338 TITHES 



complete. Both points were settled by ecclesiastical discipline at 

 the close of the twelfth century, The necessity for institution by 

 the bishop was established, and the bishop's right to appoint to 

 vacant benefices, after a certain period of delay, was vindicated. 



A further step was still required. The legal liability for the 

 payment of tithes was satisfied if, with the exception of the third 

 secured to the parochial churches which possessed burial-grounds, 

 payment was made to any ecclesiastical body. A patron might 

 increase the pittances of the poor priests at his door, or offer it to 

 the collegiate cathedral, or heap the grain in the barn of a monastery, 

 or sell the tithes issuing from his estate to any religious body that 

 he chose, or even, by collusion, store the corn in the granaries of 

 himself or his lay friends. Even after the formation of parishes 

 had become general, and after the claim of parochial churches was 

 commonly recognised, it was still possible, and still usual, to grant 

 the local tithes to distant houses of religion. The same causes were 

 at work which in Anglo-Saxon times sacrificed the secular clergy 

 to the monasteries. Norman landlords preferred to assign their 

 tithes to monastic bodies, with whom they were more in sympathy 

 than with the native priests of rural districts. The increase of 

 monasticism after the Conquest necessarily alienated a large part 

 of the local tithes which naturally would have increased the local 

 provision for religious services. This option on the part of land- 

 owners is inconsistent with the theory of the endowment of parishes 

 by an exercise of the national will, expressed in some general law. 

 It was not till the thirteenth century, and then not by any statute 

 or Act of Parliament, but by the growth of custom, that the land- 

 owner's freedom of choice was limited. No doubt the growth of 

 the custom was aided by the practice of such specific dedications 

 of tithes to the parochial church as those of Hay and Exhall. At 

 common law the courts presumed that the parish church was 

 primd facie entitled to the tithes which issued from the lands of the 

 parish. By this presumption the burden of proof was thrown on 

 tithe-payers or other claimants to show that the local tithes had 

 been either paid to some collegiate or conventual body for so long 

 a period as to create a prescriptive right, or had been by express 

 grant alienated to some other religious body. 



It was to custom that the parochial clergy appealed ; other 

 claimants relied on immemorial usage or express grant. This fact 

 is in itself of extreme importance. Had any enactment of the 



