THE LAW OF TITHES.

CHAPTER I.

SKETCH OF THE HISTORY AND LAW OF TITHES PRIOR TO

THE COMMUTATION ACTS.

THE origin of tithes and the date of their introduction into the Christian Church are shrouded in obscurity; we know, however, that they existed in England in Anglo-Saxon times.

Down to the time of Edgar their payment seems to have been enforced by no law, properly so called, but only by the penalty of ecclesiastical censure; and those who paid them seem to have done so at their own caprice, so long as they were paid to some person or body for ecclesiastical purposes, the tendency being, however, to pay them to the older or "mother" churches.

1

Edgar, according to Lord Selborne, was the first king to make any law attaching a legal penalty to the non-payment of tithes. He also recognized and en

S.

"Ancient Facts and Fictions concerning Churches and Tithes."

B

Chap. I. joined their payment to the mother churches, per

mitting, however, anyone, who had on his land a church with a burial-place, to give one-third of his tithes to that church. In these private churches Lord Selborne sees the origin of our modern parishes.1

In spite, however, of this law of Edgar's, and further ordinances of subsequent monarchs, it is by no means certain that, even at the date of the Conquest, the payment of tithes was altogether general or compulsory.

Soon after the Conquest the payment appears to have become general, and the one-third, which Edgar allowed to be paid to the private (afterwards the parish) church, seems by a gradual process to have become in most cases the whole, but even then tithes were not by any means universally paid to the parish church, "arbitrary" consecrations, as Seldon called them,2 to other churches and religious institutions continuing down to the time of John, and some even to Edward I.

This is accounted for by the number and influence of the monasteries, which endeavoured to obtain the consecration of tithes to themselves, instead of to the secular or parochial clergy.

According to the opinion hitherto commonly held, tithes were originally devoted to four purposes-1. The use of the bishop; 2. The maintenance of the church's fabric; 3. Distribution among the poor, including the entertainment of strangers; and 4. The use of the in

1 "Ancient Facts and Fictions concerning Churches and Tithes." 2 "History of Tithes."

cumbent. Subsequently, when the sees of the bishops Chap. I. became otherwise amply endowed, they were prohibited from demanding their share, and thus the division became threefold.

That these quadripartite and tripartite divisions existed on the Continent there seems to be no doubt, but Lord Selborne1 asserts that there is no authority for saying that the tripartite division grew out of the quadripartite, but that each of them was merely local. He further says that he can find no law or canon depriving the bishops of their share, nor any ground for believing that either the quadripartite or tripartite division was adopted in England. He seems to think that the distribution of the church's revenues, including tithes, rested with the bishop alone.

However that may be, there can be no doubt that the feeding of the poor and the entertainment of strangers formed one of the main purposes to which tithes were in early times devoted, at all events in theory, if not in practice.

The monasteries and other spiritual corporations, having by various means acquired all the advowsons within their reach, and, with the licence of the king and consent of the bishop, "appropriated" the benefices to themselves, deputed one of their own body to perform the services of the church in those parishes of which they had thus become the rectors or

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parsons,"2 them

1 "Ancient Facts and Fictions concerning Churches and Tithes." 2 "Parson" persona ecclesiæ, or one that hath full possession of all the rights of a parochial church (Stephen's Commentaries).