TIT 11 1:?^. 



parljamf ntary conventions of ellatcs, rcfpeftively confiding 

 of the kings of Mercia and Northumberland, the bifhops, 

 Jukes, fenators, and people. This was a few years later 

 than the time when Charlemagne cftab!ifhcd the payment of 

 them in France, A.D. 778, and made the famous divifion of 

 them into four parts ; one to maintain the edifice of the 

 church, the fecond to fupport the poor, the third the bilhop, 

 and the fourth the ])arochial clergy. 



The next authentic mention of them is in the Foedus 

 Edwardi et Guthruni, or the laws agreed upon between 

 king Guthrun, the Dane, and Alfred and his fon Edward 

 the Elder, fuccefTive kings of England, about the year 900. 

 Tliis treaty may be found at large in the Anglo-Saxon laws, 

 «nd il not only enjoins the payment of tithes, but adds a 

 penalty upon non-obfcrvance ; which law is feconded by the 

 laws of Athenian, cap. i. about the year 930. This, he 

 fays, is as much as can be certainly traced out, with regard 

 to their legal original. Blackft. Com. b. ii. c. iii. feit 2. 

 Burn's Eccl. Law, vol. iii. article Tithes. 



The cuHom of paying tithes, or of offering a tenth of 

 what a man enjoys, or of what he reaps from it, has not only 

 been praftifed under the old and tlie new law, but we alio 

 find (omething like it among the heathens. 



Xenophon, in the fifth book of the expedition of Cyrus, 

 gives us an infcription upon a column, near the temple of 

 Diana, by which the people were warned to offer the tenth 

 part of their revenues every year to that goddefs. 



The Babylonians and Egyptians gave their kings a tenth 

 of their revenues : fee Ariftotle in his Oeconomics, lib. ii. 

 Diodorus Siculus, lib. v. and Strabo, lib. xv. 



Afterwards the Romans exafted of the Sicilians a tenth 

 of the corn they reaped ; and Appian tells us, that thofe 

 who broke up, or tilled any new grounds, were obliged to 

 carry a tenth of their produce to the treafury. 



The Romans offered a tenth of all they took from their 

 enemies to the gods ; whence the name of Jupiter Predator : 

 the Gauls, in like manner, gave a tenth to their god iVInrs, 



as we learn in the Commentaries of Casfar And Feflus, de 



Verb. Signif. alTures us, that the ancients ufed to give tithe 

 of every thing to their gods : " Decima quxque veteres diis 

 luis offerebant." 



_ Authors have been flrangely perplexed to find the ori- 

 ginal of a cuftom eftablifhed among fo many people of dif- 

 ferent manners and rehgions to give a tenth to their kings, 

 their gods, or their minifters of religion. Grotius takes it 

 to arife hence, that the number ten is the moft; known, and 

 the moft common among all nations ; by reafon of the 

 number of fingers, which is ten. On this account he thinks 

 it is, that the commandments of God were reduced to ten, 

 for people to retain them with greater eafe ; that the philo- 

 lophers eftabhfhed ten categories, &c. 



Tithes, Extra-parochial, denote tithes which are not 

 within the compafs of any diftinft parifh. By the canon 

 law, thefe were to be difpofed of at the difcretion of the 

 l>ifhop; but by the law of England, all extra-parochial 

 tithes, as in feveral forefts, belong to the king, and may be 

 granted to whom he pleafes. Accordingly they have been 

 adjudged to him, not only by feveral refolutions of law, but 

 alfo m parliament 1 8th Ed w. I. But extra-parochial waftes 

 and marfh lands, when improved and drained, are by 17th 

 Geo. II. c. 37, to be affefTed to all parochial rates in the 

 panlh next adjoining. 



_ Tithes, impropriated and aptropriated, called alfo infeodated 

 Mhcs, are thofe aUenated to fome temporal or ecclefiaftical 

 lord, umted to their fee, and poffelTed as fecular goods. 

 oec Appropriation and Impropiii.mion. 



By the council of Laler.-m, held under Alexander III. in 

 1 1 79, the alienation or infeodation of tithes is prohibited for 

 the future : whence all infeodations made fmce that time are 

 generally held, by the canonifts, illegal. 



Some attribute the original of thefe impropriated tithes 

 to Charles Martel ; and hold him damned for firft giving the 

 revenues of benefices to fecular noble&. But Baronius will 

 have this to be a fable, and refers their origin to the wars in 

 the Holy Land ; which is alfo the opinion of Pafquier. 



The tribute, it feems, which the Romans impofed on all 

 the provinces of their empire, was a tenth part of all the 

 fruits : hence feveral authors obferve, that the Franks, 

 having conquered the Gauls, and finding the impofition 

 eftablifhed, they kept it on foot, and gave thofe tithes in fee 

 to their foldiers ; and this, fay they, was the origin of in- 

 feoffed or impropri.ated or appropriated tithes. But the 

 truth is, they are not fo ancient ; nor do we find any men- 

 tion of them before the reign of Hugh Capet ; even the 

 very council of Clermont, held in 1097, as hot as it was in 

 the interefl of the church, does not fay one word of them ; 

 which yet would undoubtedly have made loud complaints of 

 fuch an ufurpation, had it been then known. 



Tithes, Portion of, denotes tithes which the parfon of 

 one parifh hath a right to claim in the parifh of another. 

 Thefe portions, which might probably, at leaft in part, have 

 been owing to the lord of a manor's eftate, extending into 

 diftrifts which are now apportioned into diftinft parifhes, 

 are in law fo diflinft from the reftory, that if one who has 

 them purchafes the reftory, the portion is not extinct, but 

 remaineth grantable. The cognizance of thefe belongs, like 

 that of other tithes, to the ecclefiaftical court. 



Tithes, as Ohflruflio-ns to Agriculture, the impedimentr; 

 and hindrances which they throw in the way of the pix)- 

 grefs and improvement of the land and its cultivation and 

 amendment. It has been faid to be the inftruflion of 

 natural as well as revealed religion, that a portion of out- 

 property is due for the maintenance and fupport of the v/or- 

 fliip of God, and that " thofe who ferve at the altar, fliould 

 live by the altar ;" but that whether a fpecial proportion of 

 one-tenth of our yearly income from land is due to the 

 clergy by divine and unalterable right, is a point which has 

 been warmly agitated, and much controverted. Under the 

 Jewifh government, it is well known that tithes were di- 

 refted to be paid by divine appointment. And it has been 

 ftated by bifhop Butler, that under the Mofaic difpenfa- 

 tion, God himfelf affigned to the priefts and Levites, tithes 

 and other pofTelllons, and that in thefe poffeflions they had 

 a divine right ; a property quite fuperior to all human laws, 

 ecclefiaftical as well as civil. But that every donation to 

 the Chriftian church is that of a human donation, and no 

 more ; and therefore cannot give a- divine right, but fuch a 

 right only as muft be fubjeft, in common with all other pro- 

 perty, to the regulation of human laws. How far the 

 claim to tithes on the principle of divine right remains ftill 

 eilablilTied in Catholic countries, is not well known ; but 

 this fort of claim to tithes has long fince ceafed in this 

 country. And it is remarked by a late writer, that the 

 conduft of Henry VIII. of England, and of Charles I. of 

 Scotland, furnifhes indubitable proofs of their holding a 

 different opinion ; as thofe kings, on the abolition of 

 popery, in place of transferring the tithes from the Roman 

 Catholic clergy to their fucceffors in office, affuraed the 

 right of granting the greateft part of them to the nobility 

 and great laymen of the time ; and in the latter kingdom in 

 particular, with the burden only of reafonable ftipends to 

 the Proteftant clergy. And further, that the grants of 



tithes 



