Its CoJinecHon luith C/mrck and State. 109 



regni sui partem," and " decimavit totiim regni sui imperiiim," 

 phrases used by different historians to record Ethelwulf's mag- 

 nificent Church offering, do not, as we shall shortly show, 

 imply the gift of " decimse." 



The next trustworthy evidence regarding tithe is that in 

 A.D. 786, when a foreign mission stirred up King Offa to 

 convoke a synod in order to reform the Church laws in the 

 same kingdom, out of which the principle of the payment 

 became part of the new canon.^ There is however no trust- 

 worthy evidence for any legally established custom of tithe 

 payment beyond the area of lands comprised in the royal 

 demesnes. Offa, possibly urged thereto in expiation for Ethel- 

 bert's murder, seems to have paid besides tithe something 

 for papal support — possibly the impost known under the name 

 of Rome feoh or Peter's pence ; ^ but it would not be safe to 

 infer that there was any secular co-operation in these ec- 

 clesiastical charges enacted in full synod of the lords spiritual 

 of the realm thus convoked by Pope Adrian's legate. When 

 we come to the year a.d. 855, there are more conflicting views. 

 Dean Prideaux asserts that Ethelwulf, king of the West 

 Saxons, in full Parliament at Winchester, dedicated one-tenth 

 of his kingdom to God. Dean Hook explains that he offered 

 only the predial tithes of those lands over which he had pro- 

 prietary control ; and Sir Henry Spelman concludes that the 

 origin of the Church glebe lands dates from this Charter. 

 There a^re objections to the conclusions of all three theorists. 

 Thus, if Dean Prideaux be correct, where is there any proof 

 that the terms of the grant were carried out ? Against Dean 

 Hook's suggestion there is the improbability that Ethelwulf 

 would require the consent of all his landowning subjects to an 

 offering that was purely personal. Lastly, the objection to 

 Sir Henry Spelman's theory is the fact that the glebe lands 

 were already in existence at the time of Ethelwulf's Charter. 



The Eev. H, Clarke has recently collated the phrases used in 

 recording this event by no less than seven historians. That of 

 Ingulphus, " tunc primo cum decimis omnium terrarum ac 



* This was the Council of Chalchj-th. 



^ Ancient Facts and Fictions, p. 150, ed. I. 



