or his wine, of the fruits of his trees, of his cattle, or his garden, or his business, or his hunting. God has reserved to himself the tenth part of all the substance he has given to men; and therefore it is not lawful for man to keep to himself what God has reserved for Himself." St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, is equally emphatic in enforcing this duty, and says that if they have no fruits of the earth to offer they should pay a tithe of whatever they live by-"Whatever mode of living supports you is of God: and hence he exacts a tenth part of your income: render a tithe of the spoils of war, of the profits of trading, and manual labour.”— "Tithes are demanded of right; and he who refuses to pay them robs the property of another." He adopts all the texts out of the Old Testament, and gives many other strong injunctions respecting them, and says that the non-payment of them has been the cause of many national calamities. About this time the custom of paying tithes of all fruits was generally established in Egypt as well as in Pannonia. In a Provincial Council at Macon in 586 A.D. the payment of tithes into the hands of the ministers of the Church is spoken of as of considerable antiquity, and grounded upon the Mosaic Law, which they say is to be preserved intact by the Christians. This is the first authentic canon on the subject, but it was not received into the general body of ecclesiastical law. Leo the Great, though he exhorts Christians to be liberal in their offerings, does not mention any specific quantity. St. Jerome and St. Chrysoston do not, indeed, affirm it to be a legal duty to pay tithes, but they exhort Christians to be not less liberal in their offerings than the Jews; and say that they should not give less than a tenth of all profits gained either from the earth, or by trade, or by any other just employment of person or estate. These opinions prove that no right to demand tithes was as yet established: and this is confirmed by Agobard, Bishop of Lyons, who in a treatise on the dispensation of church revenues expressly denies that before his time any synod or general doctrine of the Church had determined or ordained anything touching the quantity that should be given. either for the maintenance of priests, or the building of churches. Nevertheless, the opinion that tithes are due by Divine Right gradually became stronger, and was zealously enforced by the clergy, and numerous consecrations were made to several churches. Pepin, the ancestor of Charlemagne, endowed the church of Utrecht with all tithes of slaves, lands and taxes, trading and other property. And at this time the well known quadripartite division of these offerings was made: one part for the maintenance of the ministers; a second for the relief of the poor, sick, and strangers; the third for the repair of the church; and the fourth for the Bishop. And this was confirmed by a Law of Charlemagne in 778 A.D., in a general assembly of his Estates, both spiritual and temporal.1 The doctrine that tithes are due by divine right was now repeatedly asserted in several councils, as by that of Mentz in 813, and many others, grounded as well on the Levitical Law as on the examples of Abraham and Jacob. Walafrid Strabo, about 840, says "Abraham shews by his deeds and Jacob by his promises that tithes are to be given to God and his priests: then the law enjoined it, and all the Doctors of the Church repeat it." They were called res Dominica, Dominica substantia, and Dei census. They were also called patrimonia pauperum, tributa egentium animarum, stipendia pauperum, hospitium peregrinorum. Pope Alexander II., in advance of Leo, says in a letter to the Bishop of Reims, that they were not instituted by man, but by God. Pope Cœlestin III. also asserts that a true believer is bound to pay tithes on all he may lawfully acquire. Innocent III. asserts that God has ordained that tithes should be paid to Him in recognition of His universal dominion. The General Council of the Lateran in 1215 confirmed this, for the first time making it a general law of the Church, as well as of the Empire. The clergy now universally pressed their penitents with the question whether they had duly paid their tithes, and if they had neglected to do so imposed a penalty of fourfold the amount, and a penance of bread and water for twenty days. This was now an integral part of the Canon Law; and there was no difference made as to the nature or the source of the increase the tenth of all profits or increase, prædial as well as personal, was held to be due. Pope Innocent IV. makes it a wonder to see any man deny that personal tithes are due by Divine Law. The learned Alexander Hales asserts that personal as well as prædial tithes are due by Divine Law. At Venice and other cities where there could be no prædial tithes, personal tithes were enforced by positive law. 1 Selden, ch. 6, § 7. 18. The clergy in England also asserted that tithes are due by divine right. In a collection of canons made about the time of Henry I., which were alleged to be of the eighth century, one enjoins the clergy to teach that tithes are due by the law of God; of which one part is to be dedicated to the church; a second to the poor and strangers: and the third to the clergy. The first legal enactment of them seems to have been by Offa, King of Mercia, and Aelfwold, King of Northumberland, who held a synod in 786 A.D. under two legates from Pope Hadrian I., attended by all the great men of the kingdom, and it was ordained that every one should pay tithes of all his possessions. This was confirmed in 900 A.D. in a treaty between Alfred and Guthrun the Dane, to whom some of the eastern provinces were given to hold of the crown, and penalties were enacted for their non-payment. Similar enactments were repeated by Athelstan in 930, Edmund in 940, Edgar in 970, and Ethelred in 1010, which need not be quoted, as they contain nothing new. Edward the Confessor, as might be expected, was very minute in his directions as to tithes, and after enumerating every species of the produce of land and cattle, he expressly orders them to be paid for business and everything which God has given. After the Conquest the injunctions as to the payment of tithes were repeated in many synods, and the frequency of these enactments would certainly seem to shew that they were generally evaded or neglected. To put a stop to this, as well as to the scandals and quarrels which arose as to the persons to whom they were paid, a still more stringent canon was made in a Council held in London 23 Edward I., in which, after making many minute regulations as to the payment of prædial and mixed tithes, it was ordained that personal tithes should be paid by all artisans and merchants from the profits of trade; so also by carpenters, smiths, masons, weavers, innkeepers, and all workmen for hire, with severe penalties for non-payment. It is quite certain that before the Reformation personal tithes were paid, though to what extent it is impossible to say. In 5 Henry VI. a certain William Russell had maintained that personal tithes are not payable by the law of God, and that every one might dispose of them in such charitable purposes as he thought best. To contradict this doctrine, the University of Oxford in that year issued a solemn letter under its seal in which it declared that personal tithes are payable as well by the law of God as by the tradition of the Christian fathers, and the authority of the Church; and that whoever held the doctrine that personal tithes are not payable by Divine law was to be held as a heretic, and excommunicated as a rotten member. And Archbishop Chicheley ordered all parsons to preach that personal tithes are due by the Law of God and the Church. These canons were confirmed by Act of Parliament 27 Henry VIII., c. 20, which enacted that every one should pay his tithes, both personal and prædial, after the manner and custom of the parish in which he lived, according to the Ecclesiastical laws and ordinances of the Church of England. By the Statute 31 Henry VIII., c. 13, and 32 Henry VIII., c. 7, for the dissolution of the monasteries, the possessions of the dissolved monasteries were transferred to the Crown and it was allowed to make grants of tithes to laymen, in the same manner as grants of any other estates in land: ecclesiastical persons were to pursue their remedy before the ordinary, and laymen who claimed under a grant from the Crown before the secular courts, in the same way as any other lay property. Though tithes had in many cases got into the possession of laymen on the continent for many centuries, this was the first occasion on which they became the property of laymen in England. : By Acts 27 Henry VIII., c. 21., and 37 Henry VIII., c. 12., the citizens of London were ordered to pay their tithes to the parsons, vicars, and curates of the City, according to the rate of 2s. 9d. for every pound of the rent of their houses, and if no rent were reserved, then according to the rent for which they were last let. Besides this, there were to be paid as ecclesiastical dues, every Sunday and principal feast day, one farthing for every ten shillings of rent. Besides this, moreover, they were liable to pay personal tithes on the profits of trading. Before this Statute and Decree the citizens of London had not been in the general habit of paying tithes. The last Statute on the subject of tithes is 2 and 3 Edward VI., c. 13, which enacted that all tithes, prædial as well as personal, should be paid in the manner which they had been during the last forty years. These are the last Statutes on the subject, until we come to those commuting the payment in kind into a rent charge, which we shall notice presently. 19. The preceding extracts are sufficient to give a correct idea of the origin, nature, and law of tithes in this country. Stripped of all ecclesiastical rubbish, which has no effect in these days, it appears that they were, in fact, a ten per cent. rate upon the income of every one in the kingdom from whatever source arising, whether land, cattle, or trading, arts, professions, and industry of all sorts. The 2 & 3 Edwd. VI., c. 13, s. 7, exempts servants in husbandry from tithes, which shews that until that time they were liable; and Spelman says that in his day, in many parts of England, servants paid tithe on their wages. He says those who have annuities and fees must pay a tithe out of every accession of wealth that God sendeth in any course whatever, so that gains of buying and selling, and the great improvement arising by merchandise is under this title commanded, precisely in the same manner as these profits are taxed for the civil service of the Sovereign. In fact, by all laws, ecclesiastical and civil, every one was placed exactly on the same footing regarding his heavenly and earthly sovereigns; he must pay a rate of ten per cent. on all his income for the service of the ministers of God and other charitable purposes, and he must also pay his taxes to his King, and all sources of his income were equally taxable for each. Tithes are now divided into two parts: 1st, those which have become the property of laymen; and secondly, those which are still paid to the clergy of the English Church. Tithes in the hands of laymen are undoubtedly, like any other estate in land, the absolute property of their impropriators, because they have the right of inheritance in them. However iniquitous and scandalous such grants may have been in their origin, they cannot be assailed now. But tithes which are paid to the clergy of the Church of England stand on a totally different footing, and as many signs seem to shew that an investigation of the relations between State and Church may be made a political question before very many years pass away, it may be as well to examine shortly the interest which the clergy have in tithes. 20. Many persons seem to suppose that the ministers of the Church of England form a huge corporation, called the Church, to which the State has granted tithes as absolute property, like the estates of private individuals, and that if the Church were |