CHAPTER XV

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_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. | | | | |Colleges. | | | | | |Preceptories. | | | | | | |Alien Priories. | | | | | | | |Premonstratensians. | | | | | | | | |Gilbertines. | | | | | | | | | |Carthusians. | | | | | | | | | | |Brigettan | | | | | | | | | | |order. | | | | | | | | | | | |Total. -----------+----+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+------ 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 Richard II.| | | | | | | | | | | | 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.

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