitrary consecrations of tithes,” says Blackstone, “were

in general use till the time of King John, which was probably owing to

the intrigues of the regular clergy or monks of the Benedictine and other

rules, under Archbishop Dunstan and his successors, who endeavoured

to wean the people from paying their dues to the secular or parochial

clergy. A layman, who was obliged to pay his tithes somewhere, might

think it good policy to erect an abbey, and there pay them to his own

monks, or grant them to some abbey already erected, and thus have masses

for ever sung for his soul.”[258] Not only had laymen appropriated

tithes to episcopal, capitular, and monastic corporations, but, in Lord

Selborne’s opinion, they may also have given them to parish churches.

Hence, he thinks, _the true origin of the endowment of parish churches

with tithes_.

The decree of the Third Lateran Council, making void arbitrary

appropriations of tithes, was at first opposed by the laymen of England,

and so the practice continued. But the English hierarchy from that time

opposed the practice, and by degrees it gradually ceased.

Pope Innocent III., in a decretal epistle which he addressed to the

Archbishop of Canterbury about A.D. 1200, owing to the continued

arbitrary appropriation of tithes by laymen in face of the decrees of the

Third Lateran Council, enjoined the payment of tithes to the parsons of

the respective parishes. But the epistle had no binding force on the lay

subjects of this kingdom.

The arbitrary appropriation of tithes by landowners to monasteries,

although according to their rights, was contrary to canon law.[259]

At a national synod held at Westminster in 1125 (25 Henry I.) it was

constituted that no abbot, prior, monk, or clergyman should accept a

church or tithe or any other ecclesiastical benefice from a layman

without the authority and assent of his own bishop. The lay patrons paid

no attention to this canon, because they thought it was an ecclesiastical

encroachment upon the rights of property. It was a part of the supremacy

over the civil power which the Church was then usurping wherever she

found weak instruments. In the reigns of Richard I. and John, however,

laymen’s investitures gradually ceased. The Church became supreme.

Archbishop Anselm was a very strong supporter of papal canons which

inhibited the custom of lay investiture. The struggle continued after

his death. The practice at the present time is, the patron nominates or

presents, the bishop institutes, and the archdeacon inducts. But before

the reigns of Richard I. and John, the lay patrons nominated, instituted,

and inducted. The bishop had no voice in the matter. The practice, as I

have already stated, was condemned and made void by the Third Lateran

Council held in 1180.

At the General Council of Lateran, held in 1215, the arbitrary

appropriation of tithes to monasteries or other ecclesiastical

corporations which were not parochial, was strongly condemned, and the

tithes were commanded to be paid in future to the parish churches. This

council therefore gave the parsons the parochial right to tithes. It was

certainly very wrong to hand over the parochial tithes to outsiders who

did no parochial work and took no interest whatever in the parishes from

which they drew large incomes, while the parochial clergy who did the

work were most miserably remunerated. But we find that when the parsons

received the tithes they became wealthy, indolent, and vicious. We have

the trustworthy testimony of Wickliffe himself for this statement. No man

could possibly write or speak stronger than he did against the conduct of

the monks and secular clergy of his time.

In King John’s reign the papal power was supreme in England, and

therefore the canon law gained strength as England became weak,

particularly after Pope Innocent III. issued his interdict against the

kingdom.

The decrees of the Council of Lateran, A.D. 1215, had not disturbed

the then existing appropriations of tithes to monasteries, but were

directed towards the future, and made void all new grants of tithes to

monasteries after the date of this council. The council is a landmark

for the following arrangements: (1) The tithes of parishes, which before

A.D. 1215 could have been given by the owners of the property to any

church they pleased, either in or out of the kingdom, were henceforth to

be given only to the parsons of the parishes from which they arose. (2)

The tithes which had been appropriated to corporations outside of the

parishes, continued to be given to them. (3) The tithes which the parsons

possessed before A.D. 1215 could not be appropriated afterwards to any

other person. Therefore the tithes which rectors received were those

which they possessed at the date of this council, and all tithes created

after A.D. 1215.

The parish system which commenced in its germ about A.D. 686 was

completed about A.D. 1200, thus covering a period of over five hundred

years in its development.

From the beginning of the 13th century, tithes became payable to the

parsons of the parishes by _common right_. But monasteries and chapters

had to show their title to them either by _grants_ or by _prescriptions_.

We may thus trace tithes in England from their origin, (1) as free-will

offerings; (2) compulsory payment to some religious body, and (3)

compulsory payment only to the incumbents of parishes. It is an error

to state that all the tithes of England were paid freely. I have stated

enough to show that it was not so.

Tithes appropriated to monasteries were of two kinds—(1) Monastical,

(2) Parochial. With reference to (1), the monastic bodies performed no

spiritual functions for the tithes which the benefactors had granted them

out of demesnes which had no churches annexed. For these tithes they had

distributed alms to the sick, the poor, and stranger who called at their

gates; and said masses perpetually in their own churches for the souls of

their founders and benefactors, and those of their heirs and relatives.

As regards the second case, they received churches, with the tithes

and glebe lands annexed thereto, as a free gift from the owners, and

had therefore the cure of souls. They purchased the advowsons of other

churches, and even built churches themselves, of which as owners

they possessed the advowsons. At first if the churches were near the

monasteries, they sent members of their community, who were in holy

orders, to perform the religious duties. But when the churches were

situated at a considerable distance, and became numerous, the monastic

bodies employed curates or vicars to perform the religious duties. These

at first received no part of the tithes as their salaries, but only a

small sum of money, just what the monks liked to give, and the miserable

sum they allowed varied from year to year as it suited the caprices of

the monks, who received all the tithes, offerings, and oblations. In

the king’s licence, permitting the appropriation, there was the usual

condition which the monks ignored, “that an adequate portion be allowed

the vicar out of the profits of the church.” The wretched salaries of the

curates or vicars produced great scandal and complaints. As the curate or

vicar was liable to be dismissed at any moment by the appropriator, he

was not likely to insist too rigidly on the sufficiency of his stipend,

and so the miserable salary was continued after the passing of Richard

II.’s Act. The bishops were much to blame in this matter. Some of them

had been monks themselves from their youth; others were anxious to be

buried among the monks, or their anniversaries kept by them. These

considerations induced some, but not all of the bishops, to favour the

appropriation of churches to monasteries. Again, the rich monasteries

were able to bribe the bishops, and even the papal curia, and they

did so; they allowed the bishops pensions out of the tithes, and even

appropriated some of their churches, _i.e._ the rectorial tithes of

their churches, to the bishop’s table, on condition that he, as bishop,

allowed them to receive churches with all their endowments from the lay

owners.[260]

The preaching friars and John Wickliffe opened the people’s eyes as

to the monastic luxuries, and the poverty of the vicars whom they

employed to do their work. The age of building monasteries and granting

extravagant endowments had passed, never again to be revived, but there

was a growing tendency to sweep all the monasteries away. The scandalous

manner in which the monastic bodies had paid the vicars induced

Parliament to pass the following Act in 1392.[261]

“IN APPROPRIATION OF BENEFICES THERE SHALL BE PROVISION MADE

FOR THE POOR AND THE VICAR.”

“In every licence from henceforth to be made in the chancery of

the appropriation of any parish church, it shall be expressly

contained and comprised that the diocesan of the place, upon

the appropriation of such churches, shall ordain, according to

the value of such churches, a convenient sum of money to be

paid and distributed yearly of the fruits and profits of the

same churches, by those that shall have the said churches in

proper use, and by their successors, to the poor parishioners

of the said churches in aid of their living and sustenance for

ever; and also that the vicar shall be well and sufficiently

endowed.”

Lord Selborne remarks on this statute: “This law had nothing to do with

tithes in particular, or with fruits and profits of any churches not

appropriated to monasteries. If there had been then (_i.e._ in 1391)

a law for a partition of tithes, as against all rectors, giving the

poor one-third, or any other definite share, no such legislation could

have been necessary; nothing would have been wanting, except simply to

_enforce that existing law_.”[262]

These remarks are open to grave objections. The law refers to a provision

being made for the vicar as well as for the poor. When a church

was appropriated to a monastery, it simply meant that the monastic

corporation appropriated all the endowments, lands and tithes of that

church together with all oblations. The monastic corporation placed a

deputy, called a vicar, in the parish to perform the ecclesiastical

duties, and allowed him such a wretchedly poor stipend, insufficient to

keep soul and body together. As for the poor of the parish, it is too

much to expect, as Lord Selborne remarks above, that the poor of 1391,

or 500 years ago, had their legal remedy against the powerful and rich

monastic corporation in order to enforce their common law and legal

rights to one-third of the tithes. Why, in this enlightened and advanced

age, as compared with 1391, the poor are coerced and defrauded of their

rights by the wealthy, who know that they have not the means “to enforce

their rights” in the superior courts—a luxury which can only be enjoyed

by those who have a good banking account.

Lord Selborne says the law had nothing to do with tithes in particular,

and yet the provision for the vicar, namely the small tithes, formed

his main endowments. This law, no doubt, referred to all the endowments

of the vicar. The statute did not move the monastic bodies, who had

still the power of removing at pleasure the vicar of the parish, until

the Act 4 Henry IV. c. xii. (1402) was passed. “That from henceforth in

every church appropriated, or to be appropriated, a secular person be

ordained perpetual vicar, canonically instituted and inducted to the

same, and _convenably endowed by the discretion of the Ordinary_, to do

divine service, to inform the people and to keep hospitality there.”

What is meant by keeping hospitality? To provide for the poor out of the

endowments. Here is a list of the small tithes:—

Sir John de Cobham, appropriated Horton Kirby Church to Cobham Chantry.

The Bishop of Rochester, when confirming this appropriation in 1378,

assigned the vicar all the oblations, obventions, the tithe of flax,

hemp, milk, butter, cheese, cattle, calves, wool, lambs, geese, ducks,

pigs, eggs, wax, honey, apples, peas, pigeons, fisheries of ponds,

rivers and lakes, fowling, merchandizing, trade, herbage, pasture,

feedings, mills; all the herbage of the churchyard, and all other

small tithes arising within the said parish. The bishop taxed all at

seven marks = £4 13_s._ 4_d._ per annum. The chantry was to repair the

chancel and parsonage house, but the vicar was to pay the procurations

of the archdeacon. At the dissolution of monasteries, the parsonage and

advowson were given to the Crown, who granted them away by sale. At the

present time the impropriators receive £848, and Queen’s College, Oxford,

£200 12_s._ tithe-rent charge per annum from Horton parish, whilst the

vicar receives £266 12_s._ from the small tithes above stated, and has

thirty-four acres of glebe. The present patron is H. B. Rashleigh, who is

also the vicar, and his curate is C. Rashleigh. This is a good specimen

parish as regards the distribution of tithes, and also the patronage, for

£1,050 of the rent charge is in lay hands, and the advowson or patronage

is a marketable commodity, and now in possession of the present vicar.

It is also important to note that the vicarage has been augmented by

Queen Anne’s bounty by the purchase of an estate at Brockhull in the

same parish. We note that J. K. Rashleigh is vicar of Luxulyan, diocese

of Truro; patron, Sir C. Rashleigh, Bart. There is an immense number of

livings in possession of incumbents, obtained either by purchase or by

family patronage.

The appropriator gave the vicar the small tithes because he found them

more difficult to collect than the great tithes.

It is unreasonable to state that an unmarried parish priest with a free

parsonage house would be allowed to enjoy all these tithes as his own

income. No, for he was to keep hospitality. The rectors or monastic

bodies, who had the great tithes, kept the chancel of the church in

repair. And up to the present time, the owners of the great or rectorial

tithes, _and not the owners of any other church endowment_, are legally

bound to keep the chancels in good repair, and if they fall down, to

build them up again. What is this but a compliance with the original

division of tithes by which a portion was set apart for the repairs

of the church. And, as I shall show, these repairs included the whole

building, but in course of time the rectors kept the tithes and shifted

this responsibility on the shoulders of the parishioners, which led to

church rates. They did the same as regards the portion for the poor, who

were pecuniarily unable to maintain their claims in the higher courts, to

which legal remedy Lord Selborne refers.

In King Edmund’s law[263] the bishops were ordered to keep the churches

in repair, as the whole tithes of the parish went to them; but in

Canute’s laws of 1018, all the parishioners were ordered to keep their

churches in repair. Canute’s change from the bishops to the parishioners

can only be explained from the fact that the dilapidated condition of the

churches, the result of the Danish invasions, and a general destruction

of property throughout the country, made the funds at the bishops’

disposal insufficient for the purpose, and so the burden was thrown

generally upon the inhabitants. But when the country increased in riches

and prosperity, the liability for the repairs of the chancel was again,

and is still, placed on the owners of the great or rectorial tithes.

The following canon 4 is taken from the provincial constitutions of John

Stratford, Archbishop of Canterbury, made in a provincial council in

London, 10th of October, 1342.

“Whereas ecclesiastical men are entrusted with dispensing of tithes and

other things belonging to the church, _that the poor by their prudent

management may not be defrauded_; yet the religious of our province

having churches appropriate, do so apply the fruits of them to their own

use, _as to give nothing in charity to the poor parishioners_, being

regenerate sons of the churches, _to whom they are bound to do this_ more

than to strangers; by which means such as owe tithes and ecclesiastical

dues become not only indevout, but invaders, destroyers and disturbers,

to the danger of their own souls and theirs, and to the scandal of many;

therefore with the approbation of this sacred council, we ordain that the

said religious, having ecclesiastical benefices appropriate, be compelled

by the bishops every year to distribute to the poor parishioners a

certain portion of their benefices, in alms to be moderated at the

discretion of the bishops in proportion to the value of such benefices,

under pain of sequestration of the fruits and profits thereof, till they

yield a reasonable obedience in the premisses.”[264]

The inference to be drawn from this canon, and from the subsequent

statute of 15 Richard II. c. vi. (1391), is that the poor had a claim on

the tithes and other endowments; and this claim is admitted by Bishop

Stubbs. But Lord Selborne, Fuller, and others, stoutly deny this claim.

No doubt, the canon and Act refer to appropriated churches, when the

avaricious monks retained all the tithes to their own use. But the

inference above is generally applicable to all tithes. If not, what right

had a provincial synod to make a canon, compelling appropriators who had

neglected the poor to distribute to the poor, under the severe penalty

of sequestration, a portion of the appropriated property? and almost all

this property, unquestionably, consisted of tithes.

The vicar-perpetual of Henry IV.’s Act must not be confounded with the

later “perpetual curate,” who by a recent Act is now styled “vicar.” The

former is endowed with the small or vicarial tithes; the latter is not so

endowed.

The most important parts of Henry IV.’s Act are, (1) permanently

endowing the vicar, which, as regards tithes, equalled one-third part;

and (2) giving the vicar as permanent a position in the parish as

the rector.[265] But the autocratic freehold tenure has been grossly

abused. This abuse, within the past thirty years, has much increased,

owing to the lack of discipline and inability of the bishops to correct

insubordinate and law-breaking parsons.

There is no parochial council to check the conduct and actions of the

autocratic endowed incumbent. He snaps his fingers at the parishioners,

bishop, archdeacon, rural dean, or any other episcopal officer. He is the

bishop of his own parish. His freehold tenure and endowments make him

independent and absolute master for life within his parochial limits.

CHAPTER XIV.

_INFEUDATIONS—EXEMPTIONS FROM PAYMENT OF TITHES._

Infeudations are the conveyances of the perpetual right of tithes to

laymen.

The Third Council of Lateran, held in _A.D._ 1180, was the first

to forbid infeudations. Such conveyances, although frequent on the

Continent, were not so in England until the general dissolution of

monasteries. Very little of the lands, tenements, and tithes in

possession of the alien priories was given away or sold to laymen when

Parliament had at various times alienated the same. The properties

were bestowed on other monasteries and on colleges for religious and

educational purposes. In the latter case, the owners were clergymen. This

was not so with the enormous properties of the dissolved monasteries and

chantries which Parliament had given to Henry VIII. and Edward VI. The

amount of confiscated property was about £250,000 per annum. If this

vast property had been placed under the management of Commissioners, it

would realize an annual income at the present time, of eight and a half

millions, quite sufficient to defray all the expenses which are now paid

by the ratepayers for the maintenance of the poor in England and Wales.

I shall deal here only with the tithes, which form but a small part of

the immense properties which were then confiscated, and which Henry

VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth lavishly bestowed on the numerous poor

hungry court favourites and court flunkeys, who were the ancestors of

many who are now high in the peerage. The War of the Roses had swept

away the ancient nobility of England, and in their places sprang up a

crowd of poor hungry men who surrounded Henry VIII. and his children.

Nothing could possibly turn out more opportune for them than the

confiscation of the vast monastic properties which Parliament handed

over to Henry VIII. and Edward VI. to do with them as they thought

proper. What could possibly be better for these poor court sycophants?

We have only to open out the county histories of the country, and there

we shall find very sad accounts of the manner in which the vast monastic

estates had been given away to the ancestors of some of the aristocracy.

Archbishops, bishops, and chapters had to surrender to the Crown numerous

manors which had been given by Anglo-Saxon kings to their predecessors

out of folcland which was the national property of the Anglo-Saxons.

These manors were afterwards given away by the Crown to these poor hungry

court favourites, and thus formed the title-deeds of many aristocratic

families who now carry high heads in the country.

The 32 Henry VIII. c. viii. gave the king power (1) to grant the

properties to whom he wished; (2) that such persons should be free

from the payment of tithes if such lands had been exempted previous to

the dissolution; and (3) that the lay-owners of monastic lands could

claim tithes from them. So, then, laymen who claimed tithes were called

_impropriators_, because they were _improper_ persons to receive them.

But the same may have been said of the lay-monks, nuns, military orders,

etc., who had at one time been in the receipt of tithes.

The total tithe-rent charge gross is £4,053,985; of this, lay

impropriators receive £962,290, or a little less than one-fourth.

Therefore we may take it as a general statement that laymen receive about

one-fourth of the tithes. To this must be added the large estates which

are tithe-free, and from which enhanced rents are received.

EXEMPTION FROM PAYING TITHES BY RELIGIOUS HOUSES.

All abbots, priors, and other heads of monasteries had originally paid

tithes. But Pope Paschal II. exempted generally all the _religiosi_

from tithes on lands which were under their own management. About

A.D. 1160, Pope Adrian IV. limited this exemption to the Templars,

Hospitallers, and Cistercians, who alone were exempted from paying

tithes for lands which were then, but not afterwards, acquired under

their own immediate management. The privilege did not extend to lands

let to farmers, but only to those which they occupied before the Council

of Lateran A.D. 1215, which confirmed the above exemptions. A fourth

order—the Premonstratensian—was added by Pope Innocent III. These were

called the four privileged orders. After the passing of the Mortmain

Act, which gave a terrible blow to the monastic bodies, the privileged

order of Cistercians purchased bulls of exemption from paying tithes for

their lands, tenements, and possessions let to farmers, and also for

the lands which they acquired since 1215. These bulls had the force of

law in the English canon law, and were allowed in actions for tithes.

This objectionable mode of purchasing bulls of exemption was put a

stop to in 1400 by 2 Henry IV. c. iv. which subjected the purchaser to

premunire.[266] The Statute of Premunire was passed in 1393 (16 Richard

II. c. v.) against “Procuring at Rome or elsewhere, any translations,

processes, excommunications, bulls, instruments, or other things which

touch the king, against him, his crown and realm, and all persons aiding

or assisting therein shall be put out of the king’s protection, their

lands and goods forfeited to the king’s use, and they shall be attached

by their bodies to answer to the king and his council, or process

_præmunire facias_ shall be made out against them, as in any other cases

of provisors.”

The lands of the four privileged orders which were thus exempted from

paying tithes, are exempted up to the present day, because at the

dissolution of the monasteries, the 31 Henry VIII. c. xiii., provided

that all lands held by the monasteries, and exempted from tithes, should

also be exempted when vested in the Crown, and the same Act extended

the exemption to all those who should become possessors of such Crown

property. There is also 2 Edward VI. c. xiii. This explains the fact that

some of the present holders of monastic property pay no tithes; some do;

and others are tithe-owners.

CHAPTER XV.

_MONASTERIES._

In giving a history of tithes, it is absolutely necessary to give a brief

account of the monasteries and monastic property in England.

Immediately after Augustine came to England, the age of building

monasteries commenced. Before his arrival there were about twenty-one

monastic establishments in the island not of the Benedictine order.

The first British monastery, properly so-called, was established at

Glastonbury, by St. Patrick, about _A.D._ 433. Previous to his arrival

there was a sort of hermitage there, but when he came he formed the

hermits into a society, framed monastic rules for their guidance, and

made himself their abbot.

A monastery was a place where people of both sexes lived alone, secluded

from the common employment of the world for sacred duties and devotion.

Monk, A.-S. _munuc_, through the Latin _monachus_, Greek μοναχός =

solitary. Nun, Latin _nonna_. The British monks and nuns married until

the Benedictine rule was rigidly enforced by King Edgar and Archbishop

Dunstan in the tenth century. The religious houses may be classified

thus—cathedral churches, abbeys, and priories. There were four chief

officers in the abbeys and priories—(1) the chamberlain, who provided the

monks’ clothing; (2) the cellarer catered for them; (3) the treasurer

or bursar collected their rents and other revenue, and paid all their

expenses; and (4) the sacrista or sexton took charge of the buildings

and church, and all the utensils, books, pictures, etc., in them.

The Benedictine monks were originally laymen, working in a very

praiseworthy manner with their hands to support themselves. Some were

ordained as the needs of the monastery required, and although ordained,

they were still monks, and resided within the walls of their convent. The

monastic life had taken a great hold as early as the seventh century upon

the Anglo-Saxon kings and nobles. But we must look to the Norman period

for the full development of monastic institutions in this country. The

mode of life and dress of the monks and nuns fascinated the Anglo-Saxons,

and struck them with awe. The monasteries were richly endowed with

estates. They also monopolized the rich mortuary fees. The treasures of

the Anglo-Saxon kings, of their families, and of wealthy laymen, were

poured into the monasteries. But the time was fast approaching when all

those costly buildings, rich treasures, and priceless libraries, were

to be swept away and destroyed by foreign savage hordes. The Danes made

their first appearance in England A.D. 787. They were implacable enemies

of the Christian religion. Between A.D. 858 and 878 they rifled and burnt

the British monasteries. Plunder was always their game, and therefore

they first attacked the monasteries because they were defenceless, and

contained immense wealth. This vandalism was disastrous to the nation,

because it dried up the only channel of learning and education in the

land, and destroyed the only existing libraries. The monasteries were

the treasure-houses for charters and privileges granted by kings and

nobles from time to time, which were deposited for safety in these

sanctuaries. A carefully-written history of the country was also kept

in many of the monastic libraries. The destruction of the monasteries

by the Danes, and the dispersion of their inmates among the villages,

gave a powerful impetus to the erection of more parish churches; for,

after the departure of the Vandals, it was much cheaper to build a wooden

church than to rebuild a monastery. The monastic churches served, up to

the time of their destruction, as the parochial churches in many places.

When these were destroyed, the nobility, wealthy landowners and bishops,

exerted themselves to supply not only the deficiencies, but to increase

the number of parish churches. The inmates of the monasteries scattered

through the villages took, no doubt, an active part in church-building.

The monasteries remained in ruins until the reign of King Edgar,

who was a great supporter of the Church, and seemed to be under the

complete control of Archbishop Dunstan—the first episcopal pluralist—the

originator of a practice, contrary to the primitive custom of the Church,

which, in subsequent centuries, was carried to a most scandalous extent.

Wolsey, in more modern times, held several bishoprics at the same time,

and yet one of his great objects was the reformation of the Church. But

he should have commenced at home. The ostensible reason assigned in

Dunstan’s time for his conduct, was that there was a dearth of suitable

men for the episcopal appointments; but the real cause was, as in the

case of Bishop Oswald, to carry out the scheme for removing the seculars

and bringing the monks into the cathedral churches. In Wolsey’s time

the same ostensible reason could not be urged. But the revenues of a

multiplicity of bishoprics were necessary to maintain his pride and

extravagant living, and to build palaces, which he presented to an

ungrateful king.

The leading church ideas of King Edgar during his reign were, (1) to

rebuild the monasteries which lay in ruins, and (2) to drive the married

clergy out of the convents, replacing them by monks. Dunstan, Athelwold

of Winchester, and Oswald of Worcester (afterwards of York), were the

king’s chief agents in carrying out his schemes. It does not appear that

any of the other bishops had taken an active share in the work. Before

King Edgar’s reign, the monasteries were filled with secular clergymen,

who did duty outside their monasteries.

The English monks passed through three reformations: (1) At the Council

of Cloveshoe, A.D. 747, where no reference was made to Benedict’s rule,

although it had been framed in 529 and approved of by the Pope in 595.

(2) At the Council of Winchester, A.D. 965, where Benedict’s rule was

prominently set forth for general adoption. The monks were henceforth

to confine themselves to their cloisters, to have no parochial cure of

souls, and to adopt celibacy. These facts alone prove that the discipline

of the Roman Church on the Continent, was imported into the English

Church long before the Norman Conquest. Some writers, in treating of

tithes and other church endowments, strive to show that the Church of

England, before the Conquest, had not the same doctrines as the Roman

Church. The object of this line of erroneous argument is to show that the

endowments of the Church of England were given to her when her doctrines

were different from those of the Church of Rome. The system of doctrinal

development which was going on in the Roman Church on the Continent,

was introduced and adopted in the Church of England by her hierarchy

and priests. (3) At the Council of London, A.D. 1075, where monks were

enjoined to adhere more strictly to the rule of Benedict.

As I have stated above, before King Edgar’s reign the monasteries were

convents of secular married clergy, whose children kept up a monopoly

of all the valuable appointments in the establishments. The result was

certainly most pernicious to church and people. The clergy grew more and

more indolent and illiterate, and their thoughts were entirely absorbed

in the worldly affairs of their families, to the neglect of their

spiritual duties. Although the monks had many faults, yet the English

nation owes them a large debt of gratitude. They were better educated

than the secular clergy; were more refined, and were therefore better

able to raise the standard of civilization in the country. That is what

the married clergy could not then have done. The monasteries were the

only schools where the children of the kings, nobility and gentry could

be educated. King Edward the Confessor received his early training in

the monastery of Ely. Their schools formed models for our most ancient

universities. The monasteries were like so many burning torches in the

midst of darkness and ignorance, and were the only sources which could

then supply men intellectually capable of occupying episcopal positions.

Some of the noblest benefactors to the Church were bishops taken from the

cloisters.

THE NORMAN CONQUEST.

At the time of the Conquest, there were in England about 130 monasteries

and cathedral churches, possessing about one-twelfth of the land. There

were then nineteen bishoprics in England and Wales exclusive of the Isle

of Man. Most of the Saxon bishops and abbots were replaced by Normans.

The change was good. Some writers censure the Norman rulers for the

change. But a better educated and more refined class of men had taken

their places. A careful study of their lives and acts, as recorded in the

“Monasticon,” will corroborate my statement.

All the property given to the religious houses in Anglo-Saxon times, was

held in common. But the Norman bishops changed this arrangement in the

cathedral churches. They divided the property and assigned to the canons

what revenues they thought fit, and kept the rest of the church lands

for their own personal use. These bishops had also initiated another

innovation in the distribution of the cathedral revenues, which continued

until 1840. They gave separate endowments of lands or tithes or both to

the deans, priors, chancellors, treasurers, precentors, vicars choral,

archdeacons, and prebendaries, for their own personal use, and quite

separate from the common fund, of which the four principal officers had

also their shares. Some of the Norman bishops purchased landed estates

out of their own episcopal revenues, which they divided into prebends,

and endowed prebendaries with them; other bishops divided some of the

episcopal estates into prebends. Landed estates were also given by

private donors which formed new prebendal endowments. These kind of

endowments ceased about the thirteenth century. By the Cathedral Act of

1840, all the separate estates, amounting to about £60,000 per annum,

were vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for the Common Fund.

At the time of the Conquest, the nineteen cathedral churches were

composed of secular canons, except two, viz., Winchester and Worcester,

which were composed of Benedictine monks. These two were subsequently

increased to eight, viz., Canterbury, Durham, Carlisle, Ely, Norwich, and

Rochester, and so continued until the general dissolution of monasteries,

when they were formed into secular chapters by changing the priors into

deans, and chapters into canons. The fact that there were only two

conventual chapters at the time of the Conquest, indicates that the

seculars more than held their own in face of the powerful patronage and

protection of King Edgar and Archbishop Dunstan. It is doubtful whether

this had been an improvement. The ranks of the episcopal order, as I

have hitherto stated, were generally recruited from the monks, because

competent men could not be found elsewhere. The magnificent and artistic

cathedrals of this country, had been designed and built by men connected

with the monkish order. There is Durham, by William de Carilepho,

formerly a Norman abbot; Ely, by its last abbots; Gloucester, by its

abbots; Rochester, by Bishop Gundulf, a monk; Bishop Wacelin, in 1070,

commenced to rebuild Winchester, and William of Wickham finished it;

Bishop Wolstan laid the foundation of Worcester in 1084, etc.

The following table of monasteries, taken from Bishop Tanner’s “Notitia

Monastica,” published in 1695, will give an idea of the powerful impetus

which the Norman Conquest had given to their erection in this country.

-----------+----------------------------------------------------

|Benedictines.

| |Austin order.

| | |Cluniacs.

| | | |Cistercians.

-----------+----+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+------

William I. | 16| 6| 6| | | | 14| | | | | 42

William II.| 7| 2| 4| | | | 9| | | | | 22

Henry I. | 30| 40| 5| 10| 4| 2| 13| | | | | 104

Stephen | 15| 25| 4| 35| 1| 2| 3| 6| 6| | | 97

Henry II. | 22| 30| 6| 20| 3| 6| 8| 8| 4| 1| | 108

Richard I. | 6| 4| | 1| | | 1| 4| 2| | | 18

John. | 7| 11| | 7| | 1| 2| 2| 6| | | 36

Henry III. | 4| 15| 1| 9| | | 1| 1| 1| | | 32

Edward I. | 3| 2| | | 3| 9| 1| | 1| | | 19

Edward II. | 2| 2| | | | | | | | | | 4

Edward III.| 3| 6| | 1| 17| | | | | | | 27

Henry IV. | | | | | 4| | | | | 1| | 5

Henry V. | | 1| | | 6| | | | | 1| 1| 9

Henry VI. | | | | | 8| | | | | | | 8

-----------+----+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+------

| 115| 144| 26| 86| 52| 12| 51| 21| 20| 3 | 1| 531

-----------+----+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+------

To 531, add 130 before the Conquest; total, 661.

ALIEN MONASTERIES.

The governing bodies of the foreign or alien monasteries, to which landed

estates, tenements, tithes, churches, etc., in England were granted,

had built priories in convenient parts of England on their manors, and

sent monks from their own monasteries to occupy them. The principal

duties which these monks performed, were to collect the revenues from

the properties, and transmit the money to the heads of the foreign

monasteries. In fact they were their resident agents in this country. It

is stated that not less than £2,000 a year, a sum equal to £60,000 at the

present time, was forwarded, in the reign of Edward III., to Cluny, in

France, by the twenty-six Cluniac priories in England. King Edward I.,

in his wars with France, was the first to put a stop to the transmission

of money from the alien priories in England to the heads of the foreign

monasteries in France. They were dissolved by Henry V. and Henry VI.

Owing to the pomp and luxuries of the hierarchy and monastic bodies, a

religious revolutionary wave passed over this country in the thirteenth

century. The main indications were, (1) the Lateran Council in 1215; (2)

the appearance in England in 1217 of the Dominican, and in 1224 of the

Franciscan preaching friars; (3) the Mortmain Act of 1279. The religious

mania for building and richly endowing monasteries commenced to decline

in Edward I.’s reign. The Franciscan order was founded in A.D. 1208,

and the Dominican in 1215. Pope Innocent III. approved of both orders

in 1215. The ruling idea of these mendicant friars was the elevation

of poverty to a virtue; but, strange to say, that before they were in

existence many years they became the richest orders in Christendom.

Wherever they were located they became the strongest supporters of the

papacy, and for two hundred years members of these orders occupied the

papal throne.

The friars in England, by their powerful and zealous preaching, had

become very popular, to the great loss of the parochial clergy, who were

steeped in ignorance and indolence. In their sermons and pamphlets, the

friars strongly advised the people to pay no tithes to the parsons;

that tithes were but alms, and may be given to any charitable use, and

that the parsons had no parochial rights to them. The result was that

the people gave the tithes to the friars, both personal and predial, as

alms. The parish priests seriously felt the diminution of their revenues.

Convocation, of course, moved vigorously in the matter.[267]

The begging friars knew how to draw water to their own fountains, and

succeeded well. But “Holy Church” proved too powerful for them. They were

pronounced _heretics_ for preaching against the payment of tithes to the

parsons, and for receiving the parsons’ tithes themselves. But those

cunning, crafty friars were only changing the course of the “alms” into

their own channel. Apostolic poverty was written high on their banners,

and yet they soon surpassed the parsons in luxury and indolence.

A truly sincere and honest Englishman then appeared on the scene. John

Wickliffe, rector of Lutterworth, who died A.D. 1384, preached the same

views about tithes as the friars did. He strongly asserted that tithes

were only alms, and may be given for any religious use, or retained,

according to the will of the donor. The Church, of course, considered

his statement rank heresy, and a council of ecclesiastics condemned

his opinions as heretical. The cry, “the Church in danger,” was then

heard as loudly as in our own times whenever any salutary changes for

her improvement have been suggested, or when scandals and abuses are

attempted to be removed. The most important and latest example occurred

in 1840, when the so-called Cathedral Act was passed.[268] Oxford and

Cambridge Universities petitioned Parliament against this Act. Oxford

took the lead and strongly protested against all church reforms and

improvements originating within the Church (which our leading statesmen

then advocated) by means of a better and an equal distribution of

church revenues. Oxford urged in 1840 that a large State grant should

be made to the Church in order to supply the existing deficiencies of

religious instruction. This was simply an impertinent application for

State aid when the revenues of the Church were wasted in a disgraceful

manner by her own officers. The twenty-six archbishops and bishops

appointed before 1836, had received five and a half millions of money

from their _episcopal_ revenues alone. Counsel were actually engaged, who

appeared at the bar of the House of Lords to oppose the Cathedral Act

of 1840, which has turned out one of the most beneficial acts for the

amelioration of the Church which our leading statesmen could then devise.

Sir R. Inglis, M.P. for Oxford, called the Bishops Act of 1836 and the

Cathedral Act of 1840, “Confiscations which were leading to the utter

destruction of the Church of England.” Let us compare this statement with

that made in Parliament in 1882 by Sir John Mowbray, who now represents

the same constituency. “The Ecclesiastical Commissioners,” said Sir

John, “augmented the value of livings in upwards of 4,700 out of 15,000

parishes into which England and Wales are divided. From 1836 to 1882

they added £19,000,000 to the property of the Church, besides eliciting

£4,000,000 from private sources in the shape of contributions, making a

total of £23,000,000, which represents an annual income of £690,000.”[269]

In the 43rd Report (1891) of the Commissioners, the following statement

appears: “During a period of fifty years, from 1840 (when the Common

Fund was first created) to 31st October, 1890, the Commissioners have

augmented and endowed upwards of 5,700 benefices with annual payments

charged on the fund, or by the annexations of lands, tithes, etc., or by

the grant of capital sums for the erection of parsonage houses, etc.,

to the value of about £781,400 per annum, in perpetuity, equivalent

to a capital sum of about £23,469,000. The value of benefactions from

private sources, of lands, tithes, stock, cash, etc., secured to various

benefices, and met for the most part by grants from the Commissioners,

exceeds £164,340 per annum in perpetuity, equivalent to a permanent

increase of endowment of say £4,930,000, apart from a sum of about

£26,000 per annum, contributed by benefactors to meet the Commissioners’

grants for curates in mining districts. Thus the total increase in the

incomes of benefices made by the Commissioners or resulting from the

benefactions accepted, and met by them, exceeds £971,700 per annum, and

may be taken to represent a capital sum of about £29,179,000.”[270]

The foregoing statement is the best proof as to the absurd and

short-sighted remarks of Sir. R. Inglis and his followers in 1840. The

net income of the Common Fund is now over one million per annum. It has

taken more than 125 Acts of Parliament directly and indirectly relating

to the Church, and some thousands of Orders in Council to drag the State

Church out of the sink of abuses in which it was found in 1832 when the

first Reform Act was passed.

There were also grave and serious abuses in the Church in Wickliffe’s

days. He was as hostile to the Pope’s supremacy as he was to the

compulsory payment of tithes. He held that kings were superior to popes,

and therefore that appeals from spiritual to temporal tribunals were

just, right, and lawful. Time proved that his opinion on this point

was correct. He must have been a man of great boldness to question in

those days the supremacy of the popes. We, living in the end of the

nineteenth century, can take a historical survey of the various changes

and struggles which occurred, as regards the popes’ supremacy, since

Wickliffe’s time. He utterly detested the monks for their luxurious and

worldly habits. The parochial clergy also did not escape his lash. He

preferred the good old custom of one paying one’s tithes, according to

one’s own free-will, to good and godly men, who were able to preach the

gospel; and he condemned in his complaint to King Richard II. and his

Parliament, the practice of compelling people to pay tithes.[271]

If we examine the charters which appropriated tithes to monasteries, we

shall find that the tithes are stated therein to be given as _alms in

perpetuity_. As regards tithes given to rectors and vicars of parishes,

the usual style of the grant ran thus: “The tithes were granted as _free,

pure, and perpetual alms for ever_.” The words in italics are most

remarkable. Richard de Clare, Earl of Herts, gave the rectorial tithes

of Brenchley and Yalding, in Kent, to Tunbridge Priory _in pure and

perpetual alms_. Robert de Crevequer, founder of Leeds Abbey about 1137,

gave the canons there _in free and perpetual alms_, all the churches on

his estates, with their glebe lands, tithes, and advowsons. King John had

appropriated the rectory of Bapchild, in Kent, to the Dean and Chapter

of Chichester, on the recommendation of the Bishop of Chichester, to

be held _in free, pure, and perpetual alms_. The chapter received £437

a year tithe-rent charge; vicar, £167. William de Auberville, in 1192,

gave to the priory of West Langdon the rectories of Oxney and of St.

Mary’s, Liddon, _in pure and perpetual alms_.[272] I have given here

only a few examples to show how the tithes had been granted by the

owners to parishes and monasteries. Yet in the face of these grants,

episcopal, cathedral and parochial, incumbents claim the tithes as their

own exclusive property. But Wickliffe and the friars were much better

judges of the facts than church defenders at the present time. They

truly asserted that the tithes were by custom originally given as alms

or free-will offerings without any compulsion whatsoever; and Wickliffe

gave some additional information, viz., that they were given only to

good and godly men who were able to preach the gospel. The fact that the

landowners had given their tithes for any religious use to monks who were

mostly laymen, to nuns, to the religious military orders, to foreign

monasteries, I say that this proves to demonstration that tithes were not

due by divine or legal right to the evangelical priesthood; that tithes

were property which could have been and were disposed of, like any other

kind of property, to whatever use the benefactor or owner wished. But by

clerical pressure at home, by threats of anathemas and excommunications,

by the power of the confessional box, and by ecclesiastical pressure

from Rome, the English landowners, and also those who paid personal

tithes, had slowly come round to the practice of paying them to the

parochial clergy not as their exclusive income, but as trustees reserving

an adequate portion of the tithes for their own personal use, and

dividing the remainder among the poor and stranger, and for repairing

the church. But the trustees appropriated all the tithes to their own

personal use, and relieved the poor and repaired the church out of alms

and contributions of the parishioners. These are the real facts of this

disgraceful case of clerical trustees misappropriating the tithes to

their own personal use, and this misappropriation has been going on at

least 500 years, which gives them a prescriptive right to all the tithes.

I have already sketched out how this misappropriation commenced, and the

inability of the poor to obtain redress.

The following extract, taken from one of the charters granting tithes to

monasteries, indicates how tithes were given:—

CHARTER OF EARL RANDULPH GERNONS OF CHESTER TO THE MONASTERY OF

CHESTER.

“Universitati vestræ notum facio me dedisse _in elemosina in

perpetuum_ Deo et S. Mariæ ecclesiæ S. Werburgæ et Rudulpho

abbati et conventui dictæ ecclesiæ pro salute animæ Hugonis

comitis, prædictæ ecclesiæ fundatoris ac pro salute animæ

Randulphi comitis patris mei, et antecessorum meorum, et pro

salute animæ meæ, et Christianorum omnium, omnem decimam

integriter et plenariè omnium reddituum meorum civitatis

Cestriæ,” etc.[273]

This earl died in A.D. 1153. Earl Hugh Lupus, the refounder, who died in

1101, granted many manors, churches, and tithes, as _alms in perpetuity_.

All the early parochial records are lost, and therefore in dealing with

the old parishes we are at a great disadvantage. It is not so with

the monasteries. The monastic bodies, free from Danish invasions, had

carefully preserved all their charters of grants, because they had often

to produce their title deeds when claims were made by others to some of

the property which they possessed, and also when some of their property

had been lost or taken from them by force or by kings. It was not so with

regard to lands and tithes held by parochial incumbents.

CHAPTER XVI.

_THE DISSOLUTION OF MONASTERIES._

What precedents had Henry VIII. to guide him in dissolving the

monasteries?

(1) Edward I., in A.D. 1295, seized the property of the alien priories.

(2) In 1324 (17 Edward II.) the lands and tenements held in England by

the Templars were, by Act of Parliament, seized and transferred to the

Knights Hospitallers, when the services of the former were no longer

required for purposes for which the property had been assigned to them.

(3) Edward III., in 1337, seized the alien priories, and let out the

lands and tenements, until there was peace with France in 1361. The most

valuable of them were naturalized, and thus became free from the yoke of

any foreign monastery, and could elect their own priors.

(4) Richard II. bestowed on the Carthusians several of the smaller alien

priories which Edward III. had seized.

(5) In the reign of Henry IV. the House of Commons suggested, in 1404,

that the clergy, including the _religiosi_, should be deprived of all

their temporalities, in order to furnish funds for the defence of the

kingdom and for the maintenance of a large army. A similar proposal was

made in 1410, but the king, directly influenced by the Archbishop of

Canterbury, would not listen to the suggestions. These facts indicate the

growing unpopularity of the Church even at that early period of the life

of the House of Commons. The Statute of Mortmain in 1279, the Statutes

of Provisors in 1351 (25 Edward III. c. vi.), and 1353 (27 Edward III.),

the Statute of Premunire in 1393, are all so many previous illustrations

of the growing hostile feeling of Parliament towards the Church, monastic

establishments, and the pope of Rome.

(6) In the reign of Henry V. another attack was made upon the property

of the Church by the Parliament which met in 1415, but the tact of the

Archbishop of Canterbury on this occasion, as well as in 1404 and 1410,

saved the property. The Parliament granted the King, however, all the

property of the alien priories, except those which were free and could

elect their own priors. Henry V. built and endowed six colleges and three

religious houses, principally out of the property of the suppressed

priories.

(7) Henry VI. founded and endowed Eton College and King’s College,

Cambridge, out of the same suppressed property.

(8) Cardinal Wolsey, with the approval of King Henry VIII. and the Pope,

suppressed over twenty small religious houses in A.D. 1523, in order to

furnish funds to build and endow his college—Cardinal College, now Christ

Church, Oxford—the richest in that University.

These are instructive and interesting facts. Large monastic endowments

were devoted to building and richly endowing colleges and schools for

the sons of the wealthy men of the country. In the Appendices will be

found a complete account of the gross amounts of tithe-rent charges which

the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, and some of the public schools

receive. I should also gladly give the monastic manors and glebe lands,

quite separate from the vicarial glebe lands, which these colleges and

schools also received, but I have not the information. But I supply the

large patronage they have at their disposal. And I may state that of all

Church patronage, the most objectionable is collegiate and public school

patronage. Broken-down old dons, fellows, and teachers of schools, men

full of eccentricities, totally unfit for parish work, are pensioned

off with college livings, which are generally well endowed with glebe

lands and tithes, and each with a rural population of a few hundreds.

Here they end their days in ease and quietness, after giving the best

and most active part of their lives to tutorial work in their respective

colleges and schools. The wealthy parochial endowments of the collegiate

and scholastic livings are out of all proportion to the population and

_parish work_, which in their cases is _nil_. In purchasing advowsons,

the colleges select country parishes with large endowments, small areas,

and small populations.

I have stated eight cases for Henry VIII.’s guidance in dissolving the

monasteries. I shall now state his own action in the matter.

In 1533 (24 Henry VIII. c. xii.) the Statute for the Restraint of Appeals

to Rome was passed. In 1534 Parliament made him “Supreme head of the

Church of England.” He therefore took the Pope’s place, and received

the firstfruits and tenths. In 1535 Commissioners were appointed to

take the value of all ecclesiastical benefices, in order to settle the

firstfruits and tenths. In 1536 the valuation was completed. In 1535,

by 27 Henry VIII. c. xx., for tithes to be paid throughout the realm.

In 1536 (28 Henry VIII. c. xvi.), the power of the Pope over tithes in

England was finally extinguished. The monks viewed the King’s conduct in

taking the Pope’s place with the most bitter hostility. They constantly

used their influence to excite the feelings of the people against the

King. Henry knew all this, and that he could never alienate them from

the Pope. The subsequent conduct of the King and his ministers was

guided more by political expediency than on religious or moral grounds.

There was but one course open to the King, and that was to dissolve

all the religious houses. It was a bold, arduous, and dangerous step.

The morality of these houses was the only vulnerable point in which he

thought he could successfully carry out his plan. He first obtained an

Act of Parliament empowering him “to visit, order, and reform all errors

and abuses in religion.” This was the lever which Henry’s agents used to

expose every real and imaginary immoral act, and thus create hostility in

the minds of the people against them. A Royal Commission was issued in

1535 with unlimited power to visit the monasteries. In 1536 the report

was finished. But the original was destroyed in Queen Mary’s reign. We

must be careful as to what credence should be given to evidence taken

down and reported upon by such Commissioners as Leigh and Leyton, who had

not scrupled to suborn witnesses. An Act was passed in 1536 (27 Henry

VIII. c. xxviii.), which dissolved every monastery with a revenue of less

than £200 per annum, and transferred to the King all the monasteries,

priories, and other religious houses, all the sites, circuits, churches,

chapels, advowsons, patronage, manors, granges, lands, hereditaments,

tithes, pensions, annuities, rights, etc., which belonged to such

monasteries; and that “The king shall have them in as large and ample a

manner as the governors of those houses possessed them. That he was to

have and to hold them, his heirs and assigns, to do and use therewith his

and their own wills, to the pleasure of God and to the honour and profit

of this realm.” And the Act further states that “Those who take the above

property from the king shall have, hold, and enjoy the same _in like

manner, form, and condition as before the Act of Dissolution_.” Those

who took the property were therefore subject to the same limitations,

privileges, and burdens as the _religiosi_ were. By this Act, 376 houses

were dissolved and their properties vested in the Crown. The King

received £32,000 per annum from the estates, and also he received jewels

and personal effects valued at £100,000. He gave small pensions to some

abbots, priors, and monks; others he transferred to larger monasteries.

The houses were stripped of their lead, bells, glass, and materials,

which were sold to the neighbouring gentry.

The conditions upon which all the vast monastic property was given by

Parliament to the King were, “That they were to be used to the pleasure

of God and to the honour and profit of this realm.” Did Henry VIII. or

his successors carry out these conditions? They certainly did not. The

property of the alien priories was insignificantly small as compared

with the enormous properties which Parliament granted to Henry VIII. But

there was this distinction between them. Almost all the former properties

were devoted to religious and educational purposes. Laymen received

little or nothing. But the case was very different with Henry VIII.’s

confiscations. The courtiers and favourites were most eager to share, and

did obtain, monastic estates and tithes, and also episcopal and capitular

landed estates, which some of their successors still hold, others sold

them, and thus much of the property has been handed down to the present

time through a long line of purchasers.

Henry VIII. intended to create twenty-one new bishoprics, and out

of the proceeds of the monastic properties to suitably endow them.

But he created and endowed only six. The courtiers and favourites of

Henry, Edward, and Elizabeth, who received inferior monastic lands,

induced these sovereigns to make certain of the archbishops, bishops,

and chapters exchange their good lands for the inferior lands of the

courtiers and favourites, and also to exchange impropriated tithes for

lands of equal value belonging to episcopal and capitular corporations.

These exchanges were very numerous in the reigns of Edward and Elizabeth.

Hasted, in his “History of Kent,” makes the following remark, “Cranmer

observing that his stately palaces excited the envy of the courtiers,

_passed them away with their estates to the King_.” For example, Otford

Palace and its beautiful parks. Archbishop Warham spent £33,000, an

enormous sum in those days, in rebuilding the palace. Cranmer, in 1538,

was ordered to surrender the palace and the manor of Otford and Sergeants

Otford to Henry VIII. Edward VI. granted the Little Park of Otford on

lease to Sir Henry Sidney. Elizabeth granted Sergeants Otford and the

Little Park on lease to Sir Robert Sidney. James I. granted the palace

and Greater Park to Sir Thomas Smith. Edward VI. granted the parsonage

and advowson of Shoreham with the Chapel of Otford to Sir Anthony Denny,

who exchanged them with the Dean and Chapter of Westminster for the

advowson of Cheshunt in Herts. The Chapter had £702, tithe rent charge

from Otford; there was no vicar; and £806 10_s._ from Shoreham; total

£1,508 16_s._

Hasted says of Knole manor and manor house: “Cranmer observing

_murmurings among the hungry courtiers of the archbishop’s palaces_,

compounded with Henry VIII. to give up the best and richest manors;

therefore, in 1538, Cranmer gave to the King the manors of Otford,

Wrotham, Bexley, Northflete, Maidstone, Knole, Sergeants Otford,

Sevenoke, Shoreham, Chevening, Panters, and Brytains, with their

appurtenances.” Here were twelve manors given in one swoop to satisfy

Henry VIII.’s “hungry courtiers,” who were “murmuring” for the spoils.

The reader will have to consult Hasted’s “Kent,” to know the courtiers

and favourites to whom these manors were granted.

An Act was passed, 1 Elizabeth c. xix., which authorized the Queen to

take in her hands, on the voidance of any bishopric, so much of the lands

belonging to it as should be equal in value to the monastic confiscated

rectorial tithes belonging to the Crown in that diocese, and to exchange

such tithes for lands. Some of these lands were then given to her

ministers and favourites, some were kept by the Crown, and others sold

to furnish funds for national purposes, so as to prevent application to

Parliament for money. It was in this manner that bishops and cathedral

chapters lost so much landed property which the Crown granted as above

stated, and the court favourites, soon after they received the grants,

sold the estates and parsonages to the highest purchaser. Here then were

landed estates, with endowments and advowsons of the churches belonging

to such estates FREELY granted away. Lord Cobham’s to the Cecils, for

instance, who almost immediately sold the properties which they freely

received from the Crown, and applied the proceeds to their own personal

use.

Now, as regards the suppression of the larger monasteries, they were to

be carried out, if possible, by voluntary surrender. I shall show that

this was purely a sham. The Commissioners, no doubt, tried in every way

to persuade them to surrender by promising the abbots and priors good

pensions during life, because no charges of immorality could have been

preferred against them. In 1536-7, there were but three surrenders.

In 1537-8 there were twenty-four. The Commissioners induced those who

surrendered to persuade others to follow their example, for it was the

King’s policy to let the public see that the surrenders were voluntarily

made. When persuasion failed, the Commissioners used threats, and so we

read that the monks of the Charterhouse were committed like common felons

to Newgate, where five of them died, and five more were on the point of

death from the cruel and barbarous treatment they received within the

walls of that prison. But the most revolting act of pure despotism on the

part of Henry VIII. was the execution of Whiting, abbot of Glastonbury,

Coke, abbot of Reading, and Beche, abbot of St. John’s, Colchester.

These despotic acts drove terror into those who had not yet surrendered.

In 1538-9, one hundred and seventy-four surrendered, and in 1539-40,

seventy-six. In April, 1539, a slavish Parliament ratified the surrenders

up to that time, and allowed the King to extend the Act to all the other

monasteries which had not yet surrendered, by 31 Henry VIII. c. xiii.,

“An Act for the dissolution of monasteries and abbeys,” by which about

277 monasteries of the value of £200 a year or upwards, were dissolved;

and what makes their dissolution more remarkable and important, is that

all the property of 193 of them was and is discharged of tithes up to the

present time. Over 653 monasteries were dissolved by the Acts of 1536 and

1540, with properties equal to £250,000 per annum. In the preamble of the

above Act we do not find those grave charges hurled against monks which

appear in the Act which suppressed the smaller monasteries in 1535.

In order to pass the above Acts, some of the nobility were promised

estates by free gifts from the King, others obtained them by easy

purchase. The members of the House of Commons were also promised large

shares, and of course Henry’s agents dangled before the people: “No more

subsidies, no fifteenths, no loans, no common aids,” as the wealth of the

dissolved monasteries was considered ample to maintain an army of 40,000

men, and so all taxation may in future be dispensed with! The Church was

also to be conciliated. There were to be twenty-one bishoprics created,

with cathedrals, deans, and chapters all endowed out of the property.

This number was, however, reduced to six. Westminster existed only for

about nine years. Five now exist. Gloucester and Bristol were united

in 1836; but when sufficient funds are collected to endow the Bristol

bishopric, they are to be separated.

In 1540, there were 653 monasteries suppressed. In 1546, 90 colleges, 110

hospitals, and 2,347 chantries, with all their properties, were handed

over to the King by 1 Edward VI. c. xiv., the preamble of which runs

thus: “To convert to good and godly uses the chantries, or in erecting

grammar schools to the education of youth in virtue and godliness, and

in further augmenting of universities and _better provision for the poor

and needy_.” This provision for the use of the chantry estates lamentably

failed. Neither the universities nor the poor were benefited. Like the

monastic estates, the hungry and avaricious courtiers who surrounded the

young king, had received the property for their own personal use.

The capital value of all the property handed over to Henry VIII., Edward

VI. and Elizabeth would equal £200,000,000 at the present time.

The 27 Henry VIII. c. xx. (1536) provides that “all tithes should be paid

according to the ecclesiastical laws and ordinances of the Church of

England, and after the laudable usages of the parish or place where the

party dwelt.”

The 32 Henry VIII., c. vii. s. 5 (1541): “No tithes are to be paid for

lands discharged from paying tithes, or are not chargeable in the payment

of tithes.”

CHAPTER XVII.

_TITHES IN THE CITY AND LIBERTIES OF LONDON._

In the early history of the Christian Church, the citizens of London

made oblations or offerings at every mass on Sundays and holidays, and

such oblations were applied to the relief of the poor, the repairs of

the church and the support of the clergy. From these purely voluntary

oblations grew up a custom in the City of London, that every person

paying 20_s._ a year rental should give to God and the Church, ½_d._ for

every Sunday or Apostle’s day, the vigil of which was a fast. If he paid

only 10_s._ a year rental, he was to give ¼_d._ This amounted in the

former case to 2_s._ 6_d._ in the pound, and 1_s._ 3_d._ in the latter,

per annum. These were customary payments, and were applied for the same

three purposes—poor, fabric and clergy. As these customary payments were

found to decrease, it was deemed necessary to promulgate an order to

permanently fix the customary payments. Bishop Roger took up the subject

immediately after his consecration as Bishop of London. The following are

the facts of the case:—

(1) In A.D. 1228, in the reign of Henry III., Bishop Roger, surnamed

Niger, or Le Noir, of London, made a constitution or modus, that every

occupier of a house should offer as his tithe to his parish church, ½_d._

for 20_s._ a year rental, and ¼_d._ for 10_s._ a year rental, for every

Sunday and every Apostle’s day, whereof the evening was fasted. There

were fifty-two Sundays and eight Apostles’ days in the year that were

fasted. Two shillings and sixpence a year was then the amount of the

_modus decimandi_ which the former occupier had to pay, and one shilling

and three pence a year the latter. The amounts would be less when any of

the Apostles’ days fell upon Sundays.

The above particulars appear in the Records in the Town Clerk’s office,

London. It is a well-known point in law that a house _quâ_ house is not

liable for the payment of tithes. Tithes were paid for what issued or

grew out of the ground. Enormous house properties have been erected in

and around all our cities and towns, for which one penny as tithe-money

has never been paid, and yet the house property in the City and Liberties

of London, and landed property throughout the country, have to pay a

modus and tithe-rent charges.

(2) Bishop Roger’s modus was paid for 160 years, viz., from 1229 to 1389,

when Archbishop Arundel, of Canterbury, interfered with the arrangement

in the latter year. He was not satisfied with the interpretation put

upon Bishop Roger’s Constitution as regards the number of Apostles’

days, and so he added twenty-two more saints’ days, thus increasing the

payments from 2_s._ 6_d._ to 3_s._ 5_d._ a year, and this he did without

consulting the payers. The citizens of London were quite indignant

at the additional number of saints’ days, and placed on record their

protest against the same for the information of future generations. There

were constant quarrels between the citizens and their clergy in the

ecclesiastical courts, and at the Pope’s court at Rome, with regard to

the payment of the extra 11_d._ The Archbishop appealed to the Pope as

to the soundness of his interpretation, and as a matter of course, Pope

Innocent VII., in 1403, confirmed the interpretation. But the Pope’s bull

did not pacify the citizens of London. They considered the additional

11_d._ a cheat—a fraud. Besides, the Pope’s bull could not compel them to

pay the additional amount. In 1453, however, it appears, by a record in

the Town Clerk’s office,[274] that Archbishop Arundel’s order is declared

by the Common Council to be “destructory rather than declaratory, and

that it was obtained surreptitiously and deceptiously, without assent on

the part of the citizens, or summoning them.” I should imagine that the

Church, with its terrible ecclesiastical courts made them pay the 3_s._

5_d._, for we find no change in the payment until 1535, when the whole

subject was considered by the Privy Council, who made an order for the

payment of 2_s._ 9_d._ in the pound. Therefore in the same year an Act

was passed,[275] authorizing the citizens of London to pay their tithes

at the rate of 2_s._ 9_d._ in the pound. Ten years later another Act was

passed,[276] “That the citizens and inhabitants of the City of London

and Liberties of the same shall yearly, without fraud or covin, for ever

pay their tithes to the parsons, vicars, and curates of the said City,

and their successors for the time being, after the following rate: For

every 10_s._ rent by the year of all houses, shops, warehouses, cellars,

tables, etc., within the City and Liberty, 16½_d._; and for every 20_s._

rent by the year, 2_s._ 9_d._; and so above the rent of 20_s._ by the

year, ascending from 10_s._ to 10_s._, according to the rate aforesaid.”

(3) The next account of tithes in London was after the great fire in

1666. An Act which I call the first Fire Act was passed in 1670,[277]

for the better settlement of the maintenance of the parsons, vicars and

curates in the parishes of the city of London burnt by the great fire.

The preamble runs thus:—

“Whereas the tithes in the city of London were levied and paid with

great inequality, and are, since the late dreadful fire there, in the

rebuilding of the same, by taking away some houses, altering the

foundations of many, and the new erecting of others, so disordered, that

in case they should not for the time to come be reduced to a certainty,

many contrivances and suits of law might arise, be it enacted that the

annual certain tithes of every parish in the City of London and its

Liberties, whose churches have been demolished or in part consumed by the

late fire, be paid according to the sum opposite each.”

Sec. 3. “Which respective sums of money to be paid in lieu of tithes

within the said respective parishes, and assessed as hereinafter is

directed, shall be and continue to be esteemed, deemed and taken to all

intents and purposes, to be the respective annual maintenance (over

and above glebes and perquisites, gifts and bequests to the respective

parson, vicar and curate of any parish for the time being, or to their

successors respectively, or to others for their use) of the said

respective parsons, vicars and curates, who shall be legally instituted,

inducted and admitted in the respective parishes.”

In subsequent sections assessments were ordered to be made before the

24th July, 1671, upon all houses, shops, warehouses, cellars, and other

hereditaments, except parsonage and vicarage houses.

Three transcripts were to be made by the assessors, containing the

respective sums to be payable out of all the premises within each parish;

one was for the Lord Mayor, the second for the Bishop of London’s

registry, and the third was to remain in the vestry. The payments were to

be made in four quarterly payments.

If any inhabitant should refuse payment the Lord Mayor should issue

his warrant of distress on his goods. If the Lord Mayor should refuse

to issue his warrant, then it shall be lawful for the Lord Chancellor,

or Keeper of the Great Seal, or any two or more of the barons of his

Majesty’s Court of Exchequer to issue warrants of distress.

The payments made by 22 & 23 Car. II. c. xv. (1670) were increased by 44

George III. c. lxxxix. (1804).

As the City and Liberties of London are converted into offices, banks,

warehouses, etc., and are almost depopulated, it is important and

instructive to give the names of the parishes which appear in the Fire

Act of 1670, with the respective annual sums allowed in 1670 and the

modified annual sums allowed in 1804. The first sum is for 1670, the

second for 1804, and the third shows net income in 1890, with population

from Clergy List, 1891.

The total annual revenue of _all_ the monastic and chantry estates,