6

said to pay no rent, sells for 401, and that the claim of the titheowner, now amcunting to 4., were abolished, would the whole produce, which now sells for 407., be in that case, sold for no more than 36/.? Yes,' say these theorists. 'No,' say common sense and experience; if the 47. now received for tithes, ceased to be exacted, another claimant to an equal amount would instantly start up in the person of the landlord.'

We would also remind our modern economists of a trifling cir cumstance, which, somehow or other, seems to have escaped their observation. We press it upon their attention with becoming diffidence, as we well know what little weight will be ascribed to a common-place fact, when opposed to the conclusions of an ingenious theory. They assume, that the least fertile soil in a state of tillage, pays no rent: we have shown, that there is no ground for this singular assumption: we will, however, inform them of a fact which we think they will hardly venture to controvert-it is simply this-the least fertile land in cultivation actually pays no tithes for seven years after it is taken into a state of tillage. For the confirmation of this fact, we refer our readers to the first law book at hand on the subject of tithes. In the year 1748, Lord Chancellor Hardwicke decided, that, under the operation of the 2 and 3 Edward VI. c. 13,, all barren, waste, or heath ground, which, above the necessary expense of inclosing and clearing, requires also expense in manuring before it can be made proper for agriculture, is exempt from tithes for a period of seven years. What now, we would seriously ask our readers, becomes of the theory which explains the pressure of tithes, by assuming that the least fertile land in a state of tillage is free from rent and subject to tithes ?

We cannot, therefore, see any grounds for asserting that tithes add to the money value of the articles on which they are levied, and fall ultimately on the consumer, by increasing money prices one-tenth; it appears to us on the contrary, most clear, that a bushel of wheat sells for the same money price, whether it has been tithed or not, and that the amount of tithes merely lessens the landlord's portion.

As a corollary arising from the theory of these economists, we are assured that if tithes were abolished, the consequence would not be, as common sense would lead us to expect, that the rent of titheable land would rise to a level with the rent now paid for land exempt from tithes, but that the rent of tithe free land would fall to the level of rent now paid for land subject to tithes.' That we might not be suspected of palming upon this ingenious school, absurdities for which it is not responsible, we have here purposely stated this novel proposition in the very words of a neo

phyte,

phyte, who has lately undertaken to enlighten the world on this branch of political economy. The same authority gravely assures us, that while money rents have no influence in regulating the market price of the produce of land, a money composition paid in lieu of tithes has this effect. But that a money payment in lieu of tithes should affect the price of all titheable articles, whilst a money payment to the landlord as rent is acknowledged to produce no such effect, is a paradox with which we have grappled in vain. To reconcile this apparent inconsistency is a task which we must leave to the luminary who advanced it. If the abolition of tithes will reduce the money price of wheat one-tenth, the abolition of rents must, we presume, reduce this price still farther, in the proportion which the landlord's claim may, at present, bear to the charge for tithes.

'Levy tithes,' say those who spin such paradoxes, 'on the cornfields and orchards of the fertile vale of Evesham, and the effect will simply be a diminution of that portion of the produce which falls to the share of the landlord; it will have no influence whatever on the money value of this produce in the market; but levy tithes on the scanty produce grown at the foot of a Welsh mountain, and the effect is as extensive as it is mysterious and inexplicable-it increases the price of produce not only on this 'least fertile spot,' but on every other spot where it is raised; it advances the price of wheat from 50 to 55s. per quarter, not only in Wales, but likewise in England and Scotland; and its effect must, we conceive, extend indirectly to Poland and Kentucky. All this is proved by a species of lunar equation, founded on a series of parallelograms, which the new economists consider absolutely irrefragable. The influence of tithes is, therefore, something similar to that of the moon, which, as an old naval friend of ours used to say,' drew the sea all on one side;' the addition which the exaction of tithes, in the least fertile districts in England, makes to the money value of the produce of land extends itself gradually and imperceptibly over Scotland and the European continent, till it finally reaches the North American prairies of Morris Birkbeck. In what manner this effect is brought about, our old acquaintance of the Wabash may not be able exactly to comprehend-this cannot, we conceive, much signify. He is not able, perhaps, to comprehend how the moon attracts the waters of the ocean; but so it is.

We owe an apology to our readers for the length of this dry, and, to many of them, we fear, uninteresting discussion; but the importance of the subject has compelled us, however reluctantly, to enter into a minuteness of detail which we would willingly have avoided. The prejudices and misconceptions of the public,

on

on this intricate subject, are already but too strong and numerous; and we owe it to the interests of truth and morality to try every means in our power, at the hazard of appearing dull and tedious, to dissipate these prejudices, and to point out the fallacy of any speculations which tend to introduce public confusion by weakening the attachment of the subjects of the realm to the existing civil or ecclesiastical institutions of the country. We cannot pursue the subject farther at present, although it is far from being exhausted, and does not seem, in a measure equal to its importance, to have attracted the attention of our best-informed writers on political economy; and we shall now, therefore, proceed to make the observations from which we were diverted by this affray of pounds and parallelograms.

A reference to the early records of ecclesiastical history, which the researches and care of antiquaries have discovered and preserved, will show that the following is not an incorrect representation of the manner in which the provision now appropriated to the discharge of ecclesiastical functions, originated, or at least became finally settled. The first converts to the Christian religion felt that the teachers of its doctrines had a claim to some compensation for their exertions, on the broad principle that every labourer is worthy of his hire; and the practice of the Jews, as well as that of other nations, suggested to them a tenth part of the produce of their land as a reasonable standard of a voluntary compensation to the ministers of religion. When this religion acquired a surer footing, and its converts became more numerous, the provision which had previously been received as the spontaneous liberality of its professors, began to be regarded as a right established by custom. In the course of the eighth century, the growing force of custom, aided by the operation and influence of the canon law, rendered the payment of tithes an imperative obligation. It was, however, enough at this period, if they were paid to the church generally; for, as parochial limits were hitherto unknown, no individual could establish a specific claim to the tithes of any given district. Indeed, it is highly probable that the tithes of a whole diocese were then received into a common treasury, under the controul of the bishop, who expended them on a species of conventual establishment, where a sufficient number of chaplains were maintained to discharge the ecclesiastical offices of the district or parochia' over which he presided.

In the process of time, however, the lords of manors, or, to speak more correctly, the owners of estates, began to feel the inconvenience of such an arrangement; and became desirous to fix among their tenants a resident chaplain, as a more regular and

efficient

efficient instructor of their vassals, than an individual visiting them periodically from a distant residence. For this purpose, they built a church on their property, and endowed it with the tithe of the produce of their estate. The boundaries of the estate possessed by the founder of the church, became, on this account, the limits of the district or parish over which the ecclesiastical authority of the chaplain extended. The bishop, no doubt, readily re, linquished his claims, and acquiesced in an arrangement which, at the same time that it deprived him of the ecclesiastical dues of the district, relieved his establishment from the expense of maintaining one chaplain, and secured more effectually the proper discharge of the pastoral duties of the parish. This will account for the singular forms and unequal extent of English parishes much more satisfactorily, than to suppose that the kingdom was divided into such districts at one period. Had this division been effected, as the regular and simultaneous effort of internal police, it is inconceivable that the limits of all parishes should have taken the capricious direction in which they are now traced; but when we ascertain that the boundaries of every parish, with exceptions not worth mentioning, are co-extensive with the limits of the manor or estate of the founder, the difficulty of accounting for this irregularity vanishes at once.

That the thanes or lords of manors, as late as the beginning of the thirteenth century, claimed and exercised, according to the common law or custom of England, a right to build churches on their estate, and to endow them with any portion of the produce which pleased them, is a fact which admits of no dispute. Innocent the Third, in a decretal epistle written in the reign of King John, proceeds thus:- Quod enim de consuetudine regni Anglorum regia Serenitas per suas literas intimavit, ut liceat tam episcopis quam comitibus et baronibus ecclesias in feudo suo fundare; laicis quidem principibus id licere nullatenus denegamus, dummodo diocesani episcopi eis suffragetur assensus, et per novam structuram veterum ecclesiarum justitia non lædatur.' That they not only claimed the right of building churches as appendant to their estates, but exercised, also, the privilege of granting to whom they pleased the tithes of any portion of their produce, is a fact which we might prove by numerous documents: we shall, however, content ourselves with transcribing one or two grants, for the information of those readers who may not be very conversant with conveyances of this description:- Sciant tan præsentes quam futuri quod ego Henricus de Malemeino concedo et confirmo monachis ecclesiæ sancti Andreæ Apostoli Rovecestria decimam meam totam de dominico meo, et eam vehendam quocunque voluerint et transferendam; cum ante hanc concessionem

solummodo

solummodo granum habuerint. Preterea dono eis et concedo decimam meam de vitulis et porcellis. Has concessiones confirmo illis pro amore Dei et salute animæ meæ et uxoris et antecessorum meorum libere et quiete possidendas assensu hæredis mei et voluntate uxoris et amicorum meorum.'

Our readers will perceive by this document, that the owners of estates claimed and exercised the right not only of conferring their tithes in perpetuity on whom they pleased, but also of defining and limiting the articles on which they should be levied. The monks of Rochester had first obtained from the owner of the land the tithe of his corn only; at a subsequent period, he renewed and confirmed his former grant, and added to it the tithes of calves and pigs.

We shall transcribe an extract from another grant of nearly the same date, which proves beyond dispute, that the tithes of the district named in it, were acquired as a gift from the owner of the land: Sciant presentes et futuri quod Radulphus de S. Georgio et Agatha uxor ejus et Alnus hæres eorum dederunt et concesserunt monachis de Boxgrave, decimam de Liparinges in perpetuam eleemosynam, quam prius dederat eis Basilia mater ipsius Radulphi. Et ipsi monachi debent facere ecclesiasticum servitium in ecclesia sua de Ichenora vel in capella sua de Briddeham, hominibus prædicti Radulphi morantibus apud Liparinges, et in singulis hebdomadis unum servitium, donec prædictus Radulphus vel hæredes sui ibi fecerunt quoddam oratorium, in quo unus de capellanis monachorum faciat prædictum servitium in hebdomada.' From this extract it appears, that the district named Liparinges was extra-parochial, and not subject to tithes

that it had no place appropriated for divine worship, and that it was on the confines of the parish of Ichenor, belonging to the monastery of Boxgrave. The owner of this district, not wishing that its inhabitants should continue destitute of public instruction, engages to build a church on his property, and confers the tenth of its produce on the monks of Boxgrave, on condition that, till it was built, his men dwelling at Liparinges' should be allowed to attend the church of Ichenor, or the chapel of Briddeham; and, when built, that it should be served by a chaplain provided by the monastery.

For the purpose of further illustrating the opinions which we hold with respect to the nature and origin of ecclesiastical revenues, let it be assumed, that seven hundred years ago the land now contained in the parish of A, was extra-parochial, and that it was all the property of one owner, by whom it was let out in subdivisions to different occupiers, tithe free: that there was, in consequence, no resident ecclesiastic called upon by office

to