Henry William Clarke

“ When this custom commenced, the population of England and Wales could not have exceeded 160,000, with less than a quarter of a million of acres under cultivation, and yet this custom, originating under the above circumstances, generated a common law right, which legally bound all subsequent generations to the payment of predial, mixt, and personal tithes. I call this barefaced injustice. It is utterly wrong to state, as some Church defenders do, that all the parochial tithe endowments were voluntarily bestowed on the Church by the landowners. ”

“ Churchmen like Archdeacon Tillesley, many of whom are in the receipt of tithes or tithe-rent charges, will naturally act like drowning men, and snatch even at passing straws to save the tithes. Could anything, for example, be more childish and absurd than the story of tracing the payment of tithes to Adam? ”

“ At the General Council of Lateran, held in 1215, the arbitrary appropriation of tithes to monasteries or other ecclesiastical corporations which were not parochial, was strongly condemned, and the tithes were commanded to be paid in future to the parish churches. This council therefore gave the parsons the parochial right to tithes. It was certainly very wrong to hand over the parochial tithes to outsiders who did no parochial work and took no interest whatever in the parishes from which they drew large incomes, while the parochial clergy who did the work were most miserably remunerated. ”

“ In A.D. 322 Constantine, the first Christian emperor, published an edict which gave full liberty to his subjects to bestow as large a proportion of their property to the clergy as they should think proper. From all these sources of revenue the Christian Church was rapidly increasing in wealth. But for more than four hundred years after the Christian era there was no authoritative Church canon made for the payment of tithes; and then such canon was founded upon the Mosaic Law. The question then is, are Christians justified in adopting the Mosaic Law for the payment of tithes? ”

“ 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. ”

“ The first law making the payment of tithes legally imperative was enacted in 779 by Charles, King of France, in a general assembly of his estates, spiritual and temporal, viz., “Concerning tithes, it is ordained that every man give his tithe, and that they be distributed by the bishop’s command.” ”

“ The Ordinances of Habam are found only in Bromton’s history, and they contain one important provision as to tithes and other Church dues. Art. 4: “And we charge that every man, for the love of God and all His saints, give church-scot, and his rightful tithe as it stood in the days of our ancestors, when it stood best; that is, as the plough shall pass through the tenth acre, and let every customary due be paid for the love of God to our mother-church to which it is near. And let no one take away from God what belongs to God, and our ancestors have granted.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is a well-known point in law that a house quâ house is not liable for the payment of tithes. Tithes were paid for what issued or grew out of the ground. Enormous house properties have been erected in and around all our cities and towns, for which one penny as tithe-money has never been paid, and yet the house property in the City and Liberties of London, and landed property throughout the country, have to pay a modus and tithe-rent charges. ”

“ Kemble says: “It is well known that the earliest legislative enactment on the subject of tithes in the Anglo-Saxon laws is that of Athelstan, bearing date in the first quarter of the tenth century.” [130]
Kemble further adds: “The tithes mentioned by Athelstan is the predial tithe, or that of the increase of the fruits of the earth, and increase of the young of cattle. The nature of the sanction of tithes is obvious; it is the old, unjustifiable application of the Jewish practice, which fraud or ignorance had made general current in Europe.” ”

“ The sales of advowsons are carried on at public auctions and by private agents, and are given to the highest bidder. The public sale-room is now less resorted to, owing to the scandal thus created. But the sales are still vigorously pushed on privately by family solicitors and professional agents. A living, for example, is worth, say, £800 a year from glebe and tithe-rent charge; the incumbent is old, and the owner of the advowson is desirous of finding a purchaser of next nomination after the death or resignation [28] of present incumbent. A life-interest only is thus purchased. ”

“ The priests at Jerusalem received the first fruits and heave offerings, but not the tithes. The heave offerings were the one-sixtieth of the gross produce. But the tithes were devoted to the whole tribe of Levi at Jerusalem, and they gave the tithe of their tithes to the priests—that is, one-hundredth part. It was from this custom, and in order to support the Crusades, that the popes of Rome exacted, early in the fourteenth century, the first fruits and the tithe of the tithes from the hierarchy and beneficed clergy, who were under their spiritual jurisdiction. ”

“ We have only to read the miraculous legends recorded by Bede and others to find out the means by which the clergy had imposed upon the credulity of those simple-minded people. It was by deceit, trickery, hypocrisy, and sham miracles that the Anglo-Saxon bishops and their clergy had obtained tithes, first as free-will offerings, then by legislative enactments, which made these free-will offerings compulsory. ”

“ Then, again, we have a large extent of land—formerly monastic—which is tithe free. There are also lands in the vicinity of large cities and towns built upon, for which the landlords receive enormous ground rents, and when the leases expire they take possession of the house property. But they pay nothing to the Church for the increased value of their land, which may be one hundred times the yearly value per acre before it was built upon.
In the Christian Church tithes were at first given by the faithful as spontaneous offerings, at the urgent solicitations of the clergy. ”

“ After the Conquest, the Norman monks invented the system of having churches with their tithes appropriated to them. Previous to the Conquest there were no appropriation of churches, but patrons granted to monasteries, bishops or chapters the advowsons of the churches. As religious services had to be performed in the church appropriated, the monastic body had either to depute one of their [147] own fraternity in Holy Orders to do the duty, or to appoint a deputy or vicar to act for them and to whom they gave most miserable stipends. ”

“ A layman, who was obliged to pay his tithes somewhere, might think it good policy to erect an abbey, and there pay them to his own monks, or grant them to some abbey already erected, and thus have masses for ever sung [149] for his soul.” [258] Not only had laymen appropriated tithes to episcopal, capitular, and monastic corporations, but, in Lord Selborne’s opinion, they may also have given them to parish churches. Hence, he thinks, the true origin of the endowment of parish churches with tithes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The man without means or protection was treated as an outlaw. This was heathenism and not Christianity. The grand humanitarian, philanthropic principles of the Christian religion were taught the Saxon heathen from the very first by the Christian missionaries. Unquestionably these missionaries found poor, outcast Anglo-Saxons to whom they preached the Gospel, and assisted them with their charity and protection. This was the special function of the bishops and their clergy in their dioceses, and monks in their monasteries. ”

“ I have often thought that Lord Selborne’s error arose in his assuming that all the manuscripts which are now in the Worcester volume, Nero, A. 1, were in the same volume when Selden and Spelman consulted it during the life of Sir Robert. If I am right, it is a clear proof how unsound it is to draw inferences from negative evidence, and how careless he must have been in not having made himself quite certain that the “document” was in the volume for them to see. As this is a vital point in the discussion, I have devoted the whole of chapter x. in defence of this Church Grith law. ”

“ 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 [140] benefactors, of their families and relatives. ”

“ 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? ”

“ It is calculated that what is produced in England and Wales for the maintenance of the population, would only suffice for three months out of the twelve, and that nine months’ provisions are imported from foreign countries and from Ireland and Scotland. It is therefore doubtful that if the Commutation Act were repealed, whether the tithe-owners would receive more from tithes in kind than the gross rent-charge of four millions per annum. But it would be utterly unreasonable, and practically impossible now, to repeal this Act, as Church defenders want, and have a re-valuation ”

“ In every licence from henceforth to be made in the chancery of the appropriation of any parish church, it shall be expressly contained and comprised that the diocesan of the place, upon the appropriation of such churches, shall ordain, according to the value of such churches, a convenient sum of money to be paid and distributed yearly of the fruits and profits of the same churches, by those that shall have the said churches in proper use, and by their successors, to the poor parishioners of the said churches in aid of their living and sustenance for ever ”