Its Connection with Chnrck and State. 119 



The plough, alms were one penny due to tlie Church for 

 every ploughland, and payable within fifteen days after Easter. 

 These three charges are easily distinguishable. The tithe, 

 Cyriesceat, and " plow " alms are all mentioned in King Ed- 

 mund's laws. Canute defines the Cyriesceat as the firstfruit 

 of the seed, payable in the middle of August, and increases the 

 penalty for its evasion to 120 shillings. By the same law we 

 find that Peter's pence was a charge levied on the whole 

 country, cities as well as villages.^ 



Leoh schot was wax of the value of a silver halfpenny, 

 chargeable on every hide of land thrice yearly, i.e. at Candle- 

 mas, Easter eve, and on the Feast of All Hallows, for the pur- 

 pose of furnishing lights for the altar at the parish church." 



Lastly, there was the soul schot, or customary burial fee, 

 payable to the minister for the dead while the grave was yet 

 open, or reserved for the church to which the deceased be- 

 longed, whenever the burial took place outside his shrift-shire. 

 Selden supposes that it was a satisfaction for some negligence 

 and omission that the defunct might have been guilty of in 

 not paying his personal tithes.^ 



Let us now turn to the relationship of the land with the 

 State. Just as the Church had looked to the land for the 

 maintenance of the national Clergy, Poor, and Houses of Wor- 

 ship, so also the State looked to the land for the maintenance 

 of the national defences. Practically, in these early times, there 

 was little prospect for fiscal officers to find the necessary funds 

 elsewhere. Commercial capital was a mere cipher in the national 

 wealth. Its compulsory taxation was quite beyond the rude 

 machinery employed by the Anglo-Saxon civil service. The 

 creed of the political economist, partly from necessity, partly 

 also from predilection, remained identically the same until the 

 times of Adam Smith ; English finance ministers held views 

 associated with that French school of political economists 

 which flourished towards the close of the 18th century. The 



1 Id. Ibid. 

 ■"■ Id. Ihid. 



^ Selborne, Facts and Fictions, pp. 223-47, ed. I. ; and Lingard, Anglo- 

 Saxon Church. 



