CHAPTER XII

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_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.

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