CHAPTER IX

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_ORIGIN OF OUR MODERN PARISH CHURCHES AND BOUNDARIES._

The church with burial-place, as stated in Art. 2 of King Edgar’s laws, clearly indicates the transition which had been going on from the old minster to the landowner’s church, from which originated our modern parish churches.

There is the old minster or parish church, then the landowner’s church, with burial-place, erected on his private estate for the convenience of his family, tenants, and labourers. This becomes a new parish church within the district of the old minster. Edgar’s laws are the first to mention these churches. But since A.D. 675 chapels of ease had been built, but no district, no parish boundary, was assigned to any of them. The slow and gradual manner in which parochial churches became independent, appears of itself an efficient answer to those who ascribe a great antiquity to the universal payment of tithes.[158]

It is impossible to state precisely when parishes in England were formed. There is no record or evidence to show it. They gradually commenced in the latter quarter of the seventh century and increased very much in the eighth century. It is too late to assign the origin of our modern parish churches to the reign of King Edgar. It would be nearer the truth to say that the modern parish churches gradually grew up from Bede’s account in A.D. 686, but were not then called parishes. It is evident that the two churches recorded by Bede were built for the accommodation of those residing on each of the earls’ estates. So when churches increased, the jurisdiction of the incumbent of each manorial church was limited by the extent of the landowner’s estate. Hence the estate on which the church was built, with burial ground, became the parochial boundary. Some estates were larger than others; hence the parochial areas are very unequal.

The church had a boundary conterminous with the landowner’s estate. And by Edgar’s law the incumbent received one-third of the tithes of the estate on which the church was built, free from all incidental expenses. The old minster received the remaining two-thirds for the purpose of repairing the churches and relieving the poor and strangers.[159] Edgar’s law points out a division of the tithes. But the most important question in reference to Edgar’s appropriation is “Why was one-third specially assigned to the priest of the manorial church?” Because that part was the well-recognised priest’s share of the tithes.

In Domesday we find several churches in possession of only this one-third of the tithes from the manor or township. Let us take the properties of St. Paul’s, London. The Vicar of Cadendon, in Herts, received a third part of the tithe of the demesne; the Vicar of Tillingham, in Essex, assessed at 20 hides in Domesday, had a third part of the great and small tithes of the demesne. The Vicar of Nastock, in Essex, had a third sheaf of the tithe of the demesne; the Vicar of Drayton, in Middlesex, had one-third of the tithe of the demesne; the Vicar of Sutton, which is not in Domesday, had one-third of the tithe. On the other hand, we find vicars on the Chapter estates receiving ALL the tithes. But the fact existed of Edgar’s one-third appearing in the Domesday Survey, which did not record one-third of the churches which were then on the lands surveyed; and if we had in that survey a complete record of the number of churches, we should find a large number of vicars in receipt of Edgar’s one-third part of the tithes.

We sometimes find the tithes of a portion of land in one parish, paid to the parish priest of the church of another parish, for this detached piece of land may have belonged to the manorial owner, who built the church on his estate and endowed it not only with the tithes of the lands of the manor but also with the tithes of the land which he possessed in other parishes.

The modern parish system has been erroneously traced back by some[160] to Archbishop Honorius in A.D. 630. Mr. Selden refutes this opinion.[161]

“Honorius primus provinciam in parochias divisit,” meant that Honorius was the first to divide his province into bishoprics and not into parishes. The error originated out of a confusion of the original and subsequent meanings of the word “parochia.” Originally, “parochia” meant a diocese and also a parish. But in Edgar’s reign the words “diocese” and “parish” had two distinct and separate meanings. The distinction had not originated in his reign, but previously and gradually. The _germ_ of the modern parish appeared in A.D. 686.[162]

It is important to observe that in speaking of a clergyman’s sphere of duty the word “provincia” and not “parochia” was used; _e.g._, “Quicunque enim presbiter in _propria provincia_ aut in aliena,” etc.[163]

Selden makes some weighty remarks on Edgar’s law. “But as the first part,” he says, “of his law that gives all tithes to the mother Church of every parish, meant in them a parochial right to incumbent; so also the second part, that permits a third portion of the founder’s tithes to be settled in a church new built, whereto the right of sepulture is annexed, makes a dispensation for a parishioner that would build such a church in his bocland.... _I doubt not that such new erections within old parishes bred also new divisions, which afterwards became whole parishes_, and by connivance of the time took (for so much as was in the territory of that bocland) the former parochial right that the elder and mother Church was possessed of. For that right of sepulture was, and regularly is, a character of a parish church, and as commonly distinguished from a capella.”[164]

Edgar’s law was of great importance. If it were carried out at the present day, the several daughter Churches which have burial grounds would receive a share of the parochial tithes. These district or daughter Churches relieve the mother or parish Church of a large part of the spiritual duties without receiving any part of the spiritual endowments. At no time was this neglected condition so keenly felt as before the creation of the Ecclesiastical Commission. Some private patrons were, and are still reluctant to divide a portion of the parochial tithes among the incumbents of the daughter Churches. But public patrons do so. At the present time, when some well-endowed parishes become vacant, public patrons and some private patrons also, redistribute the tithe endowments among the poorer incumbents of the same parish. But these commendable changes have been brought about by Acts of Parliament and Orders in Council.

In reference to the one-third to the priest of the manorial church, Bishop Kennett says: “Another fair pretext of the religious to regain appropriations, was to desire no more than two parts of the tithe and profits, leaving a third to the free and quiet enjoyment of the parish priest, whom at the same time _they eased from the burthen of repairing the church and relieving the poor, and took that charge upon themselves_. This again was a colour that looked well, for it was but a _returning to the old institution of dividing the profits of a parish into three parts_: one to the priest, one to the church, and a third to the poor. The one-third was called the church’s part, and was expressly excepted as belonging to the priest, and was frequently described as a portion separate from the share of the monks and pertaining to the parish church. It was on this account that the patron’s charter of consenting to an appropriation, did sometimes expressly reserve a third part to the bishop, and for the same reason the bishops of Man had their _Tertiana_, or third part of all churches, in that island. The bishops provided perpetual vicars, who enjoyed a full third of the tithes, and in addition he had oblations and perquisites, which all made his portion often equal to, if not exceeding that of the convent.”[165] These are the words of a bishop of the Church of England. He fully admits the existence of “the old institution of dividing the profits of a parish into three parts,” etc. This old division was not questioned until fifty-eight years ago by Archdeacon Hale, of London, and recently revived by Lord Selborne. I shall presently deal with the opinions of these two writers.

Bishop Kennett further adds, that although there was a threefold division of tithes and oblations in England, yet 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 the stated rules of piety and charity. This is a most remarkable and vital observation, because in course of time this sole trustee kept all the tithes and oblations to his own personal use, in the same manner as the monks acted in respect to all the profits of the churches appropriated to them after the Norman Conquest.

It may be observed that at one time lay patrons had kept to themselves the two parts for the poor and repairs of the churches, and gave the priest the remaining one-third. This arrangement led to great disorders, because they kept the two parts to their own use and had them infeoffed in them and their heirs, leaving the altarage or small tithes to the parish priest. By conscientious scruples, however, they restored in course of time the two parts to the parochial priests, or religious houses, for distribution to the poor and for repairing the churches.

CANONS ENACTED UNDER KING EDGAR.[166]

Canon 55. “And we enjoin that the priest so distribute the people’s alms, that they do both give pleasure to God and accustom the people to alms.”

The following is a gloss on this canon:—“And it is right that one part be delivered to the priest, a second part for the need of the church, and a third part for the poor.”

The text is taken from MS. 201 in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The gloss is taken, by Mr. Thorpe, from a Bodleian MS., Junius 121, fol. 25_b_, which he calls “X” in a page between his Preface and Table of Contents. He says the Bodleian MS. is of the tenth century. Mr. Thorpe’s commanding position as an Anglo-Saxon scholar is generally admitted; yet Lord Selborne questions his opinion as to the date of the Bodleian MS. He says it must have been written in the eleventh century, and was copied from the Church Grith; thus dating the MS. a century later than Mr. Thorpe.[167] That could not have been, for the Church Grith law deals only with the tithe, but Edgar’s canon deals with all alms, including tithe. And as to the date of the MS., I should prefer the opinion of a disinterested Anglo-Saxon scholar and expert like Mr. Thorpe.

It is probable that the Cambridge MS. is a late copy made in Cnute’s reign, and that the Bodleian MS. was a gloss made in the tenth century on the original copy of the canons. The force of the gloss is that the priest was entitled only to one-third part of the people’s alms, which included the tithe. The Church Grith law deals only with the tithe, of which a third part was the priest’s. The gloss gives the general custom of all the churches of giving the priest only one-third part of all alms, oblations, tithes, etc., and not ALL the alms and oblations in addition to one-third part of the tithes. In principle, the words of the gloss do not differ from the wording of Ethelred’s law.

Canon 56. “And we enjoin that priests sing psalms when they distribute the alms, and that they earnestly desire the poor to pray for the people.” Why pray for the people? Because they gave alms to them.

ODO, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.

He was of Danish birth. His father was one of the Danish chiefs who were engaged in the invasions of England in A.D. 870. Odo was first a soldier in the wars of Edward the Elder. In 926 he was appointed bishop of Ramsbury. He was three times engaged on the battle-field after he became a bishop. In 942 he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.

Odo’s canons were compiled from Egbert’s Excerptions and Legatine Injunctions; the former I have shown not to be Egbert’s production. Odo’s tenth canon on tithes is the seventeenth Injunction passed at the Council at Calchyth, _i.e._, Chelsea, in 787.

THE MONKS.

It gives great pleasure to a certain class of writers to blacken the characters of the monks, and to extol Henry VIII. and the favourites and courtiers who surrounded him. But the present age is too critical and well-informed to be misled by the prejudiced and bigoted statements which have no foundation in fact. The monks were no doubt superstitious, and so were the parochial clergy; but the former were not ignorant men, as Judge Blackstone states in his Commentaries. He was much indebted to them for the preservation of ancient charters, laws, and historical annals, which form so important a part of his Commentaries. The various charters of English liberty, wrung from English sovereigns from time to time, were deposited in the monasteries by the barons for safe keeping, where they were carefully and faithfully preserved by the so-called “ignorant and superstitious monks.”

In every great abbey there was a large room called the “Scriptorium,” where several writers made it their sole business to transcribe books for the use of the library. They were generally engaged upon the Fathers, Classics, Histories, etc., etc. There was then no printing press. So zealous were the monks in general for this work, that they often had lands given to them and churches appropriated to them for carrying on the work. In all the great abbeys persons were appointed to take notice of the principal occurrences of the kingdom, and at the end of every year to digest them into annals. The constitutions of the clergy in their national and provincial synods, and even Acts of Parliament, were sent to the abbeys, in order to be duly recorded. The choicest records and treasures of the kingdom were preserved in the monasteries. A copy of the charter of liberties granted by Henry I. was sent to some abbey in every county to be preserved. The abbeys were schools of learning and education, for every convent had one person or more appointed for this purpose, and all the neighbours that desired it, might have their children taught certain branches of education free of charge. In the nunneries, also, young women were taught to work, and to read English and Latin also. Most of the daughters of noblemen and gentlemen were educated in those places.

Again, the monasteries were great hospitals, and most of them were obliged to relieve poor people every day. They served the same purposes of relieving the poor and strangers as the workhouses which originated in the reign of Queen Elizabeth did. When the monasteries were dissolved, and all their properties handed over as a free gift by Parliament to Henry VIII., to do with them as he pleased, there were no longer any places where the poor and strangers could be relieved. If all the monastic properties had then been placed under a Board of Commissioners to be utilized towards the relief of the poor, an annual income would now be at the command of such Commissioners as would be sufficient to cover the eight and a half millions per annum, the present cost of the relief of the poor of England and Wales, and thus the ratepayers of the kingdom would be relieved of the payment of poor rates. The annual value of all the property was £250,000, including the tithes possessed by the monastic bodies. If we take into account the valuable landed estates which the bishops and chapters were forced to exchange for the monastic appropriated tithes, firstfruits, and tenths, we shall get a revenue of at least £300,000 per annum, which, at the present time, would realize eight and a half millions per annum. To place such vast properties at the _free disposal_ of Henry VIII. and his successors on the throne, is the most convincing proof of the subservient and even slavish Parliaments of the Tudor sovereigns.[168]

It is important to observe that we have no trustworthy record of any single event of English history previous to the arrival of Augustine. We have tradition, but nothing more. No great power of writing existed up to that period. But Augustine and his companions did more than introduce Christianity among the Saxons. They also introduced writing, annals, and other forms of Roman civilization. The first Anglo-Saxon charter is dated April 28, A.D. 604, by which Ethelbert, king of Kent, granted to the Cathedral church of Rochester, lands at Southgate. This charter was granted by the advice of Bishop Laurence and of all the king’s princes.[169] There are no signatures, but ends with “Amen.” The second charter, dated A.D. 605, granting land in Canterbury to found an abbey, is signed by King Ethelbert, Archbishop Augustine, Edbald the King’s son, Duke Hamigisil, Angemund referendarius, Hocca comes, Grafio comes (count or comites of the King), Tangilisil regis optimas, Pinca, and Geddi. The first charter is remarkable, in which Laurence is styled “bishop.” Augustine had not died until the 26th May, 605,[170] so he must have consecrated Laurence as Archbishop more than thirteen months before his death. Augustine signed the Charter dated 9th January, 605, as a member of the Witenagemót.

POPULATION.

Mr. Walter de Gray Birch, of the MSS. Department of the British Museum, had discovered in 1883, in the British Museum, a MS. in Anglo-Saxon of the late tenth or early eleventh century. It is the only extant Anglo-Saxon copy. It is the oldest and best text. There is internal evidence that the MS. is a copy of an older one now lost. It is in the Harley Collection of MSS. 3271 f. 6B. It is the earliest census return of the Anglo-Saxon population.[171] There are thirty-four divisions or territorial names which are very ancient. The total is 243,600 hides, which mean families, throughout England. Allowing five to each family, the population of England in A.D. 1066 was 1,218,000. As the sanitary arrangements and medical science were little known among the Anglo-Saxons, I take 10 per 1,000 as the excess of births over deaths. From these data I conclude that in A.D. 597, when Augustine landed in England, the population was 80,000; in A.D. 700, the population was 160,000; in A.D. 800, population 300,000; in A.D. 900, population 600,000; in A.D. 1,000, population 900,000. The population of Kent in A.D. 597 was about 5,500. There is a statement in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History that the population of Kent was 10,000 when Augustine landed, but this was an exaggeration. There were then 21 monasteries in England. Between A.D. 600 and 700, 100 monasteries were built and endowed. Therefore in A.D. 700 there were 121 monasteries for a population of 160,000. Only 29 monasteries were built between 700 and 800, 22 between 800 and 900, 38 between 900 and 1000, and 43 between 1000 and 1066, or 253, but one-half of them were in ruins through Danish invasions, at the time of the Conquest.

I shall now give the population of the country at the periods when tithes were ordered to be paid by civil or ecclesiastical law.

In 787, when the Pope’s two legates came to England, the population was about 260,000. The Injunctions read to the Northern Synod were attested by the King of Northumberland, Archbishop of York, Bishops of Hexham, Lindisfarne, Whitherne, Mayo in Ireland, Ethelwin of Bangor, two dukes, two abbots, some presbyters, deacons and thanes.

In the Southern Synod they were attested by the King of Mercia, Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishops of Lichfield, Lindsey, Leicester, Elmham, London, Winchester, Dunwich, Hereford, Selsey, Rochester, Sherborne, Worcester (13 bishops); 3 abbots, 3 dukes, and 1 comes, _i.e._ 16 ecclesiastics and 5 laymen.

It will be seen from these facts that not only was the population small, but ecclesiastics formed the majority in the synods or councils who framed laws and canons for the payment of tithes to the Church. King Athelstan’s law made in 927 for the payment of tithes runs thus:—

“Athelstan, king, with the council of Wulfhelm Archbishop, and of my other bishops, make known to the reeves, etc.” Here is the King with a council of bishops making a law for the payment of tithes to bishops themselves and to their clergy. And this is considered the first general law in England for setting forth the payment of predial and mixed tithes. The population then was about 700,000.

In 960, King Edgar passed his tithe laws with and by the advice of his Witan, who included the Archbishop of Canterbury, and bishops. The population then was about 800,000.

Let us now take a glance at the number of bishops in England and Wales up to the time of the Norman Conquest.

Kent had Canterbury and Rochester.

East Saxons: London. East Angles: Dunwich and Elmham.

West Saxons: Dorchester (transferred to Winchester), Sherborne, Mercia (including eight counties), Lichfield, Leicester, Sidnacester (or Lindsey), Worcester, Hereford.

South Saxons: Selsey.

Northumberland: York, Lindisfarne, Hexham.

Sixteen bishops in England and 4 in Wales in A.D. 705, when the population was only 160,000, _i.e._ a bishop for every 8,000. By absorption only 14 bishops in England, 4 in Wales, and 1 in the Isle of Man in 1066, or one bishop for every 66,000 of the population.

Lord Selborne, Bishop Stubbs, and Mr. Haddan[172] say the manorial churches, to which Edgar’s laws granted one-third of the tithes, were the type of our own modern parish churches. This I grant. It is _the first Act_ of Parliament by which they received tithes. By _custom_ the _mother churches_ originally received tithes. But it was not by custom, but by an Act of Parliament passed at Andover in A.D. 960, that the type of our modern parishes received one-third of the tithes of the parochial limits.

Up to A.D. 1180, the owners of lands from which tithes arose might give them, as they please, to bishops, chapters, monasteries, or _to the parish churches on their own estates_. Hence, churches erected by landowners after 960 received in _many_ cases, up to 1180, _all the tithes_ of the new parochial boundaries, and not one-third.

But I disagree with them in limiting the origin of the type of our modern parishes to A.D. 960. I trace the GERM of our modern parishes back to the two earls’ churches, consecrated in A.D. 686.[173] Soames, Lappenberg, and Dean Hook refer the origin of our modern parishes to Archbishop Theodore (668 to 693). That Bede’s churches were in the north of England does not militate against my view. _It was but the germ_, which gradually expanded.[174]

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