tinople, that the emperors themselves inheritances left to his church, giving took the nomination of them, till Isaac them to the lawful heir, and he would Comnenus gave it to the patriarch. never make any purchases for the use The power of the steward was not so of his church. Jerome says that the great in the Western churches, but priests of his time spared no tricks or abuses in them being very flagrant, a artifices to get the estates of private custom was at length adopted, of persons; and he mentions many low dividing the church revenues into four parts, of which one was for the bishop, another for the rest of the clergy, the third for the poor, and the fourth for repairs, or probably a kind of church stock, to defray any contingent expenses.

and sordid offices, to which priests and monks stooped, in order to get the favour and the estates of old men and women, who had no children.

The disorders of the clergy must have been very great in the time of Jerome, since the emperors were then This distribution of the church stock obliged to make many laws to restrain was the cause of great animosities and them. In 370, Valentinian made a contentions between the bishops and law to put a stop to the avarice of the the inferior clergy, in which the popes clergy, forbidding priests and monks were often obliged to interpose with to receive anything, either by gift or their advice and authority; and Father will, from widows, virgins, or any Simon ascribes to it most of the dis- women. Twenty years after, he made orders which arose in the Western another law, to forbid deaconesses to church; the Eastern, where that par- give or bequeath their effects to the tition was never made, being free from clergy, or the monks, or to make the them. For while no division was made, churches their heirs; but Theodosius the idea of the property being in the revoked that edict. We may form whole society continued, and conse- some idea of the riches of the Church quently the clergy were considered as of Rome towards the middle of the the servants and beneficiaries of the third century, from this circumstance, society at large. But that partition that in that time, according to Eusemade them absolute masters of their bius, it maintained one thousand five respective shares, and gave them inde- hundred persons, widows, orphans, and pendent property; and riches and poor; and it had then forty-six priests, independence have never been favour- besides the bishop and other officers." able to virtue with the bulk of mankind,

or the bulk of any order of men what

ever.

SECTION II.

OF CHURCH REVENUES AFTER THE FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE.

But those corruptions of the clergy which arose from the riches of the church began to be peculiarly conspicuous, when, after the time of Constan- THE HISTORY tine, the church came to be possessed of fixed and large revenues. Jerome says, that the church had indeed become more rich and powerful under the Christian emperors, but less virtuous; and Chrysostom says that the bishops forsook their employments to sell their went a great alteration, and upon the corn and wine, and to look after their whole very favourable to the church, as glebes and farms, besides spending a political system, though for some

much time in law-suits. Austin was very sensible of this, and often refused

1 Simon on Church Revenues, pp. 20. 21. (P.

UPON the invasion of the Roman empire by the Norman nations, both the ecclesiastical laws and revenues under

2 Ibid. p. 17. (P.)

8 Ibid. pp. 27, 28. (P.)
Anecdotes, p. 133, &c. (P.)

5 Hist. L. vi. C. xliii. p. 812. (P.

property.

In

time, and in some cases, it was un- the rage of conquest was over. favourable to the clergy. For these these circumstances a lease for a few savage conquerors made little distinc- lives, on an easy rent, was of more tion between the goods of the church value to individuals than the absolute and other property, but distributed both as they thought proper, even to The possession of benefices was atlaymen; and children often succeeded tended, however, with one incumbrance, to their fathers in church livings, as from which the church did not very well as in other estates. Also many soon free itself. According to the an estates belonging to churches were cient feudal laws, when a tenant died, transferred to monasteries. the lord enjoyed the revenues till his About this time, however, began the successor was invested, and had sworn custom of granting estates to ecclesi- fealty; and it was natural that this astical persons in the same manner, law should affect churchmen as well as and upon the same terms, as they had laymen. This, however, interfered with been granted to laymen, viz. for the the ancient custom of the church. lives of particular bishops or abbots, as For, during the vacancy of a bishopwe find about the year 500, under Pope ric, the profits were usually managed Symmachus, but afterwards to the by the clergy and archdeacons, for the churches and monasteries in general; use of the future bishop. But after the ecclesiastics swearing fealty and the general collation of benefices, the allegiance for them, and rendering the princes first demanded the revenues of same services that the lay lords ren- those estates which they had granted dered for their estates. Hence the term to the church, and afterwards of all benefice came to be applied to church church livings without distinction; and livings. For that term was originally this was called regale. This right of applied to estates granted to laymen upon condition of military service.

regale was not settled in France in the third race of their kings,' and was probably first established upon the agreement between Pope Calixtus and the Emperor Henry.2

In no part of the world were the clergy so great gainers by this system as in Germany, where whole principalities were given to churches and mo- Lewis the Young is the first king of nasteries; whereby bishops became, France who mentions the right of rein all respects, independent sovereign gale, in the year 1161. And we find princes, as they are at this day. This in the History of England, that this was chiefly the effect of the liberality right of regale was established in this of the emperors of the name of Otho. kingdom at the same time that it was Churchmen, both bishops and abbots, in France, and that it occasioned many being at this time principally employed troubles here.3 in all the great affairs of state, it was not difficult for them to obtain whatever they desired of princes.

In those times of confusion, when property in land, and everything else, was very precarious, many persons chose to make over the property of their estates to churches and monasteries, obtaining from them a lease for several lives. The property being in the church, it was held more sacred, especially after the entire settlement of the Northern nations in the western part of the Roman empire, and when

By degrees, however, the estates which had been long in the possession of the clergy began to be considered as so much theirs, and the temper of the times was so favourable to the claims of the church, that it was thought wrong for laymen to meddle with any part of it; and many princes were induced to relinquish the right of regale. The emperor Frederic II. remitted this right to the church, as if it had been

1 Simon on Church Revenues, p. 94. (P.)

2 Ibid. p. 97. (P.)

3 Ibid. p. 98. (P.)

an usurpation; and several councils being above all canon and positive law. prohibited princes and other laymen Nothing derogated more from the right from invading the goods and revenues of ordinaries and patrons than these of churchmen after their death.1 resignations in favorem; for by this Afterwards, however, when the popes means they who possessed benefices usurped the nomination to ecclesiastical disposed of them as of their own inbenefices, they thought proper to claim heritance. By this means they even what had been the regale, or the value descended in families.* of one year's income, (for to that it had been reduced, as a medium of what had been due to the lord during a vacancy,) and then this perquisite was called annates. This claim is said to have been first made by pope Urban VI.,2 and was paid "not only in England but throughout the western parts of Christendom." In this country the annates were transferred to the crown in the reign of Henry VIII., and so they continue to this day, except that small livings were released from this burthen in the reign of queen Anne.

On account of the benefit accruing to the popes from these annates, they encouraged resignations and the changing of livings among the clergy. For upon every event of this nature this tax to themselves became due. Originally resignations were made absolutely, into the hands of those who had a right to dispose of the benefice; and when it appeared that there was no lawful reason for the resignation, it was not admitted. But afterwards resignations were made in favorem, or upon condition that the benefice should go to some person in whose favour it was made, and with whom a contract had been made for that purpose. This custom is so new, that no mention is made of it in the canon law, the Decretals, or the Sext. The new canonists called the contract a simoniacal one, and therefore there is a necessity for the Pope to grant a dispensation for it, he

1 Simon on Church Revenues, p. 100. (P.) 2"Of this godly gentleman's invention, as some authors report, were the payments to the Pope called annates,....which. are no other than primitiæ, the first-fruits or profits of every spiritual living for one year, to be paid by the parson that is invested in it, at his first entrance thereupon." Hist. of Popery, 1736, II. p. 177.

3 Hist. of Popery, IV. p. 37. (P.) 1736, II.

p. 178.

Another deduction from the value of livings the clergy suffered by the popes claiming the tenth of their value, which was done about the same time that annates were demanded. This they did upon the pretence that the high-priest among the Jews had a tenth of the tythes which were paid to the other priests. Another pretence for making this exaction arose from the crusades. The contributions of those who did not serve in person being casual, the popes imposed a tax upon all ecclesiastical revenues, and the first of the kind was on the occasion of the loss of Jerusalem. Afterwards the popes pretended to a right of disposing of all ecclesiastical goods, and sometimes demanded a twentieth, and even a tenth of their revenues, for other purposes besides the crusades. They also made them over to the kings, who by this means shared with the popes in the plunder of the people. This tenth the popes obtained occasionally in England, from the time of Edward I., when the demand was first made. In the twenty-sixth of Henry VIII. an act was made to annex these tenths to the crown for ever; but they were given to the poor clergy towards an augmentation of their maintenance by queen Anne, and at the same time all small livings were discharged from paying them.

The holy wars in the eleventh century were the cause of great accessions of wealth to the church. Most of the knights made their wills before their departure, and never failed to leave a

4 Simon on Church Revenues, p. 239. (P.) 5 "The Pope, as pastor pastorum, claimed decimas decimarum, by example of the Jewish High-Priest." Hist. of Popery, 1736, II. p. 178.

6 Fleury's Sixth Discourse, p. 19. (P.)

For some centuries, however, it was usual to give tythes to the poor, and

considerable share of their possessions time became general; till from the force to the church; and they built churches of example, the omission of it was and monasteries with ample endow- deemed reproachful, and the clergy ments at their return, by way of thanks- began to claim them as due to themgiving for their preservation; so that selves by the law of Moses. whether they returned or not, the church generally received some permanent advantage from the expedition. for other charitable purposes. Thus, One of the most valuable acquisitions to the revenues of the church, but from the nature of it the most impolitic in various respects, and the most burthensome to the state, is that of tythes. It is a great discouragement to the improvement of land, that a tenth part of the clear produce, without any deduction for the advanced expense of raising that produce, should go from the cultivator of the land to any other person whatever. It would be far better to lay an equivalent tax upon all estates, cultivated or not cultivated. For then it would operate as a motive to industry; whereas the present mode of taxation is a discouragement to it. Besides, this method of paying the minister is a continual source of dispute between the clergy and the parishioners, which is of a most pernicious nature; making the people consider as enemies those whom they ought to respect as their best friends, and in whom they ought to repose the greatest confidence.

at a council of Maçon, in 586, it was ordered that a tenth part of the fruits of the earth should be brought into sacred places, to be employed for the relief of the poor, and the redemption of captives. By degrees, however, the clergy excluded the poor, and appropriated the tythes to themselves. And about the year 600, tythes, from being established as a custom, became in some instances legal rights; because many estates were bequeathed with an obligation to pay tythes to particular churches. When these tythes were left to distant churches, the priests of the parish in which the estate lay used to complain; and at length, in the reign of King John, the Pope made a law, ordering that all tythes should be paid to the parish priest, and after some time they were levied by law in all parishes without exception. At the Reformation, though those who took the lead in it were sincerely disposed to abolish tythes, they found themselves obliged to continue, and to secure them by act of parliament, in order to conciliate the minds of the popish clergy. Thus this most intolerable evil continues to this day, whereas in other

Holland, the civil magistrates have adopted a wiser plan, by allowing their ministers a fixed stipend, paid out of the public funds.

The original reason for the payment of tythes was the most groundless imaginable, as it arose from considering Christian ministers as an order of men who succeeded to the rights of the priests under the Jewish law. This Protestant countries, and especially in idea was observed to prevail very much about the time of the utter desolation of Judea under Adrian. But it was a long time before there was any idea of claiming those tythes as a right. Even the Jews acknowledge that no tythes were paid by themselves after the destruction of the temple. But about the fifth century laws being made by the emperor, by which the tenth part of the mines and quarries were paid to themselves, and the lords of the soil; there arose a custom, as some say, of paying tythes to the church, which in

The progress of superstition in the dark ages supplied many resources for the augmentation of the wealth of the clergy. In those times "the world was made to believe that by the virtue of so many masses," the recitation of which might be purchased with money, and especially with permanent endowments to churches and monasteries, "souls

1 Sueur. (P.)

were redeemed out of purgatory; and scenes of visions and apparitions, sometimes of the tormented, and sometimes of the delivered souls, were published in all places. Which had so wonderful an effect, that in two or three centuries endowments increased to so vast a degree, that if the scandals of the clergy on the one hand, and the statutes of mortmain on the other, had not restrained the profuseness that the world was wrought up to, upon this account, it is not easy to imagine how far this might have gone, perhaps to an entire subjecting of the temporality to the spirituality." And it was carefully inculcated by the priests, that rights acquired to the church belonged to God, and therefore could not be taken away without sacrilege.