336 TITHES 



portions of their own property. If neither appeals to conscience 

 nor threats of excommunication sufficed to obtain payment, the 

 State might not unreasonably be asked to enforce it as a legal 

 liability, either against the original donors or against their repre- 

 sentatives who had inherited estates already subject to the dedica- 

 tion of the consecrated portion. 



In the reign of Edgar the Peaceful, during the primacy of Dunstan, 

 the payment of tithes was made a legal liability, universal in its 

 application. At the same time a step was taken towards the 

 appropriation of a portion to the maintenance of district churches 

 of a particular class. At Andover, in 970, the king and his Witen- 

 agemot issued an ecclesiastical ordinance, which was to all intents 

 and purposes an Act of Parh'ament. The ordinance creates no tithes. 

 On the contrary it presupposes their existence. It regulates the 

 times when they were to be paid, and makes then* payment a legal 

 liability, enforced by a pecuniary penalty and a power of distraint. 

 It does not profess to give them to the clergy. The first article 

 ran as follows : " That God's churches be entitled to every right ; 

 and that every tithe be rendered to the old minster, to which the 

 district belongs ; and be then so paid, both from a thane's inland (i.e. 

 land granted in the lord's own hands), and from geneat-land (i.e. 

 land granted out for services), so as the plough traverses it." Un- 

 doubtedly, the law not only protects the Church in the possession 

 of tithes already dedicated, but transforms the moral duty, religious 

 custom, and ecclesiastical obligation into a legal liability. A 

 reason is suggested by the passages which regulate their division. 

 The general right of the " old minster," the mother church of the 

 district whether collegiate or conventual to the local tithes was 

 recognised. But an exception was allowed. If any landowner had 

 built on his private estate a church with a burial-place attached, 

 he was to assign to its support one-third of the local tithes. The 

 remaining two-thirds were to be paid to the " mother church." 

 If the landowner had built on his estate a church or oratory without 

 a burial-place, the local tithes went to the " mother church," and 

 he might provide privately for the priest of his private chapel. In 

 other words, the old diocesan and monastic system still remained in 

 force ; but, side by side with it, had grown up manorial churches, 

 providing " shrift districts " with burial-grounds, and therefore 

 claiming some more permanent support than the caprice of the 

 builder or of his successors. They were not yet parish churches ; 



