Tithe
etymologically a 10th, historically a 10th part of the titheable produce of the land paid to the clergy.
TITHE The payment of tithe to the clergy originated in the recognition of a moral and religious duty. The discharge of this obligation acquired the force of custom, then received the sanction of ecclesiastical law, and finally passed into the national jurisprudence of England and other Christian countries.
The first recorded instance of the payment of tithe is the offering of Abraham to Melchisedec (Gen. xiv: 20); the second the vow of Jacob at Bethel (Gen. xxviii: 22) 22). The consecration of a fractional portion of the produce of the land to the uses of the ministers of religion formed part of the Mosaic law.
The tribe of Levi were maintained from this source, not having lands assigned to them like the other tribes . Neither patriarchal usage, nor precedents of Mosaic law, nor the Levitical economy were Christians; but they doubtless suggested to the clergy the precept and to the people the practice of paying tithes to the ministers of religion. The system is not specially enjoined in the New Testament, and no claim to tithes is urged by the Christian clergy as representatives of the Levitical priesthood. In early Christianity voluntary offerings sufficed tianity voluntary offerings sufficed.
Some evidence does exist in the ante- Nicene Fathers that tithes were held to be due under the Gospel as well as under the Mosaic law; on the other hand, Selden is possibly right in maintaining that the custom of paying tithe cannot be century. Whether this be so or not is immaterial. At the end of the 4th century the evidence is overwhelming ( Hilary, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine ) that the moral and religious duty of paying tithes was recognized, and had acquired the force of custom. As a moral and religious custom ligious custom the payment of tithes was public acts of councils and churches, and enforced by moral and e. g., Councils of Tours, 567; Macon, 589; Rouen, 650; etc.). The last stage was reached when the state added the civil sanction to the sanction. In doing so the state recognized the already accepted customary duty, and the corresponding customary rights. It created no new burden; it appropriated no part of what had hitherto been a public fund or public revenue. On the Continent the attach ment of legal sanctions to ecclesiastical customs dates from Charlemagne's legislation in 779 and 787.
Henceforward tithes were enforced by temporal penalties.
TITHE (597) the custom of paying tithes had Before Augustine landed in Kent been enjoined by the public acts of continental councils.
As a duty the payment of tithes was preached by the first missionaries; as a custom it was speedily established by their successors. But it was not till 785 that the custom was legislation. In Pope Adrian I. to recommend 29 Latin 785 two Italian bishops were sent by injunctions to the observance of the Aninjunction which urged the payment of glo-Saxon church. Among them was one glo-Saxon church.
Among them was one tithes as a means of securing to the of God. Thus the cusligious duty was for the first time en- tomary discharge of a recognized retomary discharge of a recognized reforced in England by the public act of an ecclesiastical council. sequently confirmed and extended by roy- This ecclesiastical injunction was subtional synods, and in proclamations of al orders in Episcopal councils, in naal orders in Episcopal councils, in napeace. But it was not till 970 that the state recognized the customary duty and right by adding the civil to the ecclesiastical sanction. It is now agreed that tion. It is now agreed that the so-called idle story relating to Peter's pence, and that the socalled grant of King Ethelwulf rests on has no reference to tithes. No law, a misconstruction of a document which no charter, no authentic public document exists by ment exists by which the state prorights to tithes upon the Church.
But the laws of King Edgar (970) ment to neglect of the customary and 70) attached a legal punishreligious duty of paying tithes, and provided means of vided means of enforcing the correright by temporal penalties. These laws were subsequently confirmed by successive sovereigns, though it was not till after the Conquest that the payment became general. a moral into a legal duty does not ex- The process by which tithes grew from plain their special allocation as the local . In their appropriation as part of the parochial system three stages may be distinguished: (1) before 970; (2) from 970 to the end of ) from 1200 onward. (1) Before 970. - During the first three there was in each diocese one common centuries of the Anglo-Saxon church of the Anglo -Saxon church treasury, into which were paid the tithes and other offerings of the faithful. As to the distribution of these funds by the bishop, different usages prevailed in different parts of Western Christendom.
In the Roman dioceses the customary divi- : (1) the clergy, (2) the poor, (3) the fabrics of churches, 1 TITHE (4) the bishop. In some of the French and Spanish dioceses the division was threefold, the bishop being omitted. What usage prevailed in the Anglo-Saxon church is unknown. No division, quadripartite or tripartite, was ever enjoined by law or canon in England. (2) From 970 to End of 12th Century. -In this transition period the parochial system grew up, and local appropriations were made to particular churches out of the common fund. Edgar's legislation (970) shows that the parochial system was already growing. His legislation points to- the fact that landowners were building churches on their estates for their own and their tenants' benefit, and were endowing them with some portion of the tithe, which they otherwise paid to the diocesan treasury or to the nearest monastic or conventual establishment. It distinguishes three kinds of churches: (1) the mother church, general monastic or conventual; (2) churches with burial grounds attached, in private patronage on the estates of private landowners; (3) churches similarly situated, but without burial grounds. It recognizes the general presumption in favor of paying to the mother church the tithe of the district which it served, but if there was a church of the second class within the district it was entitled to a portion of the local tithe. In these churches we have the future appropriations of local tithes to parish churches.
Rectories together with tithes might be "appropriated" to monastic or non-parochial corporations. The appropriators performed their duties by vicars. At the dissolution of the monasteries the rectorial tithes which had belonged to the dissolved communities passed to the crown, and were from time to time granted out to subjects, who became lay rectors or "impropriators" as they were called to distinguish them from the original "appropriators," who must of necessity have been spiritual. The Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 provided for the commutation of tithes in England and Wales into a money payment or rent charge. Though the annual payment varies with the septennial average price of corn, it is fixed in the sense that the amount payable in each year is calculated on a rent charge or fixed valuation. The effect of this act is to render the old distinctions between great and small tithes, prædial, mixed, and general tithes, and between the various modes of payment by "moduses" matters of antiquarian knowledge. The value of the tithes commuted in 1836 to tithe rent charge was at par value £4,053,985, 6s. 8½d. Of this sum £962,289, 15s. 74d.
TITHING is payable to lay impropriators, leaving £3,091,695, 11s. 14d. for ecclesiastical owners. Of this latter sum £678,987, 1s. 14 d. is payable to Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The remainder, £2,412,708, 9s. 11/½d., is payable to parochial incumbents. At the present values this sum is worth about in round numbers £1,800,- 000. To this sum may be added about £8,000 for extraordinary tithe in Kent and Cornwall. In Ireland the settlement was effected by a general commutation of tithe into a money rent charge, regulated by a valuation of the tithes (one-fourth being deducted for the cost of collection), and payable by the proprietors, who should receive it from the occupiers of the land. By the Irish Church Act, 1869, this rent charge became vested in the commissioners of church temporalities, with power to sell such rent charge to the owner of the land charged therewith at 222 years' purchase. Power is also given to such purchaser to pay by instalments for 52 years, at the rate of 4½ per cent. on the purchase money, deducting the estimated charge for poor rate; the rent charge being extinguished at the expiration of the 52 years. The Extraordinary Tithe Act, 1886, frees lands not at present cultivated as hop ground, orchard, fruit, plantation, or market garden, from liability to the separate tithe which, under the Act of 1836, could be claimed as extraordinary. It also provides for the redemption of the extraordinary tithe in existence upon the land actually under cultivation. The Tithe Rent Charge Recovery Act of 1891 has not materially affected the principle of the act of 1836.
But instead of the old remedy of distress by the tithe-owner, it substitutes a process through the county court; instead of permitting the tenant to be the conduit pipe of the land-owner's payment, it makes the landowner alone liable; instead of the corn averages absolutely determining the amount of tithe rent charge which is payable, provision is made in certain cases for the reduction or the suspension of payment.
In 1891 a Royal Commission reported in favor of the compulsory redemption of tithes up to the value of 40s., of the abolition of the existing minimum of 25 years' purchase of the principle of allowing the parties to make their own bargains subject to the approval of the Board of Agriculture.