Its Connection with Church and State. 1 1 7 



tedious to make mention even of those about whicli question 

 lias arisen some time or other in the tithes' history. Acorns, 

 mast of oak and beech, nurseries of trees, hazel, holly and 

 maples, although of twenty years' growth, were titheable ; 

 whereas oaks and the bark of titheable timber were exempted. 

 Parks, whether pastured by deer or converted into tillage, were 

 titheable by custom, but fallow ground escaped either form of 

 this impost. Another minor distinction in this due was made 

 by the terms great and small tithes, which came into exist- 

 ence with the parish system. The former comprised corn, hay, 

 and wood, and generally belonged to the rector ; the latter 

 included all other forms of predial tithe, and belonged to the 

 vicar. Lastly, extra-parochial tithes, which did not lie in any 

 parish, were the property of the sovereign.^ 



But enough has been said to prove how absolutely essential 

 were the services of the national statute book for the proper 

 administration of justice between tithe owner and tithe payer. 

 It is to be regretted that instead of this heavy charge on the 

 nation's produce a tenth of the land, as in Ethelwulf's char- 

 ter, had not been originally entirely devoted to the Church, 

 for since the abolition of the Corn Laws, the British farmer 

 has had to compete with the foreign producer in the home 

 market on unequal terms ; his circumstances on this account 

 being parallel to the case of a pedestrian who is penalised ten 

 yards in every hundred, whenever he competes in a trial of 

 speed with other runners. 



However closely the national legislation guarded the tithe 

 owner's interests, it seems to have been impossible fur it to 

 have provided against the evasion of the payment of personal 

 tithes. Their distinctive name of "tithes due by custom" 

 in opposition to those due " de jure " shows this : The profits 

 from commerce and trade were insignificant in these early 

 times ; they varied with each individual, and terminated at 

 his death. If therefore predial and mixed tithes were diffi- 

 cult to collect, how much more personal tithes ! Hence we 

 find very little allusion to personal tithe in the records of this 

 era. The Constitution of Archbishop Winchelsey appears to 

 ' Jacobs, Law Dictioyiary, sub. voc. Tithes. 



