immediate occasions. Yet still the whole product of tithes and offerings was the bank of each parish church, and the minister was the sole trustee and dispenser of them, according to those stated rules of piety and charity. But this tripartite division soon occasioned great disorders; for the lay patrons did from hence infer, that a third part of the revenues of a church was sufficient for the supply of it, and they undertook to dispose of the two remaining parts; at first pretending to apply them to the like pious uses; but then by degrees detaining them in their own hands, and even at last getting them infeoffed in them and their heirs, especially within their own demesnes. And this proceeded so far, that in some parts the powerful patrons seized upon the whole prædial tithes, and left the altarage or smaller tithes (which were at first voluntary oblations, and therefore reckoned a part of the altarage) to the portion of the parish priest; setting a precedent of impropriations in lay hands, even before the religious fell into that method. But however, as the lay patrons at first took the tithes (or seldom more than two parts of them) in trust for the church and poor, not in tenure to their own property and pleasure; and after they were infeoffed in them, they still considered them to be charged with the same burdens; and while they held them, did exonerate the clergy from those burdens; so they would not keep that conditional tithe, but by degrees made a conscience to restore every part either to the parish churches, or at least to religious houses. So that long before the Reformation, all manner of tithes and oblations were entirely given back to the church, and invested only in the clergy, secular or regular.

The next injury to parochial churches came from the surrendering of the right of patronage to collegiate bodies. For the lay patrons remembering, that the clergy living in common with their bishop in his cathedral church, were formerly maintained by the tithes and oblations of the country; when this practice ceased, they thought it a sort of laudable restitution, to give the [71] perpetual advowson of their churches to that body, or to some one particular member of it; whereby those churches became prebendal; and the supply of them was left to the community, or to that single canon who was to have his prebend or exhibition from it. All the monasteries found this method to be a very good expedient for them. Hence they incited their benefactors to confer upon their houses the right of presentation to country churches; a favour they more easily obtained, because the lay lords looked upon themselves as guardians only, and were glad to devolve their trust upon those societies; who, as they thought, would faithfully discharge it. And by these means in an age or two, above one half of the parochial churches in England came to be lodged in the power of cathedrals and monasteries, and were personally served by the members of those

bodies. But this by degrees let in mischief and usurpation: for the cathedral canons, finding their residence in those rural churches to be inconsistent with their due attendance in the chapter and choir, began to place annual curates to represent them in their several benefices, to account for the profits of them, and to receive a small portion, or some pecuniary stipend for their service. Till, being pressed by the bishops, and obliged by some new constitutions, they did at last present their clerk to the full title of the church, reserving a rent or pension to themselves; which though at first moderate, they often advanced to the great oppression of the country clergy. The religious did the same in the monasteries, and had a fair pretence for so doing; for being tied to stricter rules of their order, and more confined within their cells, they appointed priests, whom they called secular, to take upon them the cure of souls, and to be stewards of the revenue, or at least pensioners to their several convents. And even some of the potent lay patrons followed this example, binding the clerks in the like annual rents and reservations to them and their heirs. So that within a hundred years after the Conquest, most of the parish priests in England were become tributary to their patrons, and paid out such large pensions to them, that they were not able to subsist with decency and credit. This abuse becoming very grievous, occasioned divers constitutions to be made against it. But the lay patrons protected themselves by prohibitions and appeals from the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and sued their clerks in the temporal court for the performance of such indirect covenants. Therefore the bishops did at last obtain from King [72] Edward the Second a full and sole power to judge in this cause of pensions, and thereby did soon effectually suppress them as to lay patrons; and though the dignitaries and the religious did longer enjoy those pensions, yet were they often mitigated and restrained by the bishop, having been frequently complained of and even condemned by a decree of Pope Clement the Third. And it was indeed the restraint of these arbitrary prestations, that put the monks upon inventing the new stratagem of impropriations.

For when the monks saw that they could not well supply their own churches, and could no longer set arbitrary fines and pensions upon the poor clergy who supplied them; they fell upon the project of retaining the churches in their gift, and all the profits of them in proprios usus, to their own immediate benefit. This art of appropriation was certainly invented by monastic men for a curb and weight upon the secular clergy, but in what year it began doth not certainly appear, for indeed all corruptions have a secret rise, and are not in history observed, till the scandal and the complaints do make some noise. It is said that there were some appropriations of churches before the Conquest, but these seem to have been only conveyances

of the churches with their tithes to those religious corporations who had thereby no other right conveyed to them than what the lay lords had before, which was, a right of protection and commendation to the church, not a right of converting the profits to their own use and property.

But the way of strictly appropriating parish churches to religious houses, of giving them in full right to the monks' absolute property and use, was an engine of oppression which came in with the Norman conquest, when the greater prelates, being Normans, did trample upon the inferior clergy who were generally English; increased the pensions which the clergy were to pay unto them, or else withdrew their stipends; and yet loaded them with new services, and every way oppressed them without mercy. And to complete the servile dependence, an artifice was contrived to obtain indulgence from the pope, that whatever churches they held in advowson they should commit them to be served by clerks, who as to the cure of souls should be responsible to the bishop, but as to the profit should be accountable to the abbot or prior and his brethren.

And this was indeed effectual appropriation; a badge of slavery unknown to the Saxon churches, brought over by the [73] Norman lords, and imperiously put upon the English clergy by the authority of the pope. And so this practice, which crept in with William the Conqueror, in a few reigns became the custom of the land, and the infection spread, until within the space of 300 years, above a third part and those generally the richest benefices in England, became appropriated.

And in these cures the monks themselves did for some time reside and officiate by turns, by lot, and even by penance, with many other ways of shifting off the duty upon one another. Until at length such changes and intermissions in the pastoral care becoming very scandalous, the bishops did by degrees restrain the monks from a personal cure of souls, and confined them according to rule within their own cloisters; obliging them to retain fit and able cappellans, vicars, or curates (for those titles did all mean the same office), with a competent salary paid to them. But then again they oppressed these stipendiary vicars with such sorry allowance, and such grievous service, that the bishops at last brought them to the presentation of perpetual vicars endowed and instituted, who should have no other dependence on their convents than the rectors had upon their patrons, declaring it to be dishonest and contrary to canon, that religious men, to whom it was granted to convert churches to their proper uses, should personally serve those churches, and therefore ordaining, that they should appoint perpetual vicars to be instituted by the bishop, with a competent maintenance by the bishop taxed and assigned to them.

One pretext of the religious to gain appropriations was, to desire no more than two parts of the tithe and profits to be so

appropriated to them, leaving a third to the free and quiet enjoyment of the parish priest, whom at the same time they eased from the burden of repairing the church and relieving the poor, and took that charge upon themselves. Which third part, together with the altarage (or portion of oblations and perquisites and small tithes in a manner arbitrary), which also was commonly reserved to the vicar, made his portion often equal to, if not exceeding that of the convent. But the religious were not long content with their said two parts, without ingrossing the whole, which they generally did by donation, by purchase, by exchange, and all the ways of acquisition. So that in two or three following ages, parochial churches would have been universally annexed and united to religious houses, if the bishops had not provided for the ordination of perpetual vicarages, and the distinct endowment of them.

Another pretext of the religious for obtaining appropriations was, the consideration of hospitality and charity which were entailed as it were upon their two parts of tithes and offerings. They chiefly urged these occasions, and promised to employ the profits this way. In the charters of donation, they got it alleged, to be for keeping up the hospitality of the said religious house, to find meat and drink to all that passed by their gates and would call for refreshment, and for the entertainment. of all travellers and passengers; for sustaining the poor; for the almonry; for the infirmary; and for the provisions of their house; and even for many other uses, as, to maintain scribes and illuminators to write and adorn their books; to bear the charges of holding a general chapter of their order; to defray the expenses of a journey to Rome; to ease themselves in the payment of pensions; to rebuild the fabric of their conventual church; and indeed to answer all other occasions that could be served by money.

The seculars learned this way of gain from the monks, and thought it as lawful and proper for any of the collegiate bodies as it was for the regular convents. And therefore they likewise got the churches of their own donation to be converted to their own proper uses, and persuaded the neighbouring patrons to come and offer up advowsons on their high altar; to increase the number of their prebends, or to augment the portion of the dean, or of any other principal dignitary; or to repair their fabric; or to find lights on their altars; or for the table of the bishop; or indeed for any thing that could contribute to the grandeur of the cathedral church or see. Not that all the churches which are now appropriated to bishops, or deans and chapters, were the effect of those superstitions; for many of them have been since given in a sad exchange for manors and firm lands. This ill example of appropriating parish churches spread further to all bodies corporate, however in law and reason incapable of such a tenure. Soliciting and paying the price at

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Rome procured the like favour for secular colleges, for chantries, nay, for military orders, for lay hospitals, for gilds and fraternities, and even for nunneries. So making knights, lay brothers, and very women, to be the rectors of parish churches. Though this indeed was grounded on a conceit that all these were religious societies, and might receive and distribute out [75] of the common treasury of the church. For before King Henry VIII. there was no right or precedent for a mere lay person to be an impropriator.

From corporations aggregate of many, this example went on to single persons, not only to deans, chantors, treasurers, chancellors, and separate officers, but at last to the parish priests themselves, who in populous or rich places obtained a vicar to be endowed, and casting upon him the cure of souls, they had the rectory appropriated to them, and their successors as a sine-cure for ever.

But, above all, the monks had their various arts of driving on this trade in holy things. The bishop of the diocese was often their friend and assistant in it, because he had been perhaps of the same order; or was disposed to keep up an interest in so great a body of men; or if they had no other tie upon him, they settled a pension to indemnify his see, or advanced the payment of synodals, or offered some other consideration of interest; and if at the last the bishop would not consent, they could apply to the papal legates, or directly to the court of Rome, where they never failed to have their presents accepted; and sometimes charged themselves with an annual pension to the cardinals, or even to the apostolic chamber for ever. They dealt as subtlely with the patrons to extort their consent: they promised them the prayers and suffrages of their house, with masses, obits, anniversaries, pietances, and other commemorations. And because, after all, by the laws of the land they could not appropriate without the consent of the rector incumbent; therefore they sometimes prevailed with him to assume their order, and so to bring the church along with him; or they gave him a pension or a corody for his life, on condition of resigning; or if he would not comply, then they obtained leave of the patron to appropriate in reversion; or, to save the pains of working on the patron, they purchased the perpetual advowson, on purpose to appropriate the benefice.

If the smaller tithes and oblations (the common allotment to a vicar), would not amount to a third share; then some part of the greater tithe of corn and hay was allowed to make up such deficiency, which was the just cause of many vicarages being so endowed.

The ancient state of vicarages was the more tolerable, because there was not only a considerable portion for the vicar, but there was a power lodged in the bishop to augment that portion whenever it appeared to be insufficient. This was the