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AN EXAMINATION, 
 
PUBLICATIONS BY DR, NEWLAND. 
 
 1. AN APOLOGY FOR THE CHURCH IN IRELAND, addressed 
 
 to the Earl of Mountcashel 12mo. 5s. 
 
 2. MEMORIAL of the ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND, 
 
 addressed to the King, Lords, and Commons, of Great Britain. 
 
 3. OBSERVATIONS ON THE LONDON UNIVERSITY, addressed 
 
 to the Lord Bishop of London. 
 
 4. REMARKS on the PROPOSED UNION OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 OF ENGLAND AND ROME, in answer to Doctor Doyle. 
 
 5. AN ADDRESS to the PEOPLE OF IRELAND, on the REPEAL 
 
 OF THE UNION. 
 
AN 
 
 EXAMINATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 EVIDENCE AND ARGUMENTS 
 
 ADDUCED 
 
 BY DOCTOR DOYLE 
 
 BEFORE THE COMMITTEE 
 
 ON TITHES IN IRELAND, 
 
 DEFENCE OF THE SUPPOSED QUADRIPARTITE OR 
 TRIPARTITE DIVISION. 
 
 BY THE REV. HENRY NEWLAND, D. D. 
 
 VICAR OF BANNOW. 
 
 AUTHOR OF “ AN APOLOGY FOR THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN IRELAND,” 
 &(*. &C. 
 
 DUBLIN: 
 
 WILLIAM CURRY, JUN. AND COMPANY; 
 
 SIMPKIN AND MARSHALL, LONDON. 
 
 1832 . 
 
 gj ... »LLHG12 LIBRARY 
 
 CBESliN UT HILL, MASS. 
 
John S. Folds, Printer, 
 5G, Gt. Strand-Street. 
 
V\3£315- 3TC 
 
 H S*Y 
 
 TO 
 
 SIR ROBERT HARRY INGLIS, M. P. 
 
 FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 
 
 My Dear Sir, 
 
 In dedicating, to you, the following Essay, 
 and thus feebly assuring you of the grateful sense 
 I entertain of your kindness towards myself 
 individually, I am anxious, at the same time, to 
 acknowledge the obligations, under which, as a 
 member of the Irish Branch of the United Church, 
 I am placed towards you, for the devotion of your 
 experience, talents, and learning to her interests. 
 In this acknowledgment, I am persuaded that I 
 
 do not stand alone, — I am satisfied that in making 
 
 a 3 
 
 'a r* 
 
 X U o i 
 
Vi 
 
 it, I but express the sentiments of the Established 
 Clergy of this country. 
 
 It is a truth, a conviction of which has long 
 since been impressed upon your mind, that the 
 welfare of the Church, in England, is irrefraga- 
 bly bound up with the destiny, that awaits the 
 Church in Ireland. One fate is suspended over 
 both. The same shock that may overthrow us, 
 shall overwhelm them with a similar destruction, 
 — and the cry of delenda est Ecclesia, now raised 
 by the infidel and the democrat, against the Irish 
 Establishment, shall soon re-echo from the shores 
 of Britain, with a triumphant violence, but little 
 calculated upon by the friends of rashness, or 
 the advocates of expediency. 
 
 This persecution, of which we are the imme- 
 diate objects, is not confined to the withholding 
 of our incomes. The sneer of the infidel — the 
 machinations of the profligate, and the falsehoods 
 of the defamer, are, as in days of old, poured 
 
forth upon us. On the one side we are assailed 
 by the vigilant hostility of an enemy, whose 
 cunning is only equalled by his falsehood — whose 
 career was begun with oaths, and protestations 
 of peace and good will, which, when his own 
 objects required it, were all forfeited and for- 
 gotten — who then devised a secret conspiracy to 
 overturn what he had sworn to exert his influence 
 in defending — and, who, when he had seen the 
 successful developement of his occult machina- 
 tions, avowedly braves the laws of England, and 
 glories in his resistance — and this, in the presence 
 of men, whose noble ancestors had, even in the 
 times of Popish superstition, crushed the am- 
 bition, and restrained the wanton exercise, of 
 prelatical insolence. On the other hand, we have 
 to struggle against the more mean, though not 
 less violent and interested zeal of itinerant agi- 
 tators, who struggle to conceal, under the garb 
 of patriotism, their own selfish projects — trusting 
 
Vlll 
 
 that they will yet reap a golden harvest from 
 their hollow professions, by adding to the peoples 
 burdens in the name of rent, what they seek to 
 abstract from the clergy in the name of tithe. 
 Thus did their predecessors of the last century, 
 with respect to the agistment tithe. The inter- 
 ests of the multitude they professed to aim at — 
 experience proved that self-aggrandisement was 
 their object. They succeeded in their efforts, 
 and the poor of the country were more op- 
 pressed than ever, by the very persons who 
 pretended to befriend them. 
 
 Amid these various devices of our subtle 
 enemies, we are still, however, unrepining and 
 undaunted. Truth is with us, and the God of 
 truth is on our side — against his Church and 
 his people, even the gates of Hell shall not pre- 
 vail — we stand upon a rock, from which no arm 
 of flesh, no storm of persecution, no waves of 
 popular fury, can ever move us. The clouds, 
 
IX 
 
 it is true, may lower over our heads — the 
 piercing winds of Heaven may be poured forth 
 upon us — but we trust, it is but to feel more 
 surely the fixedness of our everlasting basis — and 
 cement us, more closely, to the foundation upon 
 which we rest. And though we are unable, in 
 contemplating the future providences of the Lord, 
 to reckon, with certainty, upon the course his wis- 
 dom and his love may lead him to pursue — still 
 we cannot but derive comfort from the thought, 
 that when a Church is struggling for improve- 
 ment — when her clergy are progressing in de- 
 votedness to their high and heavenly calling, and 
 her people panting for spiritual knowledge — such 
 is not the period the Deity ordinarily choses 
 for her destruction — it is not the period when, 
 according to the voice of history, the candlestick 
 is removed from its place, and her name blotted 
 out from under Heaven. If Jehovah, therefore, 
 sends affliction upon us, it is, we trust, not 
 
X 
 
 with the scourge of desolation, but the rod of 
 chastisement — it is the fruit, not of anger, but 
 of love — the harbinger of joy — the forerunner 
 of victory. To him, therefore, we look — our 
 trust — our hope is in him — and we want not, 
 nor desire, another guardian. 
 
 I have the honor to be, 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Your faithful and obliged Servant, 
 
 HENRY NEWLAND. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Chap. I. — General Obsverations on the supposed 
 Quadripartite or Tripartite Division of 
 Tithe. . ...... 1 
 
 Chap. II — The Nature of the English Canon Law, 
 
 and its application to Ireland explained. . 35 
 
 Chat. III. — Proofs from the Canon Law of England, 
 to whom appertains the Reparation of the 
 Church. ...... 4G 
 
 Chap. IV. — Proofs from the Canon Law of England, 
 
 as to the Maintenance of the Poor. . . 72 
 
 Chap. V. — A further Examination of Dr. Doyle’s 
 assertion, that the Poor have a common 
 law right to a fourth of the Tithes of the 
 Church of England. 
 
 . 112 
 

 
 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 General Observations on the supposed Quadripartite 
 or Tripartite Division of Tithe . 
 
 “ At what time the parochial and common right 
 to tithe became first settled with us in practice, 
 is not so clearly known. And, though the De- 
 cretals suppose it a thing of custom here in 
 Henry the Second’s time, yet if credit be given 
 to the report of these English monks, which 
 referred the ordaining of parochial right in 
 tithes to the General Council of Lyons, held 
 under Gregory the Tenth, then we might con- 
 clude the right of it, no ancienter than about the 
 beginning of our first Edwards.* But, whatever 
 they meant, it is certain that some, both synodal 
 and secular laws of this kingdom, had, before 
 that time, ordained this right. Yet, indeed, it 
 
 * A. D. 1272. 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 will be found, that the practice of it here (as 
 also in other countries) was not settled till some 
 1200 years after Christ.* 
 
 The Decretal epistle of Pope Innocent III. 
 condemned the practice of appropriating tithe 
 except in the parish in which it was gathered.f 
 And immediately afterwards the parochial pay- 
 ment became so fixed, that in the reign of 
 Henry III., in the records of suits in the eccle- 
 siastical courts no other title is advanced for 
 tithe, but that the land lay within the limits of 
 the incumbent’s parish.^ 
 
 Having thus ascertained from the highest au- 
 thority that can be adduced on the law and his- 
 tory of tithes, the period when the parochial 
 right to them was in general practice, we shall 
 proceed to examine to what persons and to what 
 uses, they were appropriated. 
 
 The position which I venture to maintain, in 
 opposition to Dr. Doyle and every other advo- 
 cate of a fourfold division of church revenues, 
 is this, that from the year, when the parochial 
 
 * Selden’s History of Tithes, c. 10. § 2. p. 288, 289. 
 Edition 1618. 
 
 f See note A. 
 
 | See note B. 
 
right to tithe was established and in practice, 
 no statute law, no canon law, no common law 
 usage, no, not even in one instance, can be 
 produced, which sanction the opinion, that one- 
 fourth of the tithes was ever appropriated to the 
 sustentation of the poor, and another fourth to 
 the repair of the fabric of the church. From 
 the commencement of the thirteenth century to 
 the period of the Reformation, not even the 
 shadow of evidence, remains in history, in the 
 laws of the land, or, in the parts of the civil or 
 canon law, which have been, at any time, adopted 
 in England and Ireland, or, in the rules, which 
 common law has consecrated as the most binding 
 decrees of jurisprudence, that such a quadripar- 
 tite division of tithe, was ever known, or once 
 practised, in England or Ireland, since the paro- 
 chial right to it, was instituted. 
 
 I do not mean to admit, that even before the 
 thirteenth century, such a division had place in 
 this kingdom, except during the time, when the 
 bishop and his clergy lived in common,* and 
 were maintained by the voluntary offerings of 
 
 * See note C. 
 
4 
 
 the faithful, and not by the proceeds derived 
 from land or tithe, as property. And even this 
 admission, it is not necessary to make, for the 
 letter of Pope Gregory to Augustine evidently 
 establishes, that whatever might have been the 
 practice of the Western church, in the rest of 
 Europe, permission was granted to the Church 
 in England to abide by regulations made pre- 
 viously to the receipt of the Pope’s epistle.* 
 
 In all the legatine commissions, sent into 
 England by the Roman pontiffs, in all the pro- 
 vincial councils and synods, held under the 
 sanction of British monarchs, archbishops and 
 bishops, with the professed object of regulating 
 all the affairs of the Church in England and 
 Ireland, no mention is made of the fourfold 
 division of tithe. These legatine commissions, 
 councils and synods, at large, and with special 
 amplification, ordain and modify the laws of 
 England respecting tithe ; but in no case, can 
 even the eyes of the wakeful and virulent enemy 
 of the Established Church, nor the wildest spo- 
 liating political economist, discern sufficient 
 
 * See note D. 
 
ground to justify the rancour of the one, or 
 to enable the other to pitch his hypothesis 
 upon any sure foundation, that the clergy 
 are now bound to appropriate, or that the 
 Roman Catholic clergy, from the time that the 
 parochial right to tithe was established, ever did 
 appropriate, two portions of their revenues to 
 the above named purposes. 
 
 Dr. Doyle has stated, in his pamphlet to Mr. 
 S. Rice, u such information (relating to the 
 nature and destination of church property) 
 could scarcely be expected from a clergyman of 
 the Established Church, especially from one 
 whose studies were not occupied with ecclesias- 
 tical antiquities or laws. I am differently circum- 
 stanced ; I am connected with these old canons ; 
 they have been long familiar to me”* 
 
 Dr. Doyle’s long familiarity with these old 
 canons has, doubtless, given to him great ad- 
 vantage over the clergy of the Established 
 Church in the present controversy, as to the 
 ancient partition of ecclesiastical revenues. But 
 fortunately his enviable proficiency in this de- 
 
 * Letter on a Legal Provision for the Irish Poor, p. 82. 
 
 B 3 
 
6 
 
 partment of literature cannot change one jot or 
 tittle, in the sources from whence he has drawn 
 his treasury of learning. I am, unhappily, a 
 clergyman of the Established Church, from 
 whom, by Dr. Doyle’s modest decision, infor- 
 mation on this subject, cannot be expected. 
 Yet, though I assert no arrogant pretensions 
 to exclusive illumination, I now challenge Dr. 
 Doyle to establish, respecting these canons, for 
 a propriety in which, he claims an hereditable 
 title, a declaration, which he made before the 
 committee of the Lords on the subject of tithe. 
 The statement which he delivered, with charac- 
 teristic modesty and all the accompaniments 
 of Christian meekness, was this, “ that the tri- 
 partite division is found to have prevailed, after 
 parishes were formed throughout England and 
 the rest of Europe.” He was then reminded 
 that the question referred to England, and he 
 replied, “ I find no difference in legislation.” 
 The object of this essay is to maintain that 
 no division of tithe was known in England, 
 after the settlement of parishes, and that the 
 whole tendency of legislation on the subject, 
 was directed to the establishment of the sole 
 and undivided right of the parochial minister to 
 
the tithes of his parish. If I err, in any of 
 my statements, let Ur. Uoyle confute me. I 
 am now at the mercy of one who is “ connected 
 with these old canons.” I claim instruction at 
 his hands as “ he is differently circumstanced,” 
 with respect to the means and ability of acquir- 
 ing knowledge, on this subject, from the clergy 
 of the Established Church. While his long 
 familiarity with these ecclesiastical depositories 
 of learning, will enable him, at no costly ex- 
 penditure of his valuable time, to enlighten one, 
 who is now a sturdy dissentient from his 
 opinions. 
 
 In the present controversy, it matters little, 
 that a fourfold division of tithe can be traced in 
 . the obscure and adulterated canons of foreign 
 churches, or in the forged decrees of British 
 monarchs, in Saxon times.* Though such a 
 division had place in other churches — though 
 the records of these Saxon councils and canons 
 were gennine and pure from interpolation and 
 deceit, how can they apply to tithe, possessed 
 under the sanction of the law, which decreed 
 the parochial right ? 
 
 * See note E. 
 
8 
 
 No decisions of foreign courts, or churches, 
 or synods, or even of popes and councils, can 
 be considered as having reference to England, 
 unless we can trace their naturalization in these 
 countries, by their adoption into the statute 
 law ; or, by being made the foundation of prac- 
 tice, which eventually became the custom of the 
 land. And even, in this case, it would be the 
 English custom, not the foreign law, that would 
 consecrate the usage, as binding here. The 
 Justinian code and the whole body of the civil 
 law were abjured in England. Whatever power 
 they might possess in other lands — whatever 
 injunctions they might impose on more slavish 
 churches — that power was inefficient to secure 
 obedience — these injunctions were dead letters, 
 in England, until the nation sanctioned their 
 application, and adopted their provisions. 
 
 It is, no doubt, true, that though the canon 
 law had been abjured, the study of it still con- 
 tinued. The priests and monks, in their col- 
 leges and schools, in spite of a monarch’s will, 
 and in defiance of the nation’s command, still, 
 with zeal, enjoined attention to it. It formed a 
 chief part of the learning of the times, as the 
 adage, nullus clericus nisi causidicus, may 
 
9 
 
 remind us. But this monastic and priestly diso- 
 bedience of authority and the adherence to 
 what was prohibited, did not, and never could, 
 impart to this abrogated system of legislation, 
 the power and vitality of British law. 
 
 Therefore, any authority which may be traced, 
 in continental documents, as to the fourfold divi- 
 sion of tithe, has no reference, as obligatory 
 law, to these countries. Dr. Doyle however 
 argues differently. He declares before the com- 
 mittee, “ I have ascertained by books of the 
 practice in England, and I find it uniform with 
 the practice on the Continent.” Again, whenurged 
 for an explicit answer, which, with wily wisdom 
 he studiously avoided, he asserts, “ In fact if you 
 go through the legislation of the Catholic Church 
 which embraces all the kingdoms of Europe at 
 that time, you will find no discipline but this, and 
 unless you produce a positive statute to show, 
 that this general practice of Europe was altered 
 in England, you must necessarily admit, that 
 that practice is now only dormant, and not extin- 
 guished.” 
 
 It might be enough to reply to this statement 
 that the burden of proof, as to the adoption by 
 
 
 t 
 
 
10 
 
 England, of the practice of foreign churches, 
 lay with Dr. Doyle and the advocates of his 
 opinions. For even the slightest acquaintance 
 with English history, establishes that the inter- 
 erence of the Pontiff, and the Church of Rome, 
 with the Church Establishment in England, was 
 never permitted, even in popish times, unless 
 such interference was countenanced by the mo- 
 narch and the magnates of the kingdom. 
 This countenance afforded to the laws and de- 
 crees of the Pope, protection which, extrinsic 
 of it, they never could or did possess. Therefore 
 we might demand, and remain satisfied, that no 
 answer could be given, what king, what synod, 
 what council, what law, statute, or civil, or ca- 
 non, ever in England acknowledged or enacted, 
 that since the institution of the parochial right, 
 the division of Ecclesiastical revenues should be 
 similarly arranged, as they were, by the other 
 churches of Europe, even supposing, which I 
 never can admit, because it was not the fact, that 
 such a quadripartite division had been observed 
 by them. Until our adversaries point out this 
 sanction, as expressed by British canon law, 
 or by statutable enactment, our defence would 
 
be complete, inasmuch as the whole body of 
 the civil code, which regulated the affairs of 
 foreign churches, had been abjured in England. 
 
 But on such negative evidence we are not 
 content to rest our defence. We claim as our 
 Roman Catholic ancestors always claimed, even 
 in the days of our first Edwards and Henries, 
 the inviolable privilege; and we challenge this 
 privilege as the birthright of the national Church, 
 as well before, as since the reformation, of obey- 
 ing the laws of England, whilst we utterly ab- 
 jure, as they did, the arbitrary injunctions of 
 tyrannical foreigners. And therefore we wil- 
 lingly and boldly consent, to accompany Dr. 
 Doyle, in his investigation into the legislature of 
 the Roman Catholic church ; and we undertake, 
 whilst we survey the large and unwieldy mass 
 of the canons, which regulated Ecclesiastical 
 affairs, from the thirteenth century, when the 
 parochial right to tithe was established, to the 
 reformation, to prove, that there were positive 
 statutes and numberless canons of the church 
 asserting in the most distinct and categorical 
 terms, that the practice in England, for more than 
 three centuries of Popish rule, was diametrically 
 
1*2 
 
 opposed to wliat he declares, to have been the 
 arrangement respecting tithes in the other chur- 
 ches of Europe. And therefore that the right of 
 the poor to the fourth of the tithes, and of the 
 people, generally, to a similar portion for the 
 fabric of the church, is not now dormant, but 
 that it never existed. 
 
 Before I pass to the documentary evidence 
 taken from the same armoury from which Dr. 
 Doyle has derived his exterminating artillery, 
 the canons of the church, there are some argu- 
 ments and authorities employed by other cavil- 
 lers, to which I shall direct some attention. 
 
 Sir W. Blackstone has stated “that at the first 
 establishment of parochial clergy, the tithes of 
 the parish were distributed in a fourfold division, 
 one for the use of the Bishop, another for main- 
 taining the fabric of the church, a third for the 
 poor, and a fourth to provide for the incumbent.” 
 Even an inattentive reader of Judge Blackstone’s 
 commentaries must have observed the deference, 
 which he, on all occasions, pays to the authority 
 and learning of Selden. This learned antiqua- 
 rian is the Judge’s guiding star, on many points, 
 beside those on which he refers to him on the 
 
13 
 
 subject of tithes. But on this point he has care- 
 lessly noted Selden’s opinion that it is no more 
 than probable, that such a division, was even in 
 early times, observed in England. It might have 
 had existence for a season while the Bishop and 
 his Clergy lived in common. But when the 
 necessities of the Church which had imposed this 
 mode of living, had been withdrawn, so also 
 ceased the division of arbitrary offerings, by 
 which the Church had been maintained. This 
 division, it is important to remember, had been 
 arranged before the introduction of tithes, and had 
 ceased before they were the acknowledged pro- 
 perty of the Church. The quadripartite partition 
 was disbursed from voluntary offerings, but never 
 if Selden’s opinion shall weigh with the dispu- 
 tants, after the clergy were located in different 
 districts. 
 
 The authorities, which are adduced in defence 
 of the fourfold division, Selden has unceremo- 
 niously charged as forgeries. By whom could 
 these forgeries have been pawned on the world, 
 as the authentic documents of previous times ? 
 Not by the parish minister, for the deceit would 
 have tended to infringe upon his own interests. 
 
 c 
 
14 
 
 Not by the people for they were too ignorant, 
 and too much oppressed, either to know or to vin- 
 dicate their rights. Who then but by the Heads of 
 Religious houses, to whom the guardianship of 
 the poor having been committed, an evident 
 advantage lay in the adulteration of the Ecclesi- 
 astical records, as thus a larger proportion, than 
 their avarice had already secured of the revenues 
 of the church, might be placed at their disposal. 
 
 But though Blackstone’s statement was accu- 
 rately correct, which his own cherished authority 
 abundantly has proved it is not ; yet as the 
 Clergy of the Established Church enjoy their 
 property, under the sanction of the privileges 
 granted at the reformation, they might fearlessly 
 appeal to this protection. Further, if we could 
 roll back the three centuries which have passed 
 since the reformation ; if this were the sixteenth 
 and not the nineteenth century ; if the Roman 
 Catholic were the Established Religion of these 
 kingdoms, the statement of Sir William Black- 
 stone though, in every letter, correct and true, 
 would not affect in one jot or tittle, the property 
 of the Church. For the rights of the clergy, as 
 now asserted, are not founded upon any law or 
 
15 
 
 custom, contemporaneous with the institution of 
 parishes. It has been negligently admitted, that 
 the establishment of parishes and the introduc- 
 tion of the parochial right to tithe, emanated 
 from the same law, and grew up together. 
 But parishes and parochial ministers, had exist- 
 ence, before the parochial right to tithe was 
 instituted. So that, the fourfold division might 
 have been in practice, when parishes were first 
 established, and yet have passed into desuetude, 
 when a new and subsequent title was given to 
 tithe. The Roman Catholic clergy, before the 
 reformation, as the Protestant clergy do now, 
 received their tithe, not in right of the creation 
 of parishes, and their residence in them, but 
 in right of a custom, long subsequently to the 
 creation of parishes, instituted, namely, the pa- 
 rochial right to tithe. 
 
 If then a right to tithe, subsequent to that 
 of endowment, and uridiminished by any deduc- 
 tion, be that on which the property of the 
 Protestant clergy, now rests — if the Roman 
 Catholic clergy, for more than three hundred 
 years before the Reformation, pleaded not the 
 right of endowment, but the parochial right to 
 
16 
 
 tithe — if this long consuetudo has grown into 
 the most stabile law, by the observance of the 
 people of this nation for more than six centu- 
 ries — who is the lawyer, or where the speculat- 
 ist, who will abrogate, first, the common law 
 usage since the Reformation — then ascending 
 to earlier times, in the hasty and promiscuous 
 devastation of prescriptive rights, annihilates the 
 customs, observed by the Roman church for 
 three hundred years — then having destroyed all 
 the rights derived from statute law and from 
 custom, assails, at one fell swoop, the entire 
 canon law of England, and, having laid waste 
 and set at nought, the only ecclesiastical autho- 
 rity ever acknowledged in these kingdoms, 
 bounds in an unholy zeal for the demolition of 
 the Protestant church, to a period when the 
 fourfold division is only conjectured to have had 
 existence, and which the most profound and 
 eminent authority that ever wrote on the laws 
 and history of tithes has pledged his high cha- 
 racter that all his investigations on the subject 
 settled this conviction in his mind, that since 
 the period of voluntary offerings had passed 
 away, and the church was endowed with lands 
 
17 
 
 and other property, no such division was ever 
 practised, nor can any trace of its existence be 
 found in the records of antiquity, save in the 
 forgeries of debauched and avaricious monks. 
 
 But even allow to Judge Blackstone’s autho- 
 rity the most precise accuracy. Remove the 
 objection, which may be fairly drawn respect- 
 ing the establishment of parishes being distinct 
 from the period when the parochial right to 
 tithe was introduced, and, therefore, that the 
 practice in the former period has no binding 
 efficacy, when a new law instituted a new right, 
 — grant that it is even wise to recur to this 
 vaunted usage — appoint commissioners to carry 
 the law into effect, what must be the first object 
 of enquiry ? This, assuredly ; are the tithes 
 now received by the parochial incumbents, that 
 portion of ecclesiastical property, from which 
 the poor were ever supported ? The lay impro- 
 priators ought to be the last witnesses, whose 
 evidence the commissioners should be solicitous 
 to procure. 
 
 The clergy of the united Church of England 
 and Ireland, do not require the shield of sub- 
 tle defence for the preservation of their present 
 
 c 3 
 
18 
 
 rights. We may grant much more to our ad- 
 versaries, than they can justly claim, and pro- 
 viding them, even with gratuitous weapons 
 against ourselves, and, permitting them even 
 to choose the field, where they will contend, we 
 shall have the satisfaction of compelling them 
 to acknowledge, we are victors in the fight. 
 They rest on Blackstone’s authority. Give to 
 it, the amplest latitude and all the humble defe- 
 rence, which a legal authority, so justly emi- 
 nent, deserves, and it amounts to no more than 
 the opinion of an individual, as to the primary 
 dedication of tithe. If the learned Selden’s 
 opinion be as good as his, w^e have one illustrious 
 name marshalled against another name, great 
 indeed, but not so illustrious on the general sub- 
 ject of tithes. If Selden’s opinion carry greater 
 weight, such a quadripartite division, was never 
 made from the present property of the Church. 
 And even to admit that such a distribution had 
 been known after the Church had acquired 
 estates in lands, touches not with even a faint 
 assault, her present rights, for this would be to 
 dig from an imaginary grave, some unknown 
 and undiscovered usage — some mystified prac- 
 
19 
 
 tice and erect them into law, in contravention 
 of regulations, consecrated by the observance of, 
 at least, six hundred years. For it is observ- 
 able that Dr. Doyle does not assert, that the 
 Roman Catholic Church, before the Reforma- 
 tion, complied with this supposed law. When 
 asked, “ Do you mean to say that the Roman 
 Catholic clergy, up to the time of the Reforma- 
 tion, reserved no more than was necessary for 
 their decent subsistence?’’ He answers, with 
 considerable adroitness, “ I say so, if they acted 
 conformably to law.” Dr. Doyle was pleased 
 to forget that the practice of his Church, before 
 the Reformation, is one of the main points in 
 dispute. If his evidence of this practice extends 
 no further, than that the law was broken, if it 
 was not obeyed, he admits no more, and proves, 
 or rather asserts, no more than this, that there 
 existed a law upon the subject. His evidence 
 fully established that, however boldly he could 
 assert what had been the practice of the Roman 
 Catholic Church, he could not prove, that the 
 fourfold division had ever been observed. The 
 noble lords, in the committee, aware of his 
 ineffectual struggles to maintain his position, 
 
•20 
 
 pressed sorely upon him. They asked, “ Does 
 what you have just stated, amount to any proof, 
 in point of fact , that that claim of the poor an- 
 tecedent to the Reformation, was made and 
 acknowledged.” The way in which, he esta- 
 blishes the point of fact is, by a re-assertion of 
 his own belief, and couched in these very candid 
 and explanatory words, 66 1 cannot have the 
 smallest doubt upon my mind, that it was made 
 and acknowledged, and at the obligation of the 
 Catholic clergy was fulfilled, because I find no 
 proof to the contrary, and, finding it still in 
 practice where they have their possessions, how 
 can I doubt, that they acted in the same way 
 here.” This answer did not satisfy his dull 
 examiners. Their lordships could not mean to 
 insinuate a taunt by the next question. “ Is 
 there any historical proof on the subject except 
 that belief of yours” Dr. Doyle then over- 
 whelmed their lordships with the the following 
 voluminous array of historical facts. — u To say 
 there is no historical proof, would seem to fur- 
 nish an argument against this matter, which I 
 cannot admit to be just, because I find a fre- 
 quent proof sustained by the general practice, 
 
21 
 
 and if I cannot lay my finger upon a particular 
 act to show it , it is not therefore to be inferred 
 that it did not exist.” But surely it may be in- 
 ferred that Dr. Doyle, the eloquent advocate for 
 a fourfold division, was unable to prove that it 
 did exist, and this, after more than a year of 
 laborious research to discover it. 
 
 But suppose, that Dr. Doyle’s investigation 
 had terminated, more propitiously for his own 
 character and cause, what advantage would he 
 have derived from the discovery ? Does he up- 
 hold the doctrine, that the trusts and obligations, 
 under which property is possessed in one age, 
 are incumbent and binding after the lapse of seve- 
 ral centuries, though custom had abrogated the 
 original complexion, and express statute law had 
 altered, the nature and features of this same pro- 
 perty. I undertake, before I have concluded 
 this essay, to establish that the Roman Catholic 
 Church never divided the tithes, as Dr. Doyle 
 asserted they were divided, during the same 
 number of centuries, as the ministers of the 
 Established Religion have been in possession of 
 them; and, moreover, that all the canons and 
 laws enacted during the three hundred years be- 
 
*22 
 
 tore the reformation, are every one, diametrically 
 opposed to his position, yet will he set an au- 
 thority so high upon his own unsupported asser- 
 tions, in defiance of the decrees of his own che- 
 rished and vaunted canons, as seriously to regis- 
 ter as his sincere conviction, the following 
 extraordinary declaration, in answer to the ques- 
 tion ; “ Is there any evidence of the practical 
 distribution of tithe to the poor.” Dr. Doyle an- 
 swers, “The whole history of the church abounds 
 with it. In Ireland the only church law w^as the 
 canon law of England, and therefore if it can be 
 shown that this application of church property 
 prevailed in England, it will follow of necessity 
 that it prevailed in Ireland.” Thus passing 
 over the period, from the reformation to the pre- 
 sent day, when custom had established a differ- 
 ent appropriation ; and also refusing to be bound 
 by the practice of his own Church, for as many 
 centuries before Protestantism became the na- 
 tional religion, as have elapsed since that glo- 
 rious event, he would re-adopt the quadripartite 
 or tripartite division, which he declares, but 
 cannot prove, was the custom of the church in 
 some undefined and remote era. 
 
23 
 
 Arguing on the same grounds, will Dr. Doyle 
 avow, that the owners of Allodial estates, though 
 they became feudal tenants, and had enjoyed 
 their properties for successive generations, under 
 this new tenure, fortified by ample, though chang- 
 ing laws, are, nevertheless, bound to the obliga- 
 tions, under which their ancestors had originally 
 possessed those properties, because it may be 
 discovered that some forgotten law, enacted when 
 a tyrannous system of legislation had prevailed, 
 now remains unrepealed. But, did the varying 
 obligations, as the law changed them, cancel their 
 entire propriety in the land ? Did the feudal 
 tenants, who had acknowledged no kingly pro- 
 prietor of their estates, till the Norman tyrant, 
 lose with the alteration in the condition, the right 
 to possess? Have not the imposts, to which 
 they were liable, been supplied by others, and 
 the conditions, to which they were bound, gra- 
 dually died away, and with their extinction, has 
 also ceased their liability, and almost any legis- 
 lative power, to re-enact them. And, yet, shall 
 we be told, that these properties cannot now be 
 retained, unless antiquated and abandoned usages 
 are revived and obeyed ? Shall our speculatists 
 
24 
 
 summon the Earl-marshal to the performance of 
 the duties, to which he was subject, though his 
 ancestors refused our first Edward to perform 
 them ; and must he relinquish his wide domains 
 to the cupidity of some learned antiquarian, who 
 cannot find, except in the visions of his ravenous 
 hostility, any justifiable ground for a recurrence 
 to an abrogated custom. 
 
 But, to bring this view of the subject more 
 closely to issue, will our revivers of the ancient 
 conditions of property, summon to the field the 
 present representatives of the Lords Abbot ? 
 The Norman conqueror, not only altered the te- 
 nure, by which they held their estates in free 
 alms into Baronies, but he subjected them to 
 military service. And on such a foundation as 
 this, can our rapacious antiquarians, in order to 
 alleviate the burdens of the people, by a diminu- 
 tion of the expenditure of our military establish- 
 ments, upbraid the Duke of Bedford in England, 
 and the Marquis of Landsdowne in Ireland, for 
 a forfeiture of the trust, under the unrepealed 
 conditions of which, they possess their thousands, 
 and hundreds of thousands of Church lands, be- 
 cause they did not, during the late bloody and 
 
25 
 
 protracted war with France, attend the army of 
 their king for forty days, at their own expense ! 
 Or, if summoned on some future occasion to the 
 performance of these duties, to which, as the suc- 
 cessors of the Lords Abbot they are liable, shall 
 their sovereign resume his long-unused authority, 
 to compound, at his own pleasure, for their ab- 
 sence, according to the terms of the feudal law. 
 
 Surely, we need not debate this silly propo- 
 sition further, that whatever were the conditions 
 of property one thousand years ago, its present 
 possessors are now bound to the fulfilment of 
 the same obligations. For to this, must the ar- 
 guments of our opponents be reduced, if even 
 they can substantiate the proof, to which I chal- 
 lenge them, that the present property of the 
 Church of England and Ireland was ever subject 
 to a deduction of one-half for the poor and the 
 fabric of the Church. 
 
 Dr. Doyle asserts, “ I find the canons of 
 the councils to be uniform here and on the Con- 
 tinent, so that the observations that are verified 
 with regard to the Catholic Church on the Con- 
 tinent, are equally verified with regard to the 
 Church in England, it being one body, subject 
 
 D 
 
26 
 
 to the same legislation.” The only Ecclesiastical 
 laws which ever directed the appropriation of 
 Church property in England, from the thirteenth 
 century, when the parochial right to tithe was 
 established, to the Reformation, no where en- 
 join, no, not in one solitary instance, the quad- 
 ripartite or tripartite division. Who can believe, 
 that Dr. Doyle was ignorant of this ? Who can 
 believe, if any council, or canon, or law, au- 
 thorising such a division, could be produced, that 
 his sedulous assiduity, sharpened by his avidity 
 for the diminution of the revenues of the Church, 
 would not have discovered it, and that he would 
 not, with triumphant zeal, have “ laid his finger 
 upon it.” In all the canons of the church of 
 England adopted by popish kings, suggested by 
 popes, authorized by Roman Catholic Arch- 
 bishops and Bishops, and sanctioned by Roman 
 Catholic Senates, not one such canon can be 
 found. If it be in existence, let Dr. Doyle, 
 though he could not, at the moment, edify the 
 Tithe-committees by a reference to it, now after 
 renewed exertion, aided by all “ his familiarity 
 with these old canons,” produce it. Surely, 
 though he may refuse to enlighten me, he will 
 vindicate himself. 
 
•27 
 
 Within the immediate jurisdiction of the 
 Roman See, it may be admitted, that such a 
 division, had, if not the sanction of practice, at 
 least the authority of law. I shall not here 
 enquire, for it is nothing to our purpose, whether 
 this law was generally observed in Europe. I do 
 not believe it was, not even in France, at least 
 for eight hundred years I know it was not, 
 though sanctioned by the vaunted council of 
 Masson, but yet it was not obeyed even within 
 the verge of the bishoprick, where this remark- 
 able council was held.* Nay more, this council 
 was never received into the canons of any ge- 
 neral council ; further, it was never even adopted 
 into any known body of canon law. And stran- 
 gest fact of all, it was never introduced to the 
 knowledge of ecclesiastical antiquarians, until 
 the reign of Charles fifth, and then by Friar 
 Crab, in his edition of the councils. 
 
 Our opponents, and particularly Dr. Doyle, 
 struggle, to maintain that the admission that 
 the quadripartite appointment of tithe, was the 
 practice of the Roman Catholic continental 
 churches, involves the acknowledgment that a 
 * See Note F. 
 
28 
 
 similar custom prevailed in England and Ireland ; 
 as the British Churches, in ecclesiastical affairs, 
 were in subjection to the Roman Pontiff. To 
 this device and subterfuge are our adversaries 
 driven. But what does such a sophistical as- 
 sumption reveal ? That neither Dr. Doyle nor 
 the abettors of his opinions, can substantiate by 
 direct evidence, that this practice did prevail in 
 this kingdom. It is an argument of ignorance, 
 or of presumption. The British Church, however 
 corrupted by her alliance with that of Rome, was 
 ever saved from the pollution of that prostration, 
 which would have rendered her the pliant slave 
 and obsequious tool of an imperious master. If 
 occasionally, and the period was short, she 
 slumbered in her native dignity, her proud spirit 
 soon rebounded from the degradation; and in an 
 erect and independent posture of defence she 
 hurled back the comminations and anathemas of 
 her ambitious and spiritual Head. Here we need 
 not repeat the multitude of occasions, which, 
 long before the days of the eighth Henry, afforded 
 notable evidence of a reforming spirit. Even 
 in the seasons of the grovelling vassalage of her 
 ecclesiastics, her proud monarchs and her un- 
 
29 
 
 bending’ nobles, indignantly scorned the abomi- 
 nation of submitting the inheritance and govern- 
 ment of the Church, to the griping avarice or dic- 
 tatorial despotism of the Popes of Rome. From 
 this spirit, arose the laws # against provisors and 
 of praemunire, the latter of which as the pre- 
 amble of the 16 Richard ii., informs us, was 
 made at the prayer of the Commons of England, 
 who complained that by the avarice and tyranny 
 of the Court of Rome, “ the crown of England, 
 which hath ever been free and subject unto none, 
 would be submitted unto the Bishop of Rome, 
 to the utter destruction of the King and the 
 
 *See, for farther evidence on this subject, the numerous au- 
 thorities which Sir John Davies adduces, not only attesting 
 the independence of the British Church, but the jealousy of 
 the nobles and commons of England, in vindication of her 
 national privileges. The following apposite passage is taken 
 from his “ Case of praemunire on the conviction and attainder 
 of Robert Lalor, priest, being indicted upon the statute of 
 16 Rich. 2. cap. 5.” 
 
 •< Nowe Master Lalor, what thinke you of these things ? 
 Did you believe, that such lawes as these, had beene made 
 against the Pope, 200, 250, 300, yeares since ? Was king 
 Henry VIII. the first prince that opposed the pope’s usurped 
 authority ? Were our Protestants, the first subjects that ever 
 complained of the court of Rome ? Of what religion, thinke 
 you, were the propounders and enactors of those lawes? 
 
 D 3 
 
30 
 
 whole realm, which God defend.” The Insti- 
 tutes, the Code, and the Digest of Justinian; the 
 Laws of Gregory, the Decrees of the Rota, and 
 the Imperial Chamber, the whole body, in fact, of 
 the canon and civil law of Rome have never 
 been, no more than they, at this moment are, any 
 part of the laws of England, farther than, in 
 some instances, immemorial usages derived from 
 them, and forming the ground w r ork of our com- 
 mon law, or some other parts introduced into 
 the body of our statute law, afford to that enor- 
 mous mass of ecclesiastical domination the 
 honor of British adoption. The nobility of 
 England declared, in the reign of Stephen, 
 
 Were they good Catholikes ? Or, good subjects ? Or, what you 
 will not say, they were Protestants, for you will not admitt 
 the reformed religion to bee so ancient as those times, neither 
 can you say they were undutifull, for they strove to uphold 
 their leige lord’s sovereignety. Doubtless, the people in those 
 days, did generally embrace the vulgar errors and superstitions 
 of the Romish Church, and in that respect were Papists, as 
 well as you, but they had not learned the newe doctrine of 
 the Pope’s supremacie, and transcendant authority over kings. 
 They did not believe hee had power to depose princes, to 
 abrogate the fundamental laives of the kingdom and to impose 
 her canons , as binding lawes upon all nations , without their 
 consents.” See primer report des cases &c. case of praemunire 
 p. 87. 
 
31 
 
 66 that the realm of England, hath never been 
 unto this hour , neither by the consent of our Lord 
 the King, and the lords of parliament, shall it 
 ever be, ruled or governed by the civil law.”* 
 u The civil and canon laws,” says Sir William 
 Blackstone, “ considered with respect to any 
 intrinsic obligation, have no force or authority 
 in this kingdom ; they are no more binding in 
 England, than our laws are binding at Rome.”f 
 This statement applied to his opinion respect- 
 ing the fourfold division of tithe, naturally sug- 
 gests this question. If the canon and civil law 
 of Rome enforced the necessity of the quadri- 
 partite partition of tithe, is the injunction de- 
 rived from their authority, binding in England ? 
 To this, the answer is, according to his own 
 admission — if immemorial usage has sanctioned 
 the decrees of the Roman canon law, or, if 
 our statute law adopting them or any part of 
 them, has commanded their observance, then, 
 the imperial civil law is obligatory in this 
 kingdom. But, if the usage here is opposed to 
 the law and practice there, and if no evidence 
 
 Selden Jan. Anglor. lib. 2. 
 
 f Commentaries I. p. 14. 
 
in our British statutes, is recorded of the natu- 
 ralization of this foreign legislation, “ then the 
 civil or canon laws of the Empire are no more 
 binding in England than our laws are at Rome.” 
 And here we demand of Dr. Doyle, as did 
 the noble lords on the tithe committee, demon- 
 stration of the practice as to the fourfold or tri- 
 partite division of tithe in England. We demand 
 to know the British statute that enjoined it, or 
 the British canon that sanctioned it. Dr. Doyle 
 must render some more intelligible evidence 
 than his own belief of the practice ; some more 
 tangible documents than his own suspicions of 
 the usage. His Noble examiners asked, “ Is 
 there any historical proof on the subject except 
 that belief of yours." He could produce no 
 proof then. Can he now? He u could not lay 
 his finger upon one particular act,” to justify 
 his assertion. Time and reflection, and the 
 assistance of his learned friends, have, doubtless, 
 furnished him with arguments, that will silence 
 all controversy on the subject. We, the clergy 
 of the Established Church, have a right to 
 require, that we shall be permitted to believe 
 of him, what he has asserted he can prove : 
 
33 
 
 that he has not constructed a theory upon his 
 own wishes ; and that all his display of learning, 
 and his unproduced documentary evidence from 
 history, from law, and practice, have some other 
 foundation, than his vituperative rancour, and 
 designing and vindictive vengeance against the 
 ministers of the Established Church. 
 
 The question is plain — the answer ought to 
 be simple. Where is the statute to be found, 
 or, where is the historical evidence to prove, 
 that the quadripartite or tripartite division of 
 tithe was the custom of the clergy of England 
 and Ireland, before the Reformation? Judge 
 Blackstone * has declared, that without such 
 authority, “ the civil or canon laws of the 
 Empire are no more binding in England than 
 our laws are at Rome.” Thus Dr. Doyle is at 
 once, and for ever, excluded from all appeal to 
 Continental churches, or to his cherished and 
 familiar friends, the canons, except those of 
 England and Ireland, by which I am content, 
 that the property of the Church, shall be regu- 
 
 * We shall refer again to the authority of Judge Black- 
 stone, and show what in reality were his opinion as to the 
 fourfold division of tithes. 
 
34 
 
 lated, though they were enacted by Roman 
 Catholic monarchs, archbishops and bishops, 
 and legates from the Pope himself. 
 
 In this dilemma, it may be unkind to desert 
 our great adversary. We will not impose on 
 him, the hard and cheerless task of seeking for 
 evidence, of the usage as to the quadripartite or 
 tripartite division of tithe in England and Ire- 
 land. Nor shall we impose on him the onerous 
 obligation of instituting a forlorn search, among 
 British statutes, to verify his statements. We 
 shall relieve him of the toil, by instituting our- 
 selves an appeal to the canons which regulated 
 ecclesiastical affairs in these countries, from the 
 thirteenth century to the Reformation. But in 
 recompense of our gratuitous services, we only 
 ask the poor requital of an acknowledgment, on 
 his part, of the errors, into which an overzeal 
 for the purification of the Reformed Church, 
 has betrayed him. That is, if he shall be con- 
 vinced of his transgressions. If, however, he 
 continue unrelenting and stubborn in his opi- 
 nions, we must only, in mercy, beseech him to 
 give a fair and candid replication to our defence. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Nature of the English Canon Law , and its 
 application to Ireland explained . 
 
 We have seen, by evidence adduced in the for- 
 mer chapter, that Stephen, early in the twelfth 
 century, and Richard the Second, in the four- 
 teenth, in union with the nobility and commons 
 of England, declared that the realm of England 
 had never been ruled by the civil law. There- 
 fore we have no privilege to appeal to its deci- 
 sions, to ascertain a knowledge of the customs 
 by which ecclesiastical property was regulated 
 in this kingdom. But, besides the Imperial code, 
 there was a body of national canon law of Eng- 
 land and Ireland. To these canons, Dr. Doyle, 
 on some occasions, referred. He acknowledged 
 that in Ireland, the only church law was the 
 
36 
 
 canon law of England, and, therefore, if it can 
 be shown that this application of Church pro- 
 perty prevailed in England, it will follow of 
 necessity that it prevailed in Ireland.” 
 
 On this ground, I am content to contend the 
 point in dispute with Dr. Doyle, and that the 
 disposition of tithe shall be adjusted according 
 to the decision of the tribunal, to which he has 
 appealed. 
 
 It may be necessary therefore to afford the 
 reader some information respecting the history 
 and nature of the English canon law. It was 
 composed of Legatine constitutions, enacted in 
 national synods, and of Provincial constitutions, 
 which are principally the decrees of provincial 
 synods. The earliest of the former were held 
 under Cardinals Otho and Othobon, who were 
 sent as legates into England from Pope Gregory 
 IX. and Pope Clement IV. in the reign of 
 Henry III. in the years 1236, and 1268. The 
 earliest of the latter commences in the same 
 reign, in 1222, and terminates with their adop- 
 tion by Archbishop Chichele, in the reign of 
 Henry V. and in the year 1445. 
 
 From that time to the present no addition 
 
87 
 
 sanctioned by tlie legislature, has ever been 
 made to the canon law of England. At the 
 reformation, the adoption of a new code had 
 been designed ; but that design was never car- 
 ried into execution. Cranmer, and seven other 
 persons, had been commissioned to adjust and 
 prepare it: and having completed, were bound 
 to submit it, to a council of thirty-one commis- 
 sioners, who were empowered ultimately to de- 
 cide upon its merits and adoption. The statute 
 25 Henry viii. c. 19. which was revised and con- 
 firmed, by 1 Eliz. c. 1. authorised, till the con- 
 templated review of the canons should be con- 
 firmed, that the old legatine constitutions and 
 provincial synods, should have the force of law, 
 so far as they were not repugnant to the spirit of 
 the reformation, and of the secession of the 
 Church of England from that of Rome. But 
 this project never attained a prosperous con- 
 clusion. 
 
 Therefore, in this national canon law, we have 
 not only the whole body of the canon laws, 
 which have regulated Ecclesiastical affairs in 
 England since the reformation ; except in the 
 instances where their authority has been over- 
 
 E 
 
38 
 
 ruled by express statute law; but, what is more 
 important to our present purpose, we are pro- 
 vided with the only laws, which, since the 
 parochial right to tithe was established, ever 
 regulated in England and Ireland, the disposi- 
 tion of the revenues of the Church. 
 
 On this ground, therefore, our adversaries 
 must contend. Dr. Doyle has chosen it, as the 
 field, where he is willing to display the re- 
 sources of his mind. We now come forth to 
 meet him, and are willing that the battle shall 
 be decided by the authority of these canons, 
 whether the quadripartite or tripartite division 
 of tithe had ever been the practice of the Church 
 of England and Ireland. We possess no ocher 
 authorities, to whom we can appeal ; there is no 
 other umpire that can decide. To these autho- 
 rities, and to the judgment which they shall pro- 
 nounce, we are willing to yield obedience. But 
 in consenting that the clergy of the Reformed 
 Church, shall be put on their trial before a 
 court, where the legates of popes presided, 
 whose decisions Popish monarchs sanctioned, and 
 Roman Catholic Archbishops and Bishops and 
 clergy, consecrated as the legalized practice and 
 
39 
 
 usage of the Church, from the year 1200, to 
 the reformation; we have no doubt the privilege 
 of demanding, that not only the defendants in 
 this cause, but the plaintiff, who is pre-emi- 
 nently no less a personage, than Dr. Doyle 
 himself, will engage to submit to the award, 
 which the laws of his own Church, shall, on the 
 momentous controversy, pronounce. If, however 
 Dr. Doyle shall stubbornly linger in his error, 
 and cling to the opinions of which his own 
 wishes have been the parent, and if he be resolved 
 to renew the contest, let him appeal. But to 
 whom or to what, shall he appeal ? There is no 
 other — there can be no other Judge, whose 
 authority for more than six hundred years, has 
 regulated Ecclesiastical revenues, than theirs, 
 by whom he has consented to be judged, and to 
 whom we now refer our cause. 
 
 Before we proceed to an examination of the 
 canon law of England, we have two prelimina- 
 ry objections to remove. This is done, for the 
 refutation of other objectors than Dr. Doyle, for 
 he, as I will shew, coincides, at least, in one of 
 the points, I am about to explain. 
 
 First, was the canon law of England appli- 
 
40 
 
 cable to Ireland, at the period of the establish- 
 ment of the parochial right to tithe ? 
 
 Secondly, were the usages of the common 
 law of England, applicable to Ireland, at the 
 same period ? 
 
 The Ecclesiastical, as well as, the common law 
 of England, w’as made applicable to Ireland, at 
 a period contemporaneous with the enactment of 
 the legatine constitutions of Otho and Othobon, 
 and as early as any of the provincial constitu- 
 tions which were received into the national ca- 
 non law. If this point, as well as the second 
 objection, be satisfactorily explained, the result 
 will be, as to the determination of the question 
 at issue, that the destiny of the two branches 
 of the united Church must be regulated, ac- 
 cording to the authority of the same law. 
 
 As to the first, namely, the applicability of the 
 English canon law to Ireland, Dr. Doyle has 
 confessed “ that in Ireland, the only Church-law, 
 was the canon-law of England.” This did not 
 arise, simply, from the effects of the English 
 invasion, but an express declaration of the uni- 
 formity of Ecclesiastical law in England and 
 Ireland, is embodied in the preface to the Con- 
 
41 
 
 stitutions of Othobon. “ Pio zelo Excitatus et justa 
 auetoritate fretus D. Othobonus sequentes con- 
 stitutiones Anglise, Scotise, Hibernise et Wallise 
 Constitutus est.” These constitutions were en- 
 acted in the year 1268, in the reign of Henry 
 III. It maybe objected, that these were words 
 of form, but that no practice, in obedience to the 
 law, consecrated it, in Ireland. Fortunately, 
 however, there is abundance of evidence to es- 
 tablish, that the same monarch, in whose reign 
 these constitutions were enacted, regarded not 
 only the interests of the English and Irish 
 Churches, with equal solicitude, but applied to 
 each, the same Ecclesiastical laws, in order to 
 effect their improvement, and assimilate the 
 arrangement of their respective tithes. 
 
 In the 44th year of his reign, he caused to be 
 issued in England, an enquiry about “ the profits, 
 estate, tenure, and issue of the King’s tenants.” 
 The object was to ascertain to whom the tithes, 
 derivable from these estates, belonged, as they 
 were claimed, in some cases, by the Abbots, 
 sometimes by the Rectors of the Parish Church, 
 as well as by others.* In the same reign, a similar 
 
 * Anna]. Monast. Burtonensis apud oxon. 
 
 E 3 
 
42 
 
 commission was sent into Ireland, to the Arch- 
 bishop of Cashel, the Bishop of Ferns, and the 
 Bishop of Lismore, commanding them to take 
 with them, Jeffrey De Mareseo, then Justice, or 
 Lord Deputy of Ireland, or some other person, 
 whom he should appoint, to enquire, by the 
 oaths of Laymen and Clergymen, whether Bar- 
 tholomew De Camera, Parson of the Chapel of 
 Limerick, or William, of CaradifF, treasurer 
 there, was seized of the tithes, “ De Piscaria 
 et Molendinis De Limeric, tempore Johannis 
 Regis, Patris Nostri, ante guerram Motam inter 
 ipsum et Barones.” * 
 
 We need not burden our narrative with fur- 
 ther proof, abundance of which is at hand to the 
 same effect. Though, perhaps, we ought not to 
 omit to state, that the signature of the Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin, as representative of the Irish 
 Church, was affixed to Magna- Charta, at Runne- 
 mede. His name follows that of the Metro- 
 politan of England, and takes precedence of all 
 the other Bishops. 
 
 As to the second objection, namely, as to the 
 application, to Ireland, of the common law of 
 
 * Pat. 9 Hen. 3. Par. 2. Memb. 3. 
 
43 
 
 England, I shall adduce, without comment, the 
 most full and satisfactory evidence. It is neces- 
 sary to do so, in consequence of an assertion of 
 Mr. O’Connell, that tithes in Ireland, had no 
 common law right to defend them. I shall not, 
 here, enter into the question, at what time tithes 
 were payable in Ireland. The following docu- 
 ment is sufficient for the present argument, as it 
 proves that the usages of the common law of 
 England, were applied to Ireland, at a period 
 contemporaneous with the earliest part of the 
 national canon law, which is to decide the ques- 
 tion, as to the distribution of tithes. 
 
 66 Quia pro communi unitate terrse Hyberniae 
 et pro unitate terrarum, provisum est quod om - 
 nes leges et consuetudines , quae in regno Anglise 
 tenentur, in Hybernia teneantur, et eadem ter- 
 ra iisdem legibus subjaceat et per easdem 
 regatur, sicut Johannes Rex cum illuc esset, 
 statuit et firmiter mandavit ; ideo volumus, 
 quod omnia brevia de commune jure, quse cur- 
 runt in Anglia, similiter currant in Hybernia 
 sub novo sigillo nostro, &c. in cujus rei, & c. 
 teste me ipso apud Woodstock.” # 
 
 * In Archivis Turns London 30 Henry III. Patent Memb. 3. 
 
44 
 
 Our argument, now, cleared of all objections 
 and difficulties, stands thus. The parochial right 
 to tithe was not established in England, till the 
 commencement of the thirteenth century. 
 From that period to the reformation, the Roman 
 Catholic Clergy, respecting their general dis- 
 cipline, as well as, the disposition of the reve- 
 nues of the Church, were guided by the autho- 
 rity of a domestic or national canon law. The 
 civil, or canon law of Rome, which, it is asserted, 
 enjoined the fourfold division of tithe, had been 
 abjured in England, before the enactment of the 
 English canon law. No part of the foreign 
 ecclesiastical law was binding in these kingdoms, 
 except those parts, which had the authority of 
 express statutes, limiting the observance of par- 
 ticular portions of it ; or, when usage, growing 
 out of an imitation of foreign legislation, had 
 sanctioned detached pieces of the Imperial code. 
 The British canon law, was applied to Ireland, 
 at a period contemporaneous with the establish- 
 ment of the parochial right to tithe in England, 
 as well as, all the usages of common law, which 
 had, for ages, been observed in the sister-king- 
 dorrf. Therefore, it remains, now, for enquiry, 
 
45 
 
 what did the canon law of England regulate and 
 ordain, relative to the alleged appropriation of 
 tithe to the reparation of the Church, and the 
 maintenance of the poor ; for we are limited to 
 these documents, as the only records, which 
 enable us to form an opinion, and to decide, 
 upon this much ventilated question. 
 
40 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Proofs from the Canon Law of England , to whom 
 appertains , the Reparation of the Church . 
 
 Dr. Doyle, addressed the following sentences 
 to the tithe committee. I beseech my readers to 
 remember them. 
 
 “ In Ireland the only Church law was the ca- 
 non law of England, and therefore, if it can be 
 shown that this application of Church property 
 prevailed in England, it will follow of necessity 
 that it prevailed in Ireland.” 
 
 u The Church property, whether in Ireland or 
 England, was never confiscated and never vested 
 in the Crown — the deposit remained untouched — 
 the trustees were exchanged, but the law did not 
 vary, except that it changed the trustees. In 
 Catholic times, the law gave the tithes to the 
 Catholic Incumbents, and in Protestant times, 
 it gives them to the Protestant Incumbents ; 
 
47 
 
 but in Catholic times, the law was, that he should 
 divide it in the way I have stated.” 
 
 “ The tripartite division is found to have pre- 
 vailed after parishes were formed through Eng- 
 land and the rest of Europe. I find no differ- 
 ence in legislation. I have ascertained by books 
 of the practice in England, and I find it uniform 
 with the practice in Ireland.” 
 
 Again I implore the reader to peruse these 
 sentences, once more, before he proceeds. 
 
 Some of the most ancient canons in the Eng- 
 lish code are the Legatine Constitutions of Otho* 
 and Othobon.f Their title, and the date of their 
 
 * Concilium Pan-Anglicanum Londini habitum in Eccle- 
 sia Catbedrali Divi Pauli, crastino octavarum S. Martini, 
 Anno Domini 1236 (secundum Matthaeum Pariensem 1237) 
 id est, 20 (alias 21.) Henrici III. Praesidente Dom. Othone 
 S. Nicolai in carcere Tulliano, Diacono Cardinali, Legato 
 Dom. Papae Gregorii IX. assidentibus sibi Archiepiscopis S. 
 Edmundo Cantuaviensi et Waltero Eboracensi, necnon aliis 
 Angliae Episcopis. Vide Con. Leg. Oxoniae Edit. 1679. 
 
 f Concilium Anglicanum, a Domino Othobono Sancti 
 Adriani Diacano Cardinali, Sedis Apostolicae ad Regnum 
 Angliae, necnon ad Scotiae, Hibernia, Walliaeque partes Le- 
 gato, celebratum in Ecclesia Catbedrali Sancti Pauli Londoni, 
 nono Calendas Maii Anno Domini m,cclxiix, et pontifi- 
 catus Domini dementis IV. Papae Anno quarto, id est, anno 
 
48 
 
 adoption, as part of the ecclesiastical law of 
 England, I have inserted in the notes. A very 
 learned and accurate commentary upon them 
 was written by John De Athona,* several years 
 before the close of the thirteenth century. 
 From the constitutions and the gloss we are 
 enabled to derive a clear knowledge of the laws 
 which governed, and the practice which regu- 
 lated, the appropriation of the revenues of the 
 Church, during the thirteeth century. And even 
 before it, as reference is constantly made to the 
 consuetudo prevailing before the enactment of 
 
 Henrici III., illustris Anglorum regis quinquagesimo se- 
 cundo, praesentibus Bonifacio Cantuariae et Waltero Eborum 
 Archiepiscopis, Episcopis, Abbatibus, Prioribus, Decanis, 
 Archdiaconis, cum aliis dignitatibus ecclesiasticis Vide Con. 
 Legat. p. 75. 
 
 \ Johannes Acton us vel de Acton a, perperam Athon nonnulli 
 rocant, in Anglia natus, Oxonii ad annos bene multos in 
 studiis enutritus, tandem ibidem utriusque Juris Doctor 
 creatus est. Postea Lincolniensis Ecclesiae factus canonicus, 
 ad alios docendum, atque etiam ad scribendum animum 
 appulit. Scripsit inter alia multa Septuplum et apparatum 
 super Constitutiones Legatorum Othonis et Othoboni librum 
 unum. Claruit anno Redemptionis 1290, Regnante in 
 Anglia Edwardo Primo. Vide Pitseus de Rlustribus Angliae 
 scriptoribus. 
 
49 
 
 those laws. This information we glean from the 
 commentary of Athona. Yet, neither in any 
 one of the canons of these councils, nor in the 
 exposition upon them, is the quadripartite or 
 tripartite division ever enforced, or even alluded 
 to, as the practice of the Church, at this remote 
 period. While the gloss of Athona distinctly 
 proves that the consuetude, relative to the repa- 
 ration of the Church, and the maintenance of the 
 poor, was directly opposed to any such custom. 
 
 We shall now enter upon an accurate exami- 
 nation of these ancient records, and shall address 
 our attention primarily to the question, to whom 
 did the reparation of the Church appertain ? 
 
 The constitution, “ De domibus ecclesiarum 
 reficiendis,”* after regulating the laws, relative to 
 the repairs of the manse and the buildings con- 
 nected with it, states “ that it is the duty of the 
 Bishop to see that the chancel of the Church is 
 kept in repair by those to whom this duty ap- 
 pertains.” Upon this passage there is a volumi- 
 nous explanation by Athona, 66 this canon alludes 
 to the common custom in England, by which 
 
 * Consti. D. Othob. p. 112. Edit. Oxon. 1679. 
 
 V 
 
50 
 
 the repair of the nave of the Church, where the 
 lay parishioners sit, belongs to the parishioners 
 themselves.” 
 
 Hence it is evident that the custom was so 
 well understood, of the parishioners’ obligation 
 to repair the Church, that in the canon of Otho- 
 bon, no express mention of, but an allusion on- 
 ly is made to, the subject. The doubtful point 
 is explained, namely, to whom] belonged the 
 reparation of the chancel. This was regulated, 
 as we shall hereafter see, according to the pre- 
 vailing practice, in different places. Thus then 
 it appears, that in the thirteenth century, it 
 was the common custom in England, that the 
 parishioners were bound to the reparation of 
 their parish Church. 
 
 Athona afterwards adds, “ Certe de consue- 
 tudine, Parocliiani etiam Laici ad hujusmodi re- 
 parationem compelluntur, populus itaque laicus 
 hujusmodi laudabilem consuetudinem cogitur 
 observare.” Not. Atlio. ad tenentur. In these 
 words, lie more emphatically insists, that, un- 
 doubtedly, by custom the parishioners are bound 
 to repair, and that the people (adding the word 
 laicus, thus suggesting the accustomed exclusion 
 
51 
 
 of the clergy from this charge) are compelled 
 to observe this laudable custom. 
 
 The learned commentator then, at large, dis- 
 cusses the duties which devolve upon the Rector, 
 in connection with the subject of reparation. 
 “ Licet enim per consuetudinem exoneretur 
 Rector, a sumptibus proestandis, non tamen ex- 
 emptus a cura, et solicitudine impendenda. 
 Item Rectoris hoc interest, nedum propter de- 
 centiam Ecclesise, sed etiam, quia Episcopo 
 eujus mediate interest singulis annis, si exiga- 
 tur de lmjusmodi reparatione debeat Rector 
 reddere rationem. Audiet ergo Rector com- 
 putum expensarum circa hujusmodi fabricam, 
 et etiam legatorum ad usum fabricse relictorum, 
 et omnium consimilium. Credo quod, urius- 
 quisque parochianus teneatur ad hoc, juxta 
 portionem Glebae, seu terroe quam possidet in- 
 tra ipsam parochiam et juxta numerum ani- 
 malium quse nutrit ibidem.” 
 
 From hence, we learn, that the rector was 
 exempted from all expense in the repara- 
 tion of the Church — that his sole duty, con- 
 nected with it, was the exemplification of that 
 natural solicitude for the adornment and comfort 
 
52 
 
 of the house of God, which his sacred obligations 
 demanded. So well understood was the duty of 
 the parishioner, on this subject, that the propor- 
 tion, which each contributed, was regulated 
 according to the number of acres he possessed, 
 and the number of cattle which he fed. The 
 Church cess, then, is no modern introduction, 
 of which the cupidity of griping Churchmen 
 has been the parent, but it has the venerable 
 sanction of more than six hundred years, to 
 refute the slander of those, who falsify history, 
 law, and reason, to cover, or to justify, their 
 hatred against the Church of England. The 
 assertion, that this custom had the sanction of 
 six hundred years, is an incomplete declaration 
 of the venerable defence, with which time has 
 invested it. For though Athona wrote in the 
 thirteenth century, he states, that the canon of 
 Othobon, enacted in a council of all England, 
 in 1268, alluded “ communi consuetudini Ang- 
 licanse, per quam, defectio navis Ecclesise, ubi 
 insident ipsi Parochiani laici, ad ipsos Parochia- 
 nes pertinet.” How many years, previous to 
 that, in which the council was held, were suffi- 
 cient to establish a common law usage in pro- 
 
53 
 
 perty, I shall leave, as a suitable penance, to 
 our learned lawyers, devoted to spoliation, to 
 discover. Enough, surely, is ascertained, for 
 the vindication of the argument I have under- 
 taken to maintain. 
 
 Come we now to the Provincial Synods, as- 
 sembled at Oxford, when Stephen Langton was 
 Archbishop of Canterbury. This synod was held 
 under the same monarch, Henry III., as that of 
 the legate of the Roman see, but at an earlier 
 period, being in the year 1222. 
 
 In the synod, “ De decimis et earum soluti- 
 onibus,” are these words, u Decimse, tarn prae- 
 diales quam alise, sine difficultate et diminutione 
 et cum omni integritate solvuntur secundum 
 quod canonum continent instituta. Concedimus 
 etiam quod quilibet Sacerdos Parochialis deten- 
 tores decimarum in sua Paroehia potestatem 
 coercendi habeat.” Again, “ In prsestandis de- 
 cimis, et maxime Prsedialibus, nullse deducantur 
 expensse.”* 
 
 * Constitutiones Provinciales in concilio Oxon. celebratae, 
 editae per dominumStephanumCantuariensem archiepiscopum, 
 Anno Domini 1222, et anno regni regis Henrici, filii Johan- 
 nis, octavo, sedente Honorio 3, Romano Pontifice. 
 
 F 3 
 
54 
 
 This appears to establish, with sufficient dis- 
 tinctness, that the Parochial Priest had the right 
 to the tithe, without any diminution or substruc- 
 tion. Can the most lynx-eyed scrutiny here 
 discover, even a legal doubt, to hang a hope 
 upon, that the custom of the church in 1222 
 was, (and being then a custom, it was conse- 
 quently one of many years before) that any part 
 of the tithe of the parochial priest, was dedicated 
 to the use of the poor, or for the reparation of 
 the Church ? Who can believe, that, if a con- 
 trary custom had prevailed, that words so em- 
 phatical and replete with accuracy, would have 
 been employed, as that the tithes should be paid 
 to the parochial priest, without any diminution, 
 and that he should be invested with the legal 
 authority of compelling those who refused to 
 pay them “ in sua parochia.” Here, too, we 
 find the plausible slander against the Church of 
 modern times, that she insists now on the tithe 
 not only of the land, but of the labour, seed, 
 and all the expenses of tillage, fully and satis- 
 factorily refuted. Such was the custom of most 
 ancient days. Here it has the authority of the 
 earliest canon law of England, and the prevail- 
 
55 
 
 ing weight of more than six hundred years, to 
 give it energy and practice. “ In prsestandis 
 decimis, et maxime Prsedialibus, nullse deducan- 
 tur expensse.” 
 
 In* 1305, a synod was held at Merton, in 
 the reign of Edward I. In one of the consti- 
 tutions of that synod, which I have quoted in full 
 
 * Constitutiones Provinciales Domini Roberti de Winchel- 
 sey Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi, apud Merton editae Anno 
 Domini 1305, anno Regni Illustris Regis Edvardi primi 33. 
 Clemente 5, Cathedram Papalem occupante, qui transtulit 
 Sedem Avinionem. p. 34. 
 
 “ Quid Parochiani invenire debent, et quid Rectores.” 
 
 Et ut Parochiani Ecclesiarum singulorum Archidiaconatuum 
 Cantuariensis Provinciae sint de castero certiores de defectibus 
 ipsos contigentibus, ne inter rectores et episcopos ambiguitas 
 generetur, pro temporibus success! vis volumus de caetero et 
 praecipimus, quod parochiani teneantur invenire omnia inferius 
 annotata ; videlicet legendam, antiphonare, graduale, psalte- 
 ria, tropiarium, ordinale, missale, manuale, calicem, vesti- 
 menta principalia, cum casula, dalmatica, tunica, et cum capa 
 de choro, cum omnibus suis appendiciis, frontale ad magnum 
 altare, cum tribus tuellis, tria superpellicia, unum roclietum, 
 crucem processionalem, crucem pro mortuis, thuribulum, lu- 
 cernam, tintinnabulum ad deferendum coram corpore Christi 
 in visitatione infirmorum, pyxidem pro corpore Christi hones- 
 tam, chrismatorium, velum quad ragesim ale, vexilla pro roga- 
 tionibus, campanas cum chordis ad easdem, feretrum pro de- 
 functls, vas pro aqua benedicta, osculatorium, candelabrum 
 pro cereo paschali, fontem cum sera, et reparationem ejusdem, 
 
56 
 
 in a note, the obligations imposed on the pa- 
 rishioners, are fully and precisely recapitulated. 
 They were bound, not only to the reparation of 
 the nave of the Church within and without, 
 the building of the parochial cemeteries, and 
 the walls to defend them, but to all the costly and 
 multitudinous ornaments of the Church, as well 
 as the rich and attractive appendages of all the 
 august ceremonies of the Roman religion. These 
 obligations are declared, by the canonists, to be 
 due “ tarn de jure, quam de consuetudine.” 
 And the same authority is alleged in defence, 
 not alone of the reparation of the church, but of 
 the glass window’s, land the images, which in 
 holy confusion decorated the walls, but particu- 
 larly those placed in the chancel and over the 
 altars, being specially designated, in consequence 
 of the greater care and expense which w’ere 
 
 imagines in ecclesia, imaginem principalem in cancel! o, clau- 
 *uram coemeterii,reparationem navis esclesiae interius et exterius, 
 tam in imaginibus, quam in fenestris vitreis, reparationem li- 
 brorum et vestimentorum, quandocunque contigerit eosdem 
 reparationibus indigere. Ceetera autem omnia tam in repara- 
 tion cancelli, quam in libris et ornamentis aliis hie non ex- 
 pressis, secundum diversas consuetudines et approbatas locorum, 
 rectoribus et vicariis incumbit in omnibus reparari sumptibus 
 ^orundem. p. 36. 
 
57 
 
 bestowed on these parts of the church. Even 
 the Priests sacerdotal habits; even the books 
 used in holy ceremonies ; even the repairs of the 
 former, and the mending of the latter, are not 
 omitted in this curious, but very precise cata- 
 logue. 
 
 To these several duties, were the parishioners, 
 and their properties, liable, by law and custom, 
 in the year 1305. The successors of these 
 parishioners, whether directly as heirs, or as 
 purchasers of their estates, are bound to the ful- 
 filment of the same responsible duties. They 
 have succeeded, in all the various modifications, 
 which property, from a period so remote, has 
 undergone, not only to the possession of the 
 land, and the advantages from it accruing, but also 
 to the incumbrances which their ancestors bore, 
 and, by law and custom, bequeathed, with their 
 estates, to all their future heirs. The portion 
 of the landed property of the kingdom, which 
 has not descended by inheritance, but has become 
 the right of its possessors, by purchase, is bur- 
 dened by a similar charge. For the money paid, 
 has, in every case, been diminished in propor- 
 tion to the liabilities, to w T hich, by inheritance, 
 
58 
 
 it was subjected. At the Reformation, the landed 
 property of the kingdom was vastly increased in 
 value, by the removal of a great part of this 
 parochial impost. The religious ordinances and 
 ceremonies of the Reformed Church, being less 
 costly, and more simple, than the august and 
 sumptuous appliances to devotion, which in 
 Roman Catholic worship were deemed an im- 
 portant, and indispensable part of religion, every 
 parish in the kingdom, was, therefore, relieved 
 from the necessity of providing all the articles in 
 this extensive catalogue, except these inexpen- 
 sive and simple items, which the canons of James 
 I. continue to impose. Resides the Protestant 
 Clergy of the Established Church, participate 
 alike, with their fellow citizens, in all the taxes 
 imposed by the legislature; a burden, from which 
 the ecclesiastical property? though immeasurably 
 greater than the Church now possesses, was 
 relieved. Even partially, this exemption con- 
 tinued in the reign of Henry VIII. Therefore, 
 beside the relief afforded to the landed property 
 of the kingdom, by the curtailment of the paro- 
 chial impost, as levied for the expensive cele- 
 bration of Roman Catholic ordinances; a sub- 
 
59 
 
 straction is also to be made, from the burdens 
 to which the land was subjected, in defraying* 
 the national taxes, which since the Reformation, 
 the spiritual members of the church, share alike, 
 with their fellow citizens. And this relief, to 
 the land, is to be calculated in the ratio of the 
 amount of taxation, to which Church property is 
 now liable, for before the Reformation, a part, 
 equal to that now paid, would have been levied 
 from it. 
 
 As we had the advantage of the evidence of 
 John De Atliona, on the practice of the Church 
 in the thirteenth century, when engaged in ex- 
 amining the laws of Othobon, passed in the 
 same century, we have in the present instance 
 the learned commentary of Lyndwood, in the 
 fifteenth. Thus we are provided, first, with 
 the express declarations of the synodal law in 
 England, in the early part of the thirteenth 
 century, namely, in 1222, and also in 1268. 
 We have secondly, the history of the customs 
 observed by the Church on the disputed ques- 
 tion for nearly the whole of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury, in the Commentary of Athona. We have 
 thirdly, the declaration of the Ecclesiastical law. 
 
60 
 
 on this point, in the synod quoted from the 
 canons enacted at Merton in the early part of 
 the fourteenth century, namely, in 1305. And 
 fourthly, we shall now adduce evidence of the 
 practice of the Church, in the fifteenth century, 
 from the commentary of Lyndwood who wrote 
 in 1423. 
 
 On the canon quoted from Archbishop Win- 
 chelsey’s constitutions, enacted at Merton, 
 Lyndwood remarks in a note “ ad reparationem.” 
 “ Et idem intelligas de nova constructione, 
 quando opus erit.” # And again, — Et nota ad 
 hance reparationem contribuere debent nobiles 
 et ignobiles.” Such was the practice in the 
 fifteenth century. John Andreas, who is de- 
 scribed by Baldus as “ Juris canonici fontem et 
 tubam,” declares, 66 non credo, quod posset ex- 
 cusari aliquis, licet velit renunciare usui ipsius 
 Ecclesiae/’f This extract is evidence that the 
 Roman Church, in 1330, when Andreas wrote, 
 had not attained to those refined doctrines of 
 Liberty, which justify in a Roman Catholic 
 
 * Provin. Guliel. Lyndwood de Ecclesiis Edificand. p. 2 o3. 
 
 f J. Andreas, extrav. com. c. 1. 
 
61 
 
 Bishop, a pastoral address to his flock to evade 
 the payments due to the Church established by 
 law. But to be sure, he can plead in his vindi- 
 cation, this important difference in the fourteenth 
 and nineteenth century, that the church whose 
 members now refuse tithes, was the established 
 church to which they were paid, and the church, 
 which he now persecutes, is that which deprived 
 him of them, f 
 
 In the year 1342, when John Stratford was 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, a provincial coun- 
 
 * Perhaps it may refresh Dr. Doyle’s memory and im- 
 prove his morals, to quote for his meditation one of the canons 
 of the Council of Trent. Surely there is prophetic satire in it. 
 “ Non sunt ferendi qui varus artibus, Decimas Ecclesiis 
 obvenientes, subtrahere moliuntur, aut, qui ah aliis solvendis te- 
 mere occupant, et in rem suam vertunt, cum decimarum solutio 
 debita sit Deo. Et qui Eas dare noluerint aut dantes impedi- 
 unt , res alienas invadunt. Precipit igitur sancta Synodus 
 omnibus cujuscunque gradus et conditionis sint, ad quos dece- 
 marum solutio spectat, ut Eas (ad quos de jure tenentur) in 
 posterum Cathedrali, aut quibuscunque aliis Ecclesiis, vel 
 personis, quibus legitime debentur, integre persolvant. Qui 
 vero Eas aut subtrahunt, aut impediunt, Excommunicentur ; 
 nec ab hoc crimine nisi plena restitutione secuta, absolvantur.” 
 Sess. 25, de reformatione. cap. 12. Dr. Doyle either laughs 
 at the Council of Trent, or he satisfies his conscience, by the 
 pious reflection that the tithes are due to himself and his 
 Church. 
 
 G 
 
62 
 
 cil * was held in London. To one of the canons 
 of that council, I have referred in the note. 
 From which it appears that no interruption had 
 occurred in the parishioners’ obligation to the 
 reparation of the church. This duty is as fully 
 expressed, as in the other canons quoted from 
 more ancient councils. The common law usage, 
 however, is here more strongly expressed, “ de 
 consuetudine laudabili in nostra Provincia diutius 
 obtenta facere, ac quoties fuerit necesse , reparari 
 suis sumptibus teneantur .” 
 
 We have here the additional fact stated, that 
 the lands and properties of the monasteries, 
 were bound to contribute to the reparation of 
 the Church, wherever they possessed farms within 
 the verge of the Parish, whose church required 
 it. We also learn, what we did not, indeed, re- 
 quire the specific statement of an Ecclesiastical 
 declaration to announce, for all history proclaims 
 the odious censure, that the monasteries gathered 
 together wealth for the indulgence of the most 
 debauched propensities, while the sacred duties 
 
 t Consti. Provin. J. Stratford Cantuari. Archiepiscopi 
 Editae Londini, in concilio Provinciale, x die mensis Octo- 
 bris. Anno Domini 1342 See note G. 
 
63 
 
 of Religion were totally neglected — the paro- 
 chial minister defrauded of his stinted revenue— 
 and the Temples of God fell into ruin and 
 decay. But more than all, we have, a law decla- 
 ratory of the right incumbent on all proprietors 
 of land, whether they occupy them, or let them 
 out to tenants, to contribute u ad qusevis onera 
 Parochianis prsedictis incumbentia and this 
 apportionment of parochial taxation, is to be 
 levied “ secundum proediorum ac possessionum 
 quantitatem in Parochiis existentium.” These 
 parochial obligations, are afterwards described, 
 as liabilities, to which the land was subject, and 
 which, therefore, in case of refusal of compliance 
 with the right, should be enforced, 66 onera, quse, 
 consideratis possessionum et redituum quanti- 
 tatibus, imminent vel imponentur eisdem.” 
 
 Upon this Lyndwood remarks, “ Et hoc quod 
 hie dicitur, videtur confirmare notata per John 
 De Athona, viz : quod onus reparationis eecle- 
 sise concernens parochianos, est onus reale, 
 dicens, quod unusquisque parochianus tenetur 
 ad reparationem ecclesise, juxta portionem terrse 
 quam possidet intra parochiam et secundum nu- 
 merum animalium.* 
 
 * Lyndwood, Lib. iii. Tit. 28. De Immunitate Ecclesise p. 254. 
 
64 
 
 We have now, in a sufficient number of in- 
 stances, established, from the canon law of 
 England a perfect similarity to the present times, 
 and the most ancient, of which we have faithful 
 records to guide us. From the commencement 
 of the thirteenth century to the Reformation, 
 the practice has been the same. The canons of 
 the Church, the constitutions of all the clergy 
 assembled in council, the decrees of provincial 
 synods, the laws of the legates of the Roman 
 pontiff, the glosses and commentaries of the 
 most learned canonists of the Church, and, more 
 than all, an unvarying custom, more ancient 
 than the oldest canon, which could be considered 
 as a faithful interpreter of ecclesiastical usage, 
 have each, and all, in one full choir of witnesses, 
 testified that the reparation of the Church was 
 the duty of the parishioner, and not of the 
 rector of the parish. 
 
 The Reader must not forget that Dr. Doyle 
 has admitted that the canon law of England was 
 the only Church law in Ireland. He further 
 observed, “ that the quatuorpartite or tripar- 
 tite division was gradually introduced into the 
 Church — that it obtained by degrees the sane- 
 
65 
 
 tion, not only of the ecclesiastical, but also of 
 the civil, laws throughout Europe ; and that it 
 maintained itself in that shape, till a late period. 
 It seems to have fallen gradually into disuse 
 about the sixteenth century , or shortly before.” 
 He also asserted, and assumed it as certain, 
 66 that by the common law of England, which is 
 referred to, by Blackstone, and also from the 
 passage from Ware, that by the statute and 
 canon law of England and Ireland, the applica- 
 tion of Church property in those countries, is, 
 or ought to be, that which is designated just 
 now by me in the words of Ware.” 
 
 The public may now judge, whether Dr. 
 Doyle’s assertions, unsupported by evidence 
 from law, canon, civil, common, or statute, — 
 from history — from any one authority — is to be 
 credited in preference to the canons of his own 
 church — canons made at the instigation of Popes 
 — enacted by Popish kings — subscribed by a 
 Popish hierarchy — consented to and adopted 
 by the Popish clergy, and submitted to and 
 obeyed by the Popish population of England 
 and Ireland, from the year 1200, to the Refor- 
 mation. 
 
 Gr 3 
 
66 
 
 Dr. Doyle not only has undertaken to assert, 
 in defiance of the canons of the Church of 
 Rome, for such, in fact, they were, though 
 passed in England, that not only one-fourtli or 
 one-third of the tithes was appropriated to the 
 reparation of the Church, but that this obliga- 
 tion was imposed on the clergy, by the express 
 enactments of statute law, his words are, “by 
 the statute and canon law of England and 
 Ireland.” 
 
 What support Dr. Doyle has derived from the 
 canon law, we have had sufficient evidence pro- 
 duced. Perhaps he will be more fortunate in 
 his other adventurous announcement that his 
 imaginary fourfold division of tithes was en- 
 joined by statute law. In the thirty-fifth year 
 of Edward I., in whose reign one of the canons 
 already adverted to, was passed; a remakable 
 statute bearing upon the point under discussion, 
 was enacted. In 1305, the synod of Merton de- 
 creed, that not only the reparation of the 
 Church, within and without, was the duty of the 
 parishioners, but that all the ornaments, dresses, 
 and images, necessary for Roman Catholic wor- 
 ship, should also be provided by them. In the 
 
67 
 
 very same year, the statute, which I shall quote 
 presently, was enacted, whilst the illustrious 
 Edward I. sat on the throne, of whom Sir 
 Matthew Hale has said, (and I quote his 
 opinion for Dr. Doyle, in order to procure some 
 favorable reception for his wisdom in legislation,) 
 “ that more was done, in the first thirteen years 
 of his reign to settle and establish the distribu- 
 tive justice of the kingdom, than in all the 
 ages since that time put together.”* 
 
 The 35 Edward I. is entitled, “ Statutum ne 
 rector prosternat arbores in coemeterio,” and 
 proceeds to declare, “ Because we do under- 
 stand that controversies do oftimes grow between 
 parsons of Churches and their parishioners, 
 touching trees growing in the churchyards, both 
 of them pretending that they do belong unto 
 themselves ; we have thought good, rather to 
 decide this controversy by writing than by sta- 
 tute. Forasmuch as a churchyard that is dedi- 
 cated is the soil of a church, and whatsoever is 
 planted, belongeth to the soil, it must needs 
 follow, that those trees which be growing in the 
 churchyard, are to be reckoned amongst the 
 
 Hale’s Hist. C. L. 156. 
 
68 
 
 goods of the church, the which laymen have no 
 authority to dispose, but, as the Holy Scripture 
 doth testify, the charge of them is committed 
 only to priests to be disposed of. And yet, 
 seeing those trees be often planted to defend the 
 force of the wind from hurting the Church : we 
 do prohibit the parsons of the Church, that they 
 do not presume to fell them down unadvisedly, 
 but when the chancel of the Church doth want 
 reparation, neither shall they be converted to 
 any other use, except the body of the Church 
 need like repair, in which the parsons, of their 
 charity shall do well to relieve the parishioners , 
 with bestowing upon them the same trees, 
 which we will not command to be done, but we 
 will commend it when it is done. 
 
 This statute law is in perfect harmony with 
 the canon enacted at Merton, in the same year, 
 and during the reign of the same king. What 
 could be the charity of the parson to the pa- 
 rishioners, unless by the gift of the trees, he 
 diminished the expense, to which, for the repa- 
 ration of the Church, they were liable. If, 
 according to Dr. Doyle’s theory of ancient 
 ecclesiastical practice, respecting tithes, the 
 
69 
 
 clergy were obliged to yield a fourth or a third 
 of them to the reparation of the Church, will 
 he illuminate the Protestant clergy, who, as 
 he declared, cannot be expected to be acquainted 
 with the canons, with his enlightened commen- 
 tary as to the meaning the British Justinian,* 
 when he recommended to the Roman Catholic 
 clergy of England, to relieve their flocks of 
 their burdens in the reparation of the Church, 
 by charitably bestowing upon them, what, in 
 law, they had no title to demand. 
 
 One point only now remains, in which a com- 
 plete coincidence in the present and ancient 
 practice of the Church, has not been established. 
 To render our proofs as perfect as possible, we 
 shall briefly advert to it. I allude to the repa- 
 ration of the chancel. Where the rectorial 
 tithes are in the hands of laymen, to them ap- 
 pertains the performance of this duty. Where 
 they are not so, the parishioner supplies the 
 defect. And this precisely was the practice of 
 
 * Even among the laws of Canute, one, I find, is, tc Ad 
 refectionem Ecclesise debet omnis populus secundum legem 
 subvenire.” Vide Chronicon Johan. Brompton. Hist. An- 
 glican. Script. Dec. p. 628. 
 
70 
 
 the Church in the times, to which we have 
 already adverted. 
 
 In the year 1322, a Provincial Council* was 
 held at Oxford, in the archbishoprick of Walter 
 Reynolds. In one of the canons of that coun- 
 cil, “ De Visitatione Archdiaconi,” that officer 
 is commanded, “ habeat considerationem ad fa- 
 bricam Ecclesise, et maxime cancelli, si forte 
 indigeat reparatione.” Lyndwood, in explain- 
 ing the practice of the times in which he lived, 
 and the custom of the Church, remarks, “ Con- 
 suetudo tamen transfert onus reparationis, sal- 
 tern navis ecclesise, in parochianos, et similiter 
 cancelli quandoque, sicut satis constat in civitate 
 Londonensi in multis ecclesiis. Et lianc consue- 
 tudinem servare debent compelli parochiani, ubi 
 tabs est consuetudo.”f 
 
 The practice varied according to custom, and, 
 as custom sanctioned the usage, it ought to be 
 enforced. 
 
 * Constitu. Provin. Walteri Reynoldi Cantuariensi editise 
 in consilio Oxon. Anno Domini, 134*2. Annoque Regni 
 Regis Edwardi secundi, Decimo sexto, Johanne Vicesimo 
 primo, alias, secundo Papa. 
 
 * Lyndwood, Lib. i. Tit. 10. De officio Archdiaconi p. 53. 
 
71 
 
 We now demand of the advocates of the 
 fourfold division of tithe, who complain in un- 
 measured vituperation of the priestly spoliation 
 of the poor, and of the detention of that portion 
 of ecclesiastical property, destined for the repara- 
 tion of the Church, that they will first refute 
 the facts and arguments here alleged in justifica- 
 tion of present practice. This is but justice, 
 and it is in her name, they violate or struggle 
 to do so, the chartered privileges of the clergy 
 of the Established Church. 
 
72 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Proofs from the Canon Law of England^ as to the 
 Maintenance of the Poor . 
 
 We shall now pass to the consideration of the 
 second branch of our argument, namely, whe- 
 ther since the institution of the parochial right, 
 one-fourth of the tithe has ever been appro- 
 priated to the maintenance of the poor ? I shall 
 here observe the same order as in the preceding 
 part of the discussion, and shall first refer to the 
 Legatine Constitutions of Otho and Othobon, 
 in the thirteenth century. 
 
 In the entire body of the canon law of Eng- 
 land, from the year 1222 to the Reformation, I 
 have not found, even one reference to the qua- 
 dripartite division of tithe, in which, in any 
 sense, its application is commanded to the poor 
 
73 
 
 or the repairs of the Church. In the glosses of the 
 canonists, reference occasionally, and but seldom 
 too, is made to such a distribution, but every such 
 allusion marks the opinion and judgment of the 
 author, as well as the practice and custom of 
 the time, that such an arrangement depended on 
 the injunctions of foreign canons, or, if it had 
 ever existed in England, had long passed into 
 desuetude. In the statute, known by the title 
 of Circumspecte Agatis, enacted in the reign of 
 Edward I., in the year 1285, mention occurs of 
 the Quarta pars, but it is in a body of laws, pre- 
 scribing the cases in which the Ecclesiastical 
 Judge shall have cognizance, “ non obstante 
 Regia Prohibitione,” and does not refer either 
 to the fabric of the Church, or to the poor. It 
 states, that no dispute, as to the tithes of 
 a parish, between parties contending to whom 
 they were payable, should deprive the Vicar of 
 the portion which it was just to assign him, for 
 the performance of his spiritual duties. In no 
 other canon, save this, can I trace even the men- 
 tion of the word.* 
 
 * Vide Statutum de Crcumspecte Agatis pro moderanda 
 prohibition Regia Editum, 13 Edwardi Primi, Anno 
 Domini, 1285. p. 33. 
 
 H 
 
74 
 
 Before I proceed to examine the documents 
 of our national Canon law, as to the dedication 
 of any portion of Ecclesiastical revenue, to the 
 maintenance of the poor, some preliminary ob- 
 servations are perhaps required. No payment 
 of tithe can be proved in England, till the end of 
 the first four hundred years after Christ. From 
 this period to the eighth century, except in rare 
 instances, the revenues of the Church were derived 
 from voluntary and desultory grants. Endow- 
 ments were scarcely known. From these re- 
 sources, an optional appropriation was made. 
 For no synodical or statute law regulated their 
 distribution. Nor is there any satisfactory evi- 
 dence, which can determine the question, whe- 
 ther even from these grants arbitrarily bestowed, 
 there was any systematic allocation of them, in 
 the mode, which Sir W. Blackstone describes.* 
 But rather the contrary. From this fund, the 
 clergy, at first, received weekly contributions, 
 and afterward mensurnse divisiones, from whence 
 the clergy had the title of Fratres sportulantes. In 
 the fifth century, tenths, but not tithes, wereoffer- 
 
 * See Note G. 
 
75 
 
 ed, and in the seventh, some rare endowments, 
 but no law, as I have said, for the enforcement 
 of tithe. 
 
 When the endowments increased, and clergy- 
 men were located, generally, over the land, the 
 distinction of parishes, grew into general adop- 
 tion. But the payment of the minister, was 
 according to the terms of the endowment, not, 
 as yet, in right of parochial tithe. The adoption 
 of this right, became necessary, in consequence 
 of the Monastic bodies, having engrossed a large 
 proportion of the landed property of the church, 
 as well as the appropriation, to themselves, of 
 the rectorial tithes, of a vast number of parishes. 
 The revenues of the church, were used, by them, 
 for the most iniquitous ends ; houses were built 
 for their concubines and illegitimate children. 
 And, therefore, a maintenance for the clerical 
 body, independent of them, was devised. They 
 were permitted to retain the properties, of which 
 they were already in possession. But the terms 
 of the endowment, were insisted on. The riches, 
 or rather the sources, from which they were 
 derived, were given, under express stipulations. 
 With these stipulations, they were bound to 
 
76 
 
 comply. Morbid piety, in a dark and ignorant 
 age, was chiefly displayed in bestowing gifts on 
 the clergy, under the obligation of praying for 
 the dead. And alms were considered contribu- 
 tory to the salvation of the soul, until it became a 
 consecrated maxim of the church, that Eleemosy- 
 na defunctis et vivis prodest. 
 
 The reader’s attention being attracted to these 
 preliminary observations, he can take a just and 
 more comprehensive view of the synodical autho- 
 rities, which shall now be submitted to his 
 inspection, as to the point, what, and by whom 
 distributed, was the maintenance of the poor ? 
 
 The establishment of the parochial right, to 
 tithe, attained general practice in the reign of 
 Henry III. From that period, to the Refor- 
 mation, the canon law, accurately defines to 
 whom the bestowment of alms, its nature and 
 extent, belonged. It classifies, with exact pre- 
 cision, the duties of the monastic bodies, and of 
 the parochial priest. It does not, in either case, 
 allot, even from the extensive domains of the 
 Religious houses, nor from their plentiful grana- 
 ries, which were filled from the abundance of 
 rectorial tithe, any quadripartite section of their 
 
revenues. Neither does the canon law enjoin 
 this, in any case, as a duty commanded or im- 
 plied, on the parochial clergy. 
 
 Dr. Doyle, or even the most prejudiced inves- 
 tigator of our national canon law, provided lie 
 retain, even the shade of honesty, will be com- 
 pelled to acknowledge that he cannot, even after 
 the most anxious scrutiny, discover one solitary 
 sentence, — one isolated injunction, that can be 
 tortured into a defence of the appropriation of 
 any ordained part of the tithes, now in posses- 
 sion of the Established Clergy, to the mainte- 
 nance of the poor. Nor can even special plead- 
 ing, nor the most refined, nor ingenious sophis- 
 try, aid our panting foe in the pursuit, for there 
 is not even the appearance of justice, to support 
 such an hypothesis. 
 
 Dr. Doyle claims a fourth of the tithes, upon 
 the grounds that “ no statute can be produced 
 to show that the right was taken from the poor.” 
 Did he inquire, whether any act had existed, 
 which it was necessary to repeal, or which could 
 be repealed? He acknowledges, indeed, that 
 no such enactment ever was made. “ But it is 
 
 h 3 
 
78 
 
 common law,” lie alleges, “ because it is sup- 
 posed to have been enacted.” Could the common 
 law right have had force, if ever it had existence, 
 in contravention of the reiterated decisions of 
 the canon law for three hundred years before the 
 Reformation ? If the canon was obeyed, what 
 became of the common law ? If it was not 
 obeyed, where was the authority of the church, 
 of the king, of the senate, and the people ? 
 
 Dr. Doyle, in acknowledging the common law 
 right of the parson to the tithes of his parish, 
 escapes from the force of his own confession, by 
 stating, 66 that after recovering the tithe, the 
 common law charges him to expend it conform- 
 ably to the usages of the church.” But the 
 canons, as w T e shall see, enforce no such right. 
 These canons are the legislation of his own 
 church; and the acknowledged and registered 
 practice of the clergy of the Roman creed for 
 three hundred years, nullified and abrogated the 
 common law right of the poor to the tithe, if 
 they ever had such a right. On them, and not 
 on the Protestant clergy, who have only imitated, 
 in the administration of the Ecclesiastical reve- 
 
79 
 
 nues committed to their care, their pious pre- 
 decessors, let all his vengeance fall. The notion 
 of a common law right, being in full and irre- 
 sistible operation, in despite of a treasury of 
 canons, opposed to it, is but an indifferent com- 
 pliment to the authority of the Pope in England, 
 from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. 
 What shall we say to the legates from the Ro- 
 man See, who enjoined no obedience to the 
 common law right. Are all synods and councils, 
 and canons of monarchs, and bishops, and clergy, 
 set at defiance, and annulled, when Dr. Doyle 
 summons from the grave, some imaginary and 
 romantic right of the poor to a fourth of the 
 tithes ? Or, rather, has not the conduct of 
 the Roman clergy, and their administration of 
 Church revenues, abolished the prevalence and 
 vitality of any pre-existent custom ? The com- 
 mon law right of the parson of the parish 
 to the un diminished tithe, as by the Roman 
 clergy, established, confirmed, and consecrated, 
 by the practice of three hundred years, we imi- 
 tate and adopt. They are the example we fol- 
 low, the precedent we quote, and the authority 
 we allege. In obedience to the practice, their 
 
80 
 
 conduct of ecclesiastical funds has directed us to 
 observe, we are most willing to yield. But, if 
 even supposing a common law to have ever 
 existed, shall we be summoned to listen to its 
 revival, when, the Roman clergy, with more 
 than ten times our present revenues, contra- 
 vened and abolished it ? Shall we be directed 
 by Dr. Doyle to a surrender of one-half of our 
 incomes, when he cannot, in attestation of his 
 doctrines, allege one statute, one canon, one 
 fact? And shall he be permitted to sweep 
 away the legislation of his own Church for three 
 hundred years, and the practice, and customs, 
 and laws, of ours for as many more, because a 
 rancorous and burning hatred to the doctrines of 
 the Protestant Church consumes his cooler judg- 
 ment, and misdirects his acknowledged talents ? 
 
 Such is the confession of his own lips. In 
 1825, he swore that to grant Roman Catholic 
 Emancipation, would tend to the security of 
 the Church of England, and that neither he, 
 nor the bishops, nor clergy of his Church, had 
 the least desire to touch one stone in the build- 
 ing of the Establishment. But now, because the 
 Protestant clergy have boldly exposed the errors 
 
81 
 
 of the Romish creed, he forgets his vows, and 
 promises, and oaths. He falsifies history, to jus- 
 tify his imagined wrongs. He abolishes the 
 canons of his Church, to avenge his foes. He 
 rears up, and defends with zeal, if not with 
 truth, a common law right in the poor to the pro- 
 perty of his assumed assailants, and thus, uninten- 
 tionally, in the whirlwind of his rage, brands, 
 with the language of his fiery indignation, the 
 characters of the clergy of his own Church. For 
 the law which he supposes to have existed, they 
 never obeyed, and the usages of his Church, as 
 by him described, they annihilated by a volumi- 
 nous body of canon laws, in defiance of his 
 vaunted and cherished fourfold division. 
 
 In the first place, one feature which the ca- 
 nons prominently develope, is that in every case, 
 in which the bestowment of alms, from ecclesi- 
 astical funds, is insisted on, reference is made 
 to the Religious houses only. When charity is 
 spoken of as generally necessary, it is of that 
 universal obligation which imposes on all men, 
 lay and clerical, a similar duty. And it is 
 characterised, by a two-fold division — charitativa, 
 and, ex debito servitutis. The former, all clergy- 
 
82 
 
 men were bound to exercise — the latter had re- 
 ference to those solely, to whose guardianship 
 funds had been bequeathed for the poor. As 
 the passage here referred to, gives a general 
 view of the subject under discussion, I shall quote 
 it, before I enter upon a close examination of 
 the canons. In one of the canons of Arch- 
 bishop Langton, “ De officis judicis ordinarii,”* 
 Lyndwood remarks, “ Hospitalitas enim maxime 
 a praelatis et religiosis servanda est. Sic etiam a 
 sacerdotibus et clericis. Hospitalitas quaedam est 
 charitativa et pertinet ad officium pietatis. Alia 
 est quae fit ex debito servitutis. Hospitalitatem 
 primo modo, dictam clerici beneficiati servare, 
 tenentur. Et in liac hospitalitate ubi sic bene- 
 ficiatus potest omnibus ab undare, tunc debet 
 dare omnibus indigentibus. Si autem non pos- 
 sit omnibus ab undare, tunc in praeferendo aliquos 
 debet servare doctrina Ambrosii. Hospitalita- 
 tem, vero secundo modo dictam clerici non te- 
 nentur subire, etiam beneficiati, et hoc est verum, 
 nisi in concession e possessionis Ecclesiae donata 
 aliquid tale fuerit reservatum.” 
 
 Provinciale. G. Lyndwood? Lib. 1. Tit. 13, p. 67. 
 
83 
 
 This passage alone is sufficient to adjust all 
 contrariety of opinion respecting the quadripar- 
 tite division. Charity as a general duty, of 
 Prelates, of all the orders of the monastic insti- 
 tutions, and of every grade of the clerical body, 
 is, primarily enjoined. Then charity is divided 
 into two parts — that which is, as it were optional 
 though necessary, and that which is, as a debt 
 incumbent on property. Of the first kind, all 
 beneficed clergy, are obliged to observe, in the 
 proportion of their means — if rich enough to 
 assist the indigent generally, they ought to do so. 
 If their means are limited, they ought to select 
 the persons most needing their attention. But 
 the charity of the second kind, that is, when 
 something is reserved from the gross amount of 
 Ecclesiastical revenues, the clergy though bene- 
 ficed are not enjoined or bound to comply with, 
 unless some special reservation in the properties 
 committed to their care, exacts this from them, 
 Ex debito servitutis. Could these sentences 
 have been written by the most learned canonist 
 of the fifteenth century, if a fourth of the tithes 
 of all beneficed clergy was already reserved for 
 the poor. And here too we are to observe that 
 
84 
 
 even the charity which the beneficed clergy 
 are counselled to observe, has not the sanction of 
 law to enforce it. The observance of it, is sug- 
 gested only under hortatory authority. 
 
 In the Legatine Constitutions of Otliobon, 
 among the long catalogue of crimes alleged 
 against those who 66 non solum unius beneficii 
 sed multorum intrepide curam suscipiunt, ,, 
 these are recapitulated 66 quanta mala proveni- 
 unt ecclesise, namque maculatur honestas, an- 
 nullatur auctoritas, fides Christi prosternitur, 
 charitas exulat et spes pauperum deperit. 
 
 Upon the words “ spes pauperum deperit,” 
 Atliona refutes the doctrine that 66 bona ecclesia- 
 rum sint bona pauperum” — for as he alleges 
 6 c Pnelati fructuum perceptorum hujusmodi sunt 
 Domini,” — and then he thus explains the nature 
 of this control over the goods of the church, 
 and the dispensation of them, “ et liabent eorum 
 proprietatem quantum ad fidelem et debitam 
 dispensationem, sibi et suis faciendam, non au- 
 tem voluptuosam : et si qui supersunt, non sunt 
 proprii, sed communes, indigentibus et pauperi- 
 bus erogandi. 
 
 * Consti. D. Othoboni de Institutionibus seu Collationibus. 
 Tit. 29. p. 126. 
 
85 
 
 In the first place, here is no trace of a qua- 
 dripartite division, but the allocation of ecclesi- 
 astical revenues, is regulated by the decision of 
 the prelate. His own wants, and those of his 
 clergy, are first to be protected, and, if (this 
 hypothetical conjunction is a valuable item in 
 our argument) any thing remains, that is to be 
 the portion of the poor. 
 
 We shall describe, more precisely, the nature 
 and extent of the eleemosynary assistance, which 
 the Religious Houses were necessitated to dis- 
 pense to the poor. And then, I shall refer to the 
 specific cases, in which the canons enjoined 
 charitable distribution, on the parochial priest. 
 
 In neither case, as we have observed, is this 
 allotment ordained, according to any fixed pro- 
 portion of their respective properties. 
 
 The laws, which regulated the charitable dis- 
 tributions in monasteries, were very precise, and 
 their extent accurately defined. We find them 
 thus described, by Archbishop Langton, in 1222. 
 All luxury in living, and variety of food, having 
 been forbidden, — an interdict unnecessary to 
 enjoin, on their pious inmates, — the canon pro- 
 ceeds, “ omnia autem victualia religiosis appo- 
 
 i 
 
86 
 
 nenda sine substractione, tam in eonventu quam 
 alibi, ubi reficientur. Et de omnibus appositis, 
 totum residuum sine diminutione aliqua eedat in 
 eleemosynam per eleemosynarium egentibus si- 
 mul erogandum. Ita quod nec Abbas, nec 
 Prior nec Eleemosynarius posset contra hoc dis- 
 pensare.”* 
 
 The precision of this requirement appears from 
 some additional information, furnished by Lynd- 
 wood, 66 unde ex hoc apparet, quod de appositis 
 tempore prandii, nihil debet reservari ad ccenam, 
 etiamsi panes aliqui tunc appositi remaneant 
 integri, aliqua etiam fercula remanserunt intacta: 
 nec de csena in aliud tempus.”f 
 
 The description of persons, to whom the 
 superfluities of the abstemious Monks, were 
 given, are then rehearsed, with all due attention 
 to accuracy. But even the selection of one class 
 of persons, in preference to another, extinguishes 
 the notion of a general distribution among the 
 poor. However, if the speculator on the quad- 
 ripartite controversy, has even a reed, to erect 
 
 * Consti. Provin. in concilio. Oxon. D. Step. Lang. Can- 
 tua. Ar. p. 6. 
 
 f Lyndwoocl Lib. iii. Tit. 19. p. *209. 
 
87 
 
 his sophistries upon, the following words of our 
 learned canonist, will immediately show how 
 fragile was this hope. The distribution was 
 made “ Egentibus ad corporis sustentationem, 
 maxime his qui suis manibus laborare non pos- 
 sunt, nam qui laborare potest, si se immisceat 
 eleemosynse ridigitur in servitutem.” The Elee- 
 mosynarius is controlled in the distribution, by 
 nine wholesome laws. Yet it so happens, that the 
 exercise of every one of them annihilates the 
 sophistry of any supposed indiscriminate and 
 general distribution ; or, that the charitable be- 
 quests of the righteous Monks were ever in- 
 tended, as a maintenance of the poor. He was 
 bound, for instance, to consider the faith of the 
 applicant, which excludes the notion of an ab- 
 stract right in the pauper. We cannot pause to 
 remark, that the not keeping faith with a here- 
 tic, was piously extended to the starvation of 
 his body. The Eleemosynarius was obliged to 
 respect the claims of a captive, which necessa- 
 rily might exclude the extension of alms to 
 another, however miserable his poverty, who was 
 not a captive. Those incarcerated for debt de- 
 manded his special care, which implies a limi- 
 
88 
 
 tation to particular objects, and restricts the 
 claim of a general distribution. He had the 
 right also, and a very copious privilege it was, 
 to prefer the claims of his own kindred to any 
 other, “ propinquos sanguinis sui aliis prseferat.” 
 However, it is but just to observe, that this rule 
 was guarded by a most conservative caution, 
 “ ut eos pascat propter carnis sustentationem, 
 non autem ditet propter carnalem amorem.” 
 
 We shall, now, consider the obligations as to 
 eleemosynary aid, to which the parochial clergy 
 were bound, by the canon law of England. In 
 the constitutions of Archbishop Peccham,* is 
 this canon. 
 
 Statuimus ut liectores, qui in ecclesiis suis 
 non faciunt residentiam corporalem, nec habent 
 vicarios, per oeconomos suos hospitalitatis gratiam 
 exhibeant, juxta quod sufficiant eccleske facili- 
 tates, adeo ut saltern parochianorum pauperum 
 necessitati extremse subveniatur. Et ut qui 
 ibidem transeunt et prsedicant verbum dei, neces- 
 
 * Constitutiones Fratris Johannis Peccham Caentuariensis 
 Archiepiscopi apud Lambeth Editae Anno Domini 1*281, Reg- 
 ni Regis Edwardi Primi. 9. Martino secundo Alias, quarto, 
 Pontitice Maximo, p. 30. 
 
89 
 
 saria recipiant corpori alimenta, lie ecclesise, 
 ipsorum inopiae violentia, a predicantibus merito 
 deserantur. 
 
 These two duties are enjoined thus generally. 
 They are not enforced by any authority, separa- 
 ting from the amount of the Rector’s Ecclesias- 
 tical revenues, a fixed and destined sum. For 
 the distribution to the poor, scriptural warrant 
 is alleged, but no law, canon, or civil, or com- 
 mon, is specified. The introductory words be- 
 fore statuimus, are “Praeterea cumsacro testante 
 eloquio, pastores sibi greges creditos pascere te- 
 neantur, ac os bovis triturantis non debeat alli- 
 gari.” If even these passages of scripture were 
 correctly applied, which they are not, they 
 would carry with them, no injunction as to the 
 dedication of a fourth of the tithe to the poor. 
 One of them refers to the spiritual duties of the 
 pastor to his flock, and the other, to the obliga- 
 tion of the flock to provide a temporal mainte- 
 nance for him. The scriptural authority, namely, 
 that the labourer is worthy of his hire, alleged 
 for the rector providing for itinerant pastors, is 
 necessarily vague in appropriating any regulated 
 sum for these duties. So that all that the canon 
 
 i 3 
 
90 
 
 enjoins, is hospitality to the poor, and the mis- 
 sionary preacher of the gospel. While the war- 
 ranty of revelation is naturally distorted by those 
 whose successors are emulous to perpetuate the 
 hereditary odium of undervaluing the written 
 word of God. 
 
 But more important considerations are con- 
 nected with this canon. Two duties are enforced 
 in it. But on whom ? On rectors who did not 
 reside on their benefices. If the rector did not 
 reside, the poor were to be relieved. If he did 
 not supply a vicar, the missionary was to be 
 temporarily supported. Therefore, there is not, 
 even here, more than an implication that if the 
 rector did reside, he was bound to the perform- 
 ance of the duties, which are here enjoined on 
 the rector, who did not reside. It might be 
 assumed that the requirement of a distribu- 
 tion to the poor, by an absent rector, was a 
 punishment for his absence, and that his resid- 
 ence released him from the implied injunction. 
 But, allow the largest interpretation to the 
 canon, and that rectors absent and resident, 
 were under the obligation of a similar responsi- 
 bility to the poor, to what does it amount ? To 
 
91 
 
 a quadripartite division of their tithes? No 
 such thing. For the law here defines the 
 extent, or rather the species of the duty, “ adeo 
 ut saltern parochianorum pauperum necessitati 
 extremse subveniatur.” How much this may 
 require, we are not informed in the canon itself. 
 The absence of this precise knowledge, is an 
 argument opposed to a definite division. The 
 portion to be allotted is optional. The cecono- 
 mus was to be the despenser only of the part 
 distributed “ per oeconomos suos Hospitalitatis 
 gratiam exhibeant.” This rule, as we shall just 
 now observe, was very different from that by 
 which the allotment of the ecclesiastical goods 
 of the religious houses, was regulated by the 
 bishop. 
 
 But a word more on this point. The nature 
 of the hospitality here enjoined, regards not all 
 the poor parishioners of the parish, which shows 
 there was no general law authorizing, even in the 
 case of an absentee rector, a disbursement of 
 any part of his tithes, to the poor. For even 
 the phrase, u poor parishioner,” was limited to 
 him, who was in extreme necessity. What 
 quality of distress this was, Roman Catholic 
 
commentators, who lived centuries before the 
 Reformation, inform us. For instance, Lynd- 
 wood thus decribes, first, the nature of this 
 duty, as to the person, who performs it ; 
 and secondly, the character of the person to 
 whom it is to be dispensed. “ Tenetur itaque 
 quilibet , maxime Vir Ecclesiasticus, necessitatem 
 habenti subvenire, ex charitate.” Here is a 
 confirmation of the doctrine, as already ex- 
 plained, of charity as generally obligatory. And 
 on the parochial minister, no farther than his 
 conduct should serve to others as an example, is 
 this duty more binding than it is on all men. 
 He, from his ecclesiastical goods, all others, 
 from their various properties, are bound to the 
 fulfilment of the same divine principle. His 
 obligations are more accurately specified, but 
 they are not more imperative by law. They 
 amount to this,* “ Sed quia in omni necessitate 
 
 The entire note deserves transcription. Ex liac conjunc- 
 tione adversativa ( saltern ) apparet quod non intendit Legislator 
 eos, de quibus hie loquitur, arctare ad omnem hospitalitatem, 
 sed ad congruentem, et ad minus earn. Non dicit omnium 
 parochianorum. Nec intendit ultimate de omni paupere 
 parochiano, sed de qui indiget necessitate extrema. — Lyndwood 
 Provin. De Clericis non Resid. Lib. iii. Tit. 4. p. 133. 
 
93 
 
 non potest quis alteri subvenire, ideo tenetur, 
 saltern in necessitate extrema succurrere.” 
 Here we must observe, that the duty is argued 
 on general grounds. The absent rector, by 
 this law, is held responsible for the performance 
 of certain duties, to which the representative of 
 any property is equally bound. On the suppo- 
 sition that the resident rector is under similar 
 obligations, the extent of any compulsory as- 
 sessment is limited to giving assistance to those 
 in extreme want. And that no defined propor- 
 tion of the ecclesiastical revenues of rectors, 
 whether absent or resident, was assigned for 
 this purpose, these words fully evince, “ tabs 
 sustentatio fiat de eo, quod alicui deductis ne- 
 cessariis, pro sustentatione propria et suorum, 
 ac onerum sibi incumbentium, superest.” Thus 
 it is evident, that the parochial minister was his 
 own legislator, and his conscience was the law 
 that regulated the appropriation of any part of 
 his ecclesiastical property, to the poor. 
 
 Thomas Aquinas* defines to what class of 
 misery the phrase “ extrema necessitas” refers, 
 
 * Quart. Dist. 15. 
 
94 
 
 quod tunc intelligendus est casus extreme ne- 
 cessitatis, quando apparent signa probabilia 
 extremse necessitatis future, nisi ei subveniatur. 
 Non enim expectanda est ultima necessitas, qui 
 tunc forte non posset juvari, natura jam fame 
 vel siti consumpta” These nice distinctions in 
 doling out charity, while we sneer at their 
 sophistry and pagan heartlessness, enable us 
 fully to conclude, that the poor were not main- 
 tained from the property of the Church. If 
 they had, ingenuity would not thus be tortured 
 for a defence for abrogating some of the grand 
 capital letters of Christian doctrine. When 
 Aquinas wrote this passage, about the year 1250, 
 could any settled ordinance have had existence 
 for the maintenance of the poor? Could this be 
 so, when the Angelical doctor thus, in the scales 
 of nicely balanced parsimony, assigns a voluntary 
 contribution, so stingily meted, that the dying 
 alone partook of it. 
 
 But we must not taint the memory of this 
 sainted Doctor by an unjust aspersion. His 
 charities were distributed in such accurately 
 ordered time, that he anticipated the moment 
 when the patient would have perished from hun- 
 
95 
 
 ger and thirst. How charitable the sentiment ! 
 How profound the wisdom ! yet these are the 
 men* and this their law and practice, which the 
 clergy of the Protestant Church of England, 
 are called upon by Dr. Doyle, to imitate and 
 adopt. 
 
 In the year 1342, John Stratford, being Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, a Provincial synod was 
 held in London, one of the canons of that synod 
 I shall here insert, f 
 
 De Elemosynis faciendis in Parochiis Ecclesi- 
 arum appropriatarum. 
 
 “ In Decimis, et cseteris Ecclesiarum rebus 
 dispensandis, cum viris ecclesiasticis permissa 
 
 * Another of these charitable Doctors of the civil law, thus 
 nicely poises the duty of parochial ministers “ Sed quid si 
 plures sint egentes, cui vel quibus debet citius subvenire ? Die, 
 aut, unus est magis egens quam alius, et illi est citius succur- 
 rendum. Aut, uterque sequaliter eget, et tunc, si sufheit succur- 
 rere ambobus (how much to be lamented, that there is no 
 latin dual number) debet utrique subvenire. Si vero non 
 sufficiat, gratification: locus est.” Henr. de Bowyco. de 
 pseni. et remis. cap. cum ex eo. di. 3. ver. 
 
 f Constitutiones Provinci. Johannis Statford, Cantua. 
 Archie, editse Londini, in conciliis provinci. x. die mensis 
 Ooctobris, Anno Domini 1342. 
 
96 
 
 sit facultas, hujusmodi rerum compendio pauperes 
 ne defraudenter : sed Religiosi nostrse Provincise 
 appropriatas obtinentes sibi ecclesias, fructus, 
 reditus, et proventus earum sic suis cupide ni- 
 tuntur usibus applicare, quod dispensandi Dei 
 misericordiam Parochianis sic appropiatarum Ec- 
 clesiarum regeneratis filiis, quantenus indigenti- 
 bus, quibus, tanquam suis domesticis naturalibus 
 instructis exemplo, quam extraneis, plus tenen- 
 tur, in nullo exhibent, nec inter eos exercere 
 curant qusevis opera Charitatis. Unde sic nimis 
 agentes avare, Decimarum et Ecclesiasticorum 
 Jurium debi tores, nedum indevotos efficiunt : 
 sed eorum perversos invasores, et consumptores, 
 turbatoresque nefandos, occasionaliter instituunt, 
 in suarum propriarum, et ipsorum grande peri- 
 culum Animarum, et scandalum plurimorum. 
 Unde Sacri liujus approbatione Concilii, Statui- 
 mus, quod Religiosi prsedicti, Beneficia appro- 
 priata obtinentes Ecclesiastica, secundum Bene- 
 ficiorum hujusmodi facilitates, annis singulis, 
 pauperibus Parochianis, beneficiorum hujusmodi 
 certam Eleemosynse quantitatem episcoporum 
 locorum moderandam arbitrio , per ipsos Episco- 
 pos distribuere compellantur, sub poena Seques- 
 
97 
 
 trationis fructuum, et proventuum Beneficiorum 
 hujusmodi, donee in prsemissis paruerint com- 
 petenter.” 
 
 If any pen, but tlie infallible authority of a 
 Roman Cotliolic Archbishop, had described the 
 avarice and guilt of those religious monks, we 
 should be told that bigotry alone pourtrayed it. 
 The canon complains of, and condemns, the 
 pernicious avarice of the monks, who had heaped 
 together the revenues of a great number of 
 Rectories; and instead of applying any portion 
 of them to the use of the poor, had profligately 
 squandered them on their own debaucheries. 
 “ In nullo exhibent, nec inter eos exercere cu- 
 rant, quoevis opera charitatis.” To remedy 
 these evils, this canon was enacted, and there- 
 fore it was decreed, that a certain portion of 
 their revenues derived from these appropriate 
 Rectories, should be devoted to the poor. The 
 portion to be assigned was to be regulated ar~ 
 bitrio episcoporum, and sequestration of the 
 produce of these livings was the punishment for 
 disobedience. Let it be remembered that the 
 injunctions in this canon respecting an allotment 
 of ecclesiastical property to the poor, apper- 
 
 K 
 
98 
 
 tained solely and exclusively to the Religious 
 Houses, and not to the parochial Priest, u statui- 
 mus, quod religiosi prsedicti, beneficia appro- 
 priata obtinentes ecclesiastica, pauperibus paro- 
 chianis eleemosynam distribuere compelluntur. ,, 
 
 In the first place, even in the present instance 
 of aggravated guilt in the misapplication of the 
 proceeds of these rectories, and when a dedica- 
 tion of a portion of them, may be assumed as a 
 punitive retribution, no fixed deduction from 
 the amount of tithes is specified, much less any 
 quadripartite partition. If such a division had 
 any legal sanction, or was discoverable in prac- 
 tice, would not the law have been alleged, and 
 the infraction of the practice arrayed against 
 these pious delinquents. Instead thereof, even 
 in the visitation of archiepiscopal authority, and 
 in the establishment of a power to controul these 
 misdeeds, the assignment of the portion of tithes 
 to the poor, is to be regulated by the sole unre- 
 stricted mandate of the bishop. If, therefore, 
 no authority in law, and no example in practice, 
 could be brought to bear upon a case, wherein 
 the persons possessed of tithes, not only did not 
 reside in one parish, from whom they derived 
 
99 
 
 them, but whose avarice occasioned many pa- 
 rishes to be left in the same deserted situation : 
 if the pernicious consequences of this absence, 
 were heightened by the gross misapplication of 
 the funds derived from them — and if, notwith- 
 standing the necessity of applying the utmost 
 rigor of the law, to enforce a restoration to the 
 poor, thus deprived, of whatever legally was 
 their right, yet that no fourth part of Church 
 revenues was allotted to them, but on the con- 
 trary, a new power was invented, requiring the 
 sanction of an express canon, to enforce it; by 
 what rhetorical delusion, or inconclusive rea- 
 soning does Dr. Doyle arrive at the deduction, 
 that still the parochial minister, who resided on 
 his benefice, and possessed but one parish, was 
 bound to observe a rule, from which they who 
 were possessed of many, and resided on none of 
 them, were exempted. This is a happy instance 
 of the argument a fortiori, yet, perfectly in har- 
 mony with the usual no-sense declamation of the 
 enemies of the church. 
 
 The difference to which I have already ad- 
 verted between the duties as to the poor, incum- 
 bent on non-resident Rectors, and the members 
 
100 
 
 of the Religious Houses, is thus described by 
 Lyndwood, “ In hoc differunt Religiosi haben- 
 tes Ecclesias appropriatas ab aliis Rectoribus 
 qui non resident.” Mark the distinction is only 
 drawn between the Religious orders, and the 
 Rectors who did not reside. An implication that 
 to the Rectors who did reside, this duty in the 
 same extent, did not apply. 66 Nam Rectores 
 hujusmodi tenentur ad liospitalitatem , in loco 
 Beneficii, maxime pro pauperibus parochianis 
 suis in extrema necessitate constitutis. Illi autem 
 Religiosi non tenentur ad liospitalitatem hujus- 
 modi, sed ad Eleemosynam in pecunia largienda , 
 ut hie patet.” This appears satisfactorily and 
 completely to clear the question, as to any pecu- 
 niary distribution from the Rectors of Benefices 
 not appropriate, and particularly, from such as 
 have resident incumbents. 
 
 The ancient law and practice as to the right 
 in the poor to any Ecclesiastical property, are 
 more fully developed, by the consideration of the 
 remedy by which a compulsory payment of their 
 legal claim, could be secured. For if the right 
 existed, doubtless the means of asserting and 
 vindicating it, also existed. On the question 
 
101 
 
 “Nunquid facta moderatione hujus summse (the 
 portion which the Bishop had the power of 
 assigning from the rectories of the Religious 
 Houses) per Episcopum, oriatur ex hoc, istis pau- 
 peribus aliqua actio ?” Lyndwood decisively an- 
 swers “ Videtur ouod non.” And his reason- 
 ing in vindication of his opinion is still more 
 satisfactory “ Quia cum personse istorum paupe- 
 rum sint incertse, non potest constare, quibus 
 eorum applicetur obligatio, quse est mater actio- 
 nis personalis, qualis esset ista.” Now surely if 
 a settled dividend of Church property had been 
 the right of the poor, the ceconomus would have 
 received it, and distributed it ; and if he did not 
 receive it, from those, who ought to pay it, he 
 could have enforced it by law, otherwise the 
 giving it, was optional, which annihilates the 
 notion of property. But no such power to en- 
 force it, existed, for no law sanctioned the 
 power. 
 
 A case is then supposed by the learned canon- 
 ist. “ Puto tamen, quod si in Parochia esset 
 Collegium Pauperum, quod tunc eis, tanquam 
 personse, satis certa daretur actio.” So that the 
 legal right could only be enforced, when there 
 
 k 3 
 
102 
 
 was a Collegium Pauperum, and therefore in 
 ninety nine parishes out of a hundred, no parti- 
 tion of tithes to the poor could be enforced. And 
 even this stands on the dubious authority of a 
 Puto tamen. And distinctly to mark that no 
 right lay to the poor in tithes, except where 
 there was an endowment, he observes “ Si non 
 sit Collegium, tunc sicut alias favore pietatis, 
 valet relictum pauperibus, licet incertis personis/* 
 
 Now be it observed that all this reasoning and 
 learning of the ancient canonists, are not directed 
 to the general right of the poor to a portion of 
 the tithes, but these clouds of uncertainty and 
 doubt are suspended over the ecclesiastical pro- 
 perties of the monasteries, to whose devout in- 
 mates, pre-eminently, the protection of the poor 
 was committed. And every exemption which the 
 imperfection or inadequacy of the law extended 
 to them, threw a tenfold more ample shield over 
 the properties of the Resident Rectors. 
 
 If any remnant of the fourfold division could 
 be traced, at the period when the canon of Arch- 
 bishop Stratford was enacted in 1342, would not 
 the Bishop to whom was consigned the autho- 
 rity of appropriating a portion of the monastic 
 
\ 
 
 103 
 
 revenues to the poor, have in this instance of 
 aggravated dereliction of sacred responsibility, 
 recurred to it ? Could the existence of such 
 an appropriation as a fourth of the tithes of pa- 
 rochial ministers have been known, when here it 
 is not only, not mentioned and enforced, but 
 the canonists, are even in doubt, what portion, 
 it would be equitable for the bishop to separate 
 from the monastic funds. 
 
 And when we consider the accumulated guilt 
 and enormous debauchery; the profanation of 
 the most sacred trusts, and the notorious and 
 shameless vices, which even the homage, which 
 ordinary profligates pay to decency and the world, 
 did not conceal ; when we remember that this is 
 the recorded history of the monks, and recorded 
 too, by Roman Catholic authorities, and by the 
 authors and publishers of the canon law of Eng- 
 land, which law, in numerous instances, branded 
 them with all this foul catalogue of sin, in order 
 that punishment might overtake them in their 
 transgressions; when we place these facts be- 
 fore us, and then turn to the canon, which de- 
 creed that Episcoporum arbitrio, a portion of this 
 wickedly acquired wealth, should be devoted to 
 
104 
 
 the poor, can we suppose that the utmost extre- 
 mity of the law would not have been marshalled 
 into operative energy, even supposing, it had for 
 some time lain dormant, in order that the largest 
 substraction that it was possible to make from 
 the revenues of these sacerdotal debauchees, 
 might diminish their power, (for their inclination 
 it was impossible to control) to indulge in all their 
 carnal wickedness, and filthy licentiousness. 
 
 But in order to strengthen this argument, it 
 may be said, that I have magnified these enor- 
 mities. The canon, which now we have exa- 
 mined, describes their avarice to be so boundless, 
 that into the possession of the Rectories thus 
 accumulated for the indulgence of their sins, 
 “perversos invasores et consumptores, turbatores- 
 que, instituunt. ,, But in a synod of a council held 
 when Edmund de Abendonia was Archbishop of 
 Canterbury in the year 1234, this notable evi- 
 dence of the unstained sanctity of the clergy 
 appears u Concubinse sacerdotum moveantur ab 
 Archdiacono, et prsecipue a sacerdotibus in quo- 
 rum parochia morantur, ut vel matrimonium con- 
 trahant (even the infallible church consented to 
 abrogate the law of celibacy, to save the priests 
 
105 
 
 from shame,) vel claustrum ingrediantur ; vel 
 sicut publice pecaverunt , publice agant pani- 
 tentiam. Their punishment, however, was greater 
 than they could bear. “ Quod si nullum isto- 
 rum per monitionem reduci possint, interdicto 
 eis, primo, pacis osculo,” &c. # 
 
 At an earlier period, we discover the pious 
 uses to which the property of the Church was 
 devoted. “ Quonam plures, ut non solum filiis 
 et nepotibus suis, verum etiam concubinis, Patri- 
 minum Jesu Christi dent, domos in laico fundo 
 sedificare prsesumunt, ad quas, Ecclesiasticos pro- 
 ventus deportantes, dum proximis in sanguine 
 bona Ecclesiastica congregant, iram dei, ad dam- 
 nationem perpetuam thesaurisant.” This canon 
 was enacted in 1222, when Stephen Lang ton 
 was Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 
 Here is evidence f sufficient to establish, that if 
 
 * Consti Provin. S. Edmundi Cantuariensis Archie, qui con- 
 secratus est A. D. 1234, tempore Henrici 3. Angliae Regis 
 Gregorio. 9. sedente Papa, p. 11. 
 
 f Consti. Provin. in Oxon. p. 8. See also, for further 
 information, a few more instances selected from many, Consti. 
 He Reading, 1279, p. 24. He concubinariis. Consti. Vene- 
 rahilis Henrici Chicheley, Cantua. Archie, editae apud Otte- 
 ford, A. D. 1415, p. 69. and Consti D. Othoboni. p. 126. 
 edit. Oxoniae, 1679, 
 
106 
 
 the extremity of the law might equitably be 
 applied in any case, to an enforcement of the 
 fourth of the tithes to the poor, the conduct of 
 the Monks, and the immense mass of treasure 
 they had appropriated to themselves, would have 
 justified such a measure. But what is more to 
 our purpose, the law would have been exerted in 
 its most rigorous injunctions. For in numerous 
 councils, it appears that the king, under whose 
 auspices they were convened, and the Pope, 
 whose legatine commissions into England, were 
 special interferences to enforce observance of the 
 canon law, and a more systematic devotion to 
 ecclesiastical discipline; as well as the Arch- 
 bishops and Bishops of the Church, were each, 
 and all, most solicitous to restrain the wanton 
 debauchery of the religious orders, and to vindi- 
 cate the character of the nation, and the sacred 
 name of religion, by an uncompromising enforce- 
 ment of every law that could diminish the grow- 
 ing power of the Monks, and enormous accu- 
 mulation of monastic wealth. Yet in no instance, 
 can one canon law be found, since the institution 
 of the parochial right to tithe in 1200, in which, 
 even the religions orders were required to fulfil 
 
107 
 
 the conditions of this supposed appropriation of 
 a fourth of their revenues to the poor. Doubt- 
 less, the power of these monastic bodies was 
 great, and in many instances, sufficient to con- 
 trol both pope and king, the parliament and the 
 law. But it is just as true, that the most vigo- 
 rous efforts were made to apply every ordinance, 
 legal and sacred, to effectuate a curtailment of 
 their authority, and their riches. Yet, no at- 
 tempt, was ever hazarded, to compel them, on 
 whom especially, the obligation of maintaining 
 the poor, was incumbent, to apply, for this end, 
 any regulated portion of their revenues. The 
 law, pressed to its highest power, extended no 
 farther than the decree of a council, that, accord- 
 ing to the arbitrement of the bishop, some divi- 
 sion of their property should be thus devoted. 
 But, this portion was undetermined, though the 
 law itself was enacted for the benefit of the 
 poor, and for the punishment of those who had 
 neglected them. 
 
 If these statements of the duties of the reli- 
 gious orders, to the poor, be true in history, in 
 law, and in fact, and if they be not so, let Dr. 
 Doyle refute them, where will, even his inven- 
 
108 
 
 tion forge any defence for the alleged dedication 
 of a fourth of the tithe of parochial ministers, 
 to the same purpose. 
 
 This voluminous recapitulation, however te- 
 dious to the reader, and laborious and uninterest- 
 ing to the author, was necessarily produced, to 
 refute the false assumptions of Dr. Doyle, who 
 gladly relies upon any speculative theory, or 
 plausible hypothesis, provided the operation of 
 the one, or the adoption of the other, can faci- 
 litate the overthrow, or even the dismemberment, 
 of the Church of England. 
 
 Beside the proofs already alleged in defence 
 of the doctrine, that no deduction was ever 
 made, in all the ancient history of the Church 
 of England, of one-fourth of the tithe to the 
 poor, and of the same proportion for the repa- 
 ration of the church, since the institution of 
 parochial right, we have other and abundant 
 evidence to substantiate our position. And, in 
 selecting authorities, to establish this argument, 
 I shall prefer that one, in the first instance, upon 
 whom our adversaries rely, and whom they con- 
 fidently, but ignorantly, quote, in attestation of 
 
109 
 
 their ill-grounded speculations. I mean, Sir 
 William Blackstone.* 
 
 66 We are next to consider the persons to whom 
 tithes are due. And upon their first introduction, 
 though every man was obliged to pay tithes in 
 general, yet he might give them to what priest 
 he pleased, which were called arbitrary conse- 
 crations of tithes ; or he might pay them into 
 the hands of the bishop, who distributed among 
 his diocesan clergy, the revenues of the church, 
 which were then in common. But when dioceses 
 were divided into parishes, the tithes of each 
 parish were allotted to its oicn particular minister ; 
 first, by common consent, or the appointments 
 of lords of manors, and afterwards by the written 
 law of the land. .... 
 
 In process of years, the income of the poor 
 laborious parish Priests being scandalously re- 
 duced by those arbitrary consecrations of tithes, 
 it was remedied by Pope Innocent the Third, 
 about the year 1200, in a decretal epistle, sent 
 to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and dated 
 
 * Commentaries, vol. 2. p. 26. — See the preceding pages, 
 12 to 33. 
 
 L 
 
110 
 
 from the Palace of the Lateran. This letter of 
 Pope Innocent, to the Archbishop enjoined the 
 ‘ payment of tithes to the parsons of the respective 
 parishes where every man inhabited , agreeable to 
 what was afterwards directed by the same Pope 
 in other countries. ..... 
 It afterwards became lex terrse.” 
 
 The parochial right to tithes as here explained, 
 is abridged from the account given by Selden, 
 who has recorded instances of cases in which 
 the tithes were appropriated, after the year 
 1200, to the Parish Priest, as well as, in- 
 stances of suits for tithe after this period, when 
 the only title adduced in court to establish the 
 minister’s right to them was that the land on 
 which they grew, lay “ infra limites parochise 
 suae.”* Among the former class of proofs he 
 states that Pope Alexander the Third directed 
 the Archbishop of York, to build a church in 
 that town and institute an incumbent to it, 
 “ that he might have to his own use , all ecclesias- 
 tique profits encreasing in the limits of the same 
 town .” Of the latter class of proofs, he cites the 
 following : “ upon delegation made by Pope 
 
 * Selden on tithes, c. ix. p. 267 and c. xi. p. 363. 
 
Ill 
 
 Innocent the Fourth, in 49 Henry 3. to the 
 Priors of S. Trinity and S. Bartholomew in 
 London, and the Archdeacon of Westminister, 
 for the deciding of a controversie ’twixt the 
 Abbess and Nuns of Chartris of Ely, and 
 Robert Passelew Archdeacon of Lewes, about 
 some tithes in the possession of the Nunnery 
 in Barington, it appears that in Passelew’s libel, 
 no other title is made, but that the Land lies 
 infra limites Parochiae suae de Barenton, unde 
 petit dictam Abbatissam compelli integre ad 
 solutionem dictarum Decimarum cum damnis 
 et interesse, &c. and some others like are of 
 that time according to the law that to this day 
 continues, as may especially be found in the 
 books of Pipewell and Ossney.”* 
 
 M. S. in Bibli. Cottoniana. Selden. 
 
112 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A further Examination of Dr. Doyles assertion , 
 that the Poor have a common law right to a fourth 
 of the Tithes of the Church of England. 
 
 Dr. Doyle’s last refuge in defence of a qua- 
 dripartite, or tripartite, division of titlie, is thus 
 expressed : “ I acknowledge, and believe, and 
 know, that the parson has a common law right 
 to recover the tithes ; but, I say, that after re- 
 covering it, the common law obliges him to 
 expend it conformably to the the usages of the 
 Church.” 
 
 I freely admit that the establishment, by fair 
 proof from history, and the usages of the Church, 
 of this asserted common law right, would, at 
 least, furnish some plausible apology for Dr. 
 Doyle’s contemptuous disregard of the array of 
 his own canons, which I have marshalled against 
 his favorite supposition. 
 
113 
 
 In the first place, it is not yet in proof, that, 
 after the Church had obtained property, any 
 legal fourfold division of it was made. In Eng- 
 land it was never practised after the maintenance 
 of the clergy had been provided for, from a set- 
 tled revenue. Selden has declared, “that the 
 making a common treasury in every diocese, 
 was discontinued about five hundred years after 
 Christ, and the chaplain or incumbent received 
 now the profits that rose out of Christian devo- 
 tion.” If the ecclesiastical law of England, as 
 is acknowledged, was adopted and used in 
 Ireland, the custom was necessarily assimilated 
 as to the division of tithe. The existence of 
 the Quarta pars Episcopalis, upon which Dr. 
 Doyle, upon the authority of Ware, so largely in- 
 sists, in reality possesses no weight to strengthen 
 his hypothesis. For, though it remains to this 
 day in the diocese of Clonfert, and could be 
 traced, a few years since, in that of Tuam, 
 yet it does not, and cannot necessarily follow', 
 that, after the Church had obtained an inherit- 
 ance of her own, such a fourfold partition of 
 her property, as speculatists now advocate, was, 
 therefore, generally observed. For, when the 
 
 l 3 
 
114 
 
 practice of a common treasury in every diocese 
 had ceased, by reason of the location of paro- 
 chial ministers, the canons, nevertheless, still 
 reserved the quarta pars to the bishop. The 
 traces of it, therefore, now discoverable, are 
 but the ancient relics of primitive practice, nor 
 hence can it be inferred, that, because the bishop’s 
 part, in a few instances, continued in obedience 
 to the canon that reserved it; the right of the 
 poor to a fourth of the tithes, still remains in equal 
 force. But precisely the contrary is the just 
 consequence from the fact of the existence of the 
 Quarta pars Episcopalis. Perhaps no stronger 
 argument could be alleged, in opposition to this 
 asserted right of the poor. “ The chaplain or 
 incumbent received now (when the diocesan 
 treasury was discontinued) the profits that rose 
 out of Christian devotion, the canons , nevertheless , 
 saving the fourth part to the bishops.” The 
 canon, therefore, which sanctioned the contin- 
 uance of the episcopal right, annihilated by the 
 very selection of one claimant out of four, any 
 right in the other parties, to a similar protec- 
 tion. 
 
115 
 
 But, to cede every point that maybe inferred 
 from the admission, that all Dr. Doyle’s deduc- 
 tions, respecting the primitive distribution of 
 tithe, are valid and correct, impairs not, in the 
 least, the foundation on which I have argued 
 this question. If, even from the introduction of 
 Christianity into these islands to the year five 
 hundred, when voluntary contributions gradually 
 died away, and the necessities of the Church 
 were supplied from the resources of fixed eccle- 
 siastical property; if we extend the admission 
 that the fourfold division was made, with no less 
 precision from the inheritance of the Church, 
 than from the arbitrary offerings of the pious, 
 even to the commencement of the thirteenth 
 century, it cannot be assumed, that a common 
 law right for the perpetuation of a like partition 
 of Church property ought still to continue, 
 unless Dr. Doyle can prove that no interruption 
 to the prevalence of that right occurred from 
 the thirteenth century to the Reformation. If 
 three hundred years, not to speak of the period 
 of our secession from the Church of Rome, 
 have annihilated the observance of an ancient 
 custom, it must follow, that the practice which 
 
116 
 
 abrogated the ancient usage, has now become, 
 and is invested with the venerable sanction of, a 
 common law right. 
 
 We have already observed that the Kings of 
 England, supported by the authority of her 
 nobility, abjured the whole body of the imperial 
 canon law. But those parts of it, which, by 
 special enactments, were made applicable to 
 England, had, therefore, all the force of statute 
 law\ For the mere act of abjuration of the 
 whole of the foreign ecclesiastical legislation, 
 contributed to bestow a distinguished and forci- 
 ble adoption upon the detached pieces of it, 
 which w 7 ere sanctioned by the heads of the 
 Church of England, in the presence of their 
 king. Thus the existence in the English canon 
 law of numerous authorities, overturning Dr. 
 Doyle’s assumed hypothesis of a fourfold divi- 
 sion of tithes in the Church, invalidates his 
 supposition of a common law right in favor of 
 such a disbursement. But, besides, the English 
 common law 7 , from the singular circumstances 
 attending its enactment, becomes invested with 
 the vitality of statute law 7 . Can even Dr. Doyle 
 suppose that the kings and nobles, who abjured 
 
117 
 
 the whole imperial law, would yet permit the 
 adoption and registration of a part of it, in 
 marked opposition to statute law, or to customs 
 prevailing in England? Or, rather, was not the 
 canon law of England, at least silently approved, 
 by the fact of no parliamentary decisions in re- 
 sistance to it? And, are not the clergy of the 
 Protestant Church thus defended with the pano- 
 ply of the Roman Catholic canon law of Eng- 
 land, to which the statute law promulgates no 
 dissonant enactment ? Do not both thus hallow 
 and confirm the common law right in favor of 
 present practice, which, unless our ancestors 
 were even less wise than our modern Illuminati 
 vdll acknowledge, could not have been opposed 
 to the open and manifest authority of British 
 ecclesiastical law, and to the silent, but no less 
 confirmatory obligations of the statute law. 
 
 If this reasoning is correct, the common law 
 right is not, as Dr. Doyle has argued, in favor 
 of, but opposed to, any fixed separation of ec- 
 clesiastical property. This common law right, 
 the canons, those dear familiar friends of Dr. 
 Doyle, which the clergy of the Established 
 Church cannot be expected to have explored, 
 
118 
 
 or understood, confirm and have perpetuated its 
 observance. 
 
 But we shall for a moment accommodate the 
 argument to the romantic speculations of Dr. 
 Doyle. We shall admit that the pious attention 
 of the clergy of ancient days was strictly devoted 
 to the eleemosynary distribution of ecclesiastical 
 funds, and that with undeviating charity, they 
 continued their hallowed practice for many cen- 
 turies. But I cannot allow my indulgence to 
 extend further. If even the fourfold division of 
 tithes existed, it ceased from the year when the 
 parochial right came into full operation. Selden 
 says, it was not the universal practice of England 
 till the year 1226. In eight years after this, 
 that is in 1234, we shall now prove that the en- 
 tire tithes of each parish, belonged to the paro- 
 chial minister, without any subtraction, either 
 for the poor, or the fabric of the church, except 
 in the two cases, of a previous arbitrary conse- 
 cration or infeudation of them. Further, that 
 the canon which establishes this right, then be- 
 came and ever since hath been, the unrepealed 
 law of the land. So that the argument of the 
 common law right which Dr. Doyle has arrayed 
 
119 
 
 against the clergy of the Protestant Church, and 
 the assertion that we have no title earlier than 
 the Reformation for withholding the two parts 
 of tithe dedicated to the use of the poor and 
 the church, have as little foundation to rest 
 upon as the other surmises of our ignorant 
 antiquarians and speculatists. 
 
 The period during which tithes, as, they are 
 now claimed and held by the Protestant clergy, 
 were possessed by the Roman Catholic clergy, 
 numbers nearly the same sum of years. And 
 therefore instead of being contented with the 
 protection of the law from the time of the Refor- 
 mation, we boldly appeal to that, by which the 
 Roman clergy were protected in their right to 
 them, for three hundred years before Henry 
 VIII. seceded from theltalian Church. We are 
 content to be subject to the same liabilities as 
 the national clergy were in 1226. But we also 
 claim to be exempt from burdens, to which they 
 were never bound. 
 
 In the year 1234, Edmund De Abendonia* 
 
 *Constitutiones Provincialis Sancti Edmundi Cantuariens. 
 Archiepiscopi, qui consecratus est A. D. 1234 tempore Hen- 
 rici 3. Anglia? Regis, p. 13. 
 
1‘20 
 
 as Archbishop of Canterbury enacted the follow- 
 ing canon, which now for six hundred years, 
 forms a part of the canon law of England. It is 
 found among the statutes “ De Consuetudine,” 
 to which there is the following preface, f “ Prse- 
 cipimus futuris temporibus inviolabiliter obser- 
 vari, mandantes nostris chrorepiscopis et suffra- 
 geneis universis, et ipsas constitutiones per se 
 vel per alios, (ut jus exigit, publicent et faciant 
 publicari ac in publicam notionem deduci ad 
 utilitatem communem, laudem et gloriam nomi- 
 nis Jesu Christi.” 
 
 The canon they recommend, is, as follows, 
 “ Nullus Rector, Decimas Ecclesise suse nondum 
 perceptas vendere potest ante Annunciationem 
 Beatse Marise Yirginis, a quo die fructus de 
 consuetudine cedere debent ad ipsorum Recto- 
 rum, si ante fructuum hujusmodi perceptionem 
 decesserit, legata vel debita persolvenda.” 
 
 The prohibition not to sell his tithes before 
 a particular day, clearly gives to the Rector, 
 the power to do so after that day. No limitation 
 is here fixed, as to his propriety in the whole, 
 and the power of disposing of them. If they 
 
 f Lyndwood, Lib. Tit. 3. p. 18. 
 
121 
 
 had not been his, all and every part of them, 
 would his authority to dispose of them, have thus 
 extended, without deduction to the entire of 
 them ? If two parts of them, had been the 
 property of others, equally as the other half was 
 his own, would the dominion over all the parts 
 have been vested in him ? If he died, after that 
 day, yet before he had received them, the canon 
 regulates the destination of them. If one half 
 of them had been by law devoted to the poor, 
 and the fabric of the church, would the canon 
 have applied them and ordained their appropri- 
 ation, to particular objects, none of which are 
 either, the poor or the repairs of the church ? 
 He could bequeath them by will. Could he 
 have done this, if he had no title to dispose of 
 them? If he could thus dispose of them, could 
 they have been another’s ? They were to be 
 devoted, in case of his death, to the payment of 
 his debts. If they were not his property, how 
 could they become the property of his debtors ? 
 
 The canonists, upon this law, are equally 
 explicit with the law itself, in confirming it. 
 Their amplification of it, explaining the general 
 custom, renders the evidence incontrovertible, 
 
 M 
 
122 
 
 that tithes, without deduction, were the sole 
 property of the parochial priest. 
 
 Lyndwood remarks upon this canon, “ Ex hoc 
 patet, quod beneficiatus testari potest de fructi- 
 tibus Ecclesise, et hoc verum de consuetudine, 
 etiam de fructibus nondum perceptis ut hie. 
 Unde a fortiori valet consuetudo ut possit testari 
 de perceptis. Est consuetudo per Angliam 
 quodam modo generalis, ut videlicet Beneficiatus 
 testetur de mobilibus acquisitis ex fructibus ec- 
 clesise saltern perceptis, et quandoque non per- 
 ceptis ut hie. Sed qusero quid si rector vel 
 hujusmodi Beneficiatus decedat intestatus, et non 
 desponat de fructibus. Die quod de jure com- 
 muni ecclesia in eis succedat ? De consuetudine 
 tamen posset esse, quod per episcopum vel alium, 
 ad quem pertineret bona testatorum tueri, debe- 
 rent distribui ad decedentis debita solvenda, prse- 
 sertim in casu hujus consuetudinis, quse viventi 
 post annuntiationem dat, non solum dispositio- 
 nem fructuum, sed ipsos fructus: dicit namque hie 
 litera, quod fructus a die Annuntiationis cedunt 
 Rectori, ad legata vel debita solvenda. Sed 
 quid si nulla legata reliquit nec testatus est, nec 
 sunt ejus debita aliqua, an fructus hujusmodi 
 
123 
 
 pertinebunt ad dispositionem illorum, qui de aliis 
 ejus bonis administrando disponunt, vel pertine- 
 bunt ad ecelesiam ?” Lyndwood then canvasses 
 many opinions, and ends thus, “ Ex prsedictis 
 patet, quod licet nulla sint decedentis legata vel 
 debita, et sic cesset causa consuetudinis, non 
 tan turn cessabit ejus effectus, sed quod fructus 
 ipsi abunde disponantur pro salute animse suae 
 per eos, qui alia bona administrabant et non per- 
 tinebunt ad Ecelesiam vel ejus successorem.” 
 Hence, it is evident, that after a certain day, 
 the tithes, whether severed or not, were the 
 property of the rector. If he died, they were 
 to be applied to the payment of his debts, and 
 of legacies, if he made a will. If he died in- 
 testate, even in such a case, the tithes of his 
 parish were classed with his other property. If 
 he left no legacies, or debts, even then, the 
 church, or his successor, had no claim to them. 
 So strictly were they considered his property, 
 that they were still applied, though he was dead, 
 according to the superstitions practised of pray- 
 ing for the souls of the departed, to his use, 
 44 disponantur pro salute animse suse.” 
 
 I have now shown what the canon law of 
 
124 
 
 England and Ireland, respecting tithes, was, 
 from the year 1200, when the parochial right, 
 to them, was reduced to general observation, to 
 the fifteenth century. And here, it may not be 
 unprofitable to suggest to the reader, the variety, 
 rather the universality of the things tithed. From 
 the Reformation to the present time, the same 
 right to tithe has existed. It may be necessary, 
 however, to adduce one authority, from many 
 which are at hand, to prove that the clergy of 
 the Reformed Church became the possessors of 
 the tithes, under the same conditions as, and 
 bound by no other responsibilities than, the 
 clergy who had preceded them. The evidence 
 to which I am going to refer, not only will 
 exhibit the obligations on the clergy, who then 
 became possessed of the Ecclesiastical property 
 of the nation, but also retrospectively declares 
 the conditions under which it had been enjoyed, 
 by the Roman Catholic Priesthood. 
 
 When Henry VIII. released these kingdoms, 
 from the thraldom of the Pope, he appropriated 
 to his own use, by an iniquitous law,* what the 
 
 26 Henry VIII. c. 3. 
 
125 
 
 Pope had as iniquitously appropriated to himself 
 — the first fruits of all Ecclesiastical benefices. 
 The Lord Chancellor was empowered to direct 
 into every diocese in England and Wales, and by 
 a subsequent statute, into Ireland, several com- 
 missions, in the king’s name, to the Archbishops 
 and Bishops of every diocese, or to any other, 
 whom the king should name. These commis- 
 sioners were authorized to make all necessary 
 enquiries, in order to ascertain the most precise 
 knowledge, to guide them as to the amount they 
 should appropriate to be paid in the yearly rent, 
 or pension, which was to be rated or levied from 
 all manors, lands, tenements, and other proper- 
 ties, belonging to all Ecclesiastical persons. This 
 rent, or pension, was not to be regulated accord- 
 ing to the gross value of every bishoprick, or 
 benefice, or other Ecclesiastical property, but 
 according to the net value, after the deduction 
 of every item, which their possessors might have 
 to pay. These several expenses, to which the 
 possessors of church property were liable, are 
 thus enumerated. 
 
 “ Every such commission shall contain a clause 
 that the said commissioners, or three of them, at 
 
 m 3 
 
126 
 
 the least, shall deduct and allow, in the making 
 and rating of the said yearly values of the pre- 
 mises, these deductions following and none 
 other — that is to say, the rents resolute, to the 
 chief lords, and all other annual and perpetual 
 rents and charges, which any spiritual person or 
 persons, been bounden yearly to pay to any 
 person or persons, to their heirs and successors 
 for ever, or to give , yearly , in alms , by reason 
 OF ANY FOUNDATION OR ORDINANCE, and all 
 fees for stewards, receivers, bailiffs, and audi- 
 tors, and synods, and proxies.” The Act then 
 states, that the commissioners were to certify, 
 within a given time, as well the whole and entire 
 value, as the deductions aforesaid, and the first 
 fruits payable, were according to the value, 
 minus these deductions. 
 
 As I have said, this act was applied to Ireland. 
 This was done by the 27th Henry VIII., with 
 this variation, that twentieths were substituted 
 instead of tenths. 
 
 If the parochial tithe was subject to sub- 
 struction, of one-fourth for the poor, and one- 
 fourth for the reparation of the church, would 
 they not have been deducted from the value, 
 
1*27 
 
 upon the amount of which the first fruits were 
 payable. If it be argued, that the parish priest 
 was obliged to give, beside the first fruits, 
 one-fourth to the poor, and one-fourth to the 
 church, he would be bound to pay this iniquitous 
 tax, not for one year, but for two years. For, 
 in the first year, he would be forced to yield 
 one half of the value of his tithes to the poor 
 and the church, which he never received, and, 
 which, consequently would prevent him, in the 
 following year, from devoting to his own use, a 
 sum, equal to that which he was compelled, un- 
 justly, to pay. Suppose a benefice, worth £400 a 
 year, after the deductions already specified. In the 
 first year, the Incumbent would have to pay this 
 as first fruits to the king, and yet, to make good 
 the one half of this sum, £200, to the poor and 
 the church. So that, in the second year, he 
 would have to repay himself the £200, paid the 
 previous year to the poor and the church, and, 
 also, to give the other moiety of his income to 
 the same objects. So that, in fact, he would be 
 two years without receiving any advantage from 
 his benefice, and possibly three. 
 
 But, this supposition is too absurd. The de- 
 
128 
 
 ductions evidently included every charge upon 
 the tithe. The sum remaining was entirely his 
 own. While “ the alms by reason of any foun- 
 dation or ordinance” entirely excluded the pa- 
 rochial tithe from the payment of any part of 
 them, by limiting them to those consecrated to 
 this purpose by u foundation or ordinance.” If 
 the parochial tithe were subject to them, would 
 the mention of them have been omitted, when 
 even the expense of bailiffs and proxies, are 
 items in the catalogue of deductions from the 
 profits of the benefice. 
 
 This liability of the monastic properties to 
 hospitality and alms are enumerated in this sta- 
 tute, because before its enactment, they were 
 subject to the payment of them. And the act, 
 which subsequently invested the king with the 
 propriety of them, while it entitled him to 
 every privilege in as ample manner, as it had 
 been enjoyed by the monks, also bound him 
 to the fulfilment of the same duties to which 
 they were subject, viz. the maintenance of the 
 Vicar, the keeping of hospitality, and feeding of 
 the poor. And when the king and afterwards 
 Queen Elizabeth bestowed these various proper- 
 
129 
 
 ties in England and Ireland, of which they had 
 become possessed by the dissolution of the Re- 
 ligious Houses, the persons to whom they were 
 given were equally bound to the obligations, 
 to which the king and queen, and before them, 
 the monks, had been subject 
 
 The examination of one Irish statute will be 
 sufficient to evince the truth of this reasoning. 
 “ And it is further enacted that if any of the 
 kings grauntees or lessees, or his or their able 
 and sufficient assigns which have or hereafter 
 shall have, in forme for terme of life or of years, 
 any of the said Houses of Connall, Thustleder- 
 mot, Loughswedy, Tristernaughe, Forner, Ken- 
 lys, Athirde, Saint Leonards, Dinske, Tyn- 
 time , Dunbroody , Enescortie , Enestyoke, Ardma- 
 cartie, Tertnekevagh, and Kilcoule, doe not 
 continually dwell , inhabite , household , and hospita- 
 lities in such houses as before is rehearsed , during 
 their interest therein , that then their leases 
 
 AND GRAUNTES THEREOF SHALL BEE VOYD AND 
 OF NONE EFFECT.* 
 
 * These passages I particularly mark, because I reside in 
 the county where these estates are situate, and though an 
 income of more than .£30,000 a year is derived from them, 
 
130 
 
 To this class of persons and to this species 
 of property does the office of charity belong. 
 Whether their fulfilment of it, as well as their 
 residence continually on their estates, particularly 
 in Ireland, is experienced by the wretched ten- 
 antry that supply them with the means of luxury, 
 their miserable hovels and famished offspring 
 sufficiently can testify. 
 
 I shall now conclude this long discussion, with 
 two quotations, sufficiently strong of themselves 
 to refute the doctrine of any quadripartite divi- 
 sion of tithe, having been ever observed as 
 respects the poor. The first is, from Sir William 
 Blackstone. — 
 
 66 The poor of England, till the time of 
 Henry VIII., subsisted entirely upon private 
 benevolence and the charity of well-disposed 
 Christians. For, though it appears by the 
 Mirror, that by the common law, the poor were 
 to be sustained by parsons, rectors of the Church, 
 and the parishioners, so that none of them die for 
 default of sustenance , and though by the statutes 
 
 none of the proprietors ever reside, keep hospitality or house- 
 hold. Query do they fulfil their engagements as well as the 
 clergy of the Established Church ? 
 
131 
 
 12 Ric. II. c. 7. and 19 Hen. VII. c. 12. the 
 poor are directed to abide in the cities and towns, 
 wherein they were born, yet, till the statute 27 
 Hen. VIII. c. 25., I find no compulsory method 
 chalked out for this purpose, but the poor seem 
 to have been left to such relief as the humanity 
 of their neighbours would afford them. The 
 monasteries were, in particular, their principal 
 resource.’’* 
 
 The other quotation is from Mr. Hallam’s 
 Constitutional History of the Middle Ages. 
 “ A very ungrounded prejudice has long ob- 
 tained currency, that the alms of the monaste- 
 ries maintained the indigent throughout the 
 kingdom, and that the system of parochial relief, 
 so much the topic of complaint, was rendered 
 necessary by the dissolution of these benevolent 
 foundations. There can be no doubt that many 
 of the impotent poor received support from their 
 charity, but the blind eleemosynary spirit incul- 
 cated by the Roman Church is notoriously the 
 cause, not the cure of beggary. The monastic 
 foundations, scattered in different countries, but 
 
 Commentaries, Vol. 1. Book l. c. ix. p. 879. 
 
132 
 
 by no means, at regular distances, could never 
 answer tlie end of local and limited succour, 
 meted out in just proportion to the demands of 
 poverty : their "gates might be, indeed, open to 
 those who knocked at them for alms, and came 
 in search of a stream that must always be too 
 scanty for a thirsty multitude; nothing could 
 have a stronger tendency to promote that vaga- 
 bond mendicity, which encreasing and severe 
 statutes were enacted to suppress ; it was, and 
 always must continue, a hard problem to disco- 
 ver the means of rescuing those, whom labour 
 cannot maintain from the last extremities of 
 helpless suffering. The regular clergy were, 
 in all respects, ill-fitted for this great office of 
 humanity ; even while monasteries were yet 
 standing, the scheme of a provision for the poor 
 had been adopted by the legislature, by means 
 of regular collections, and which, in the course 
 of a long series of enactments, were almost 
 insensibly converted into compulsory assessments. 
 It is by no means probable that, however some, 
 in particular districts, might have to lament 
 the cessation of hospitality in the convents, the 
 
133 
 
 poor were placed in a worse condition by their 
 dissolution.”* 
 
 In neither of these extracts is there one word 
 to intimate that the poor had, in the early times, 
 to which both allude, any maintenance from the 
 tithes of the parochial priest. 
 
 * Hallam’s Constitutional History of England, VoL 1. 
 c. ii. p. 86. Quarto Edition. 
 
 K 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Note (A.) p. 2. 
 
 Cantuariensi Archiepiscopo, ut Ecclesiis Parocliialibus juste 
 Decimae persolvantur. Pervenit ad audientiam nostram quod 
 Multi in Diocesi tua Decimas suas integras vel duas partes 
 ipsarum non illis Ecclesiis in quarum parochiis habitant, vel 
 ubi prsedia liabent et a quibus Ecclesiastica percipiunt Sacra- 
 menta, persolvunt; sed eas aliis pro sua distribuunt volun- 
 tate. Cum igitur inconveniens esse videatur et a ratione 
 dissimile, ut Ecclesise quse spiritualia seminant, meteve non 
 debeant, a suis Parochianis temporalia et habere, fraternitati 
 tuoe autoritate prsesentium indulgemus, ut liceat tibi super hoc 
 non obstante contradictione vel appellatione cujuslibet, sen 
 consuetudine hactenus observata, quod canonicum fuerit or- 
 dinare, et facere quod statueris per censuram Ecclesiasticam 
 firmiter observari. Datum Lateran, 11. Nonas Julii. — Innoc. 
 3. in Epist. Decret Lib. 2, p. 452. Edit Coloniens. 
 
 Note (B.) p. 2. 
 
 Upon Delegation made by Pope Innocent the fourth in 49 
 Hen. 3. to the Priors of S. Trinity and S. Bartholomew in 
 London and the Archdeacon of Westminster, for the deciding 
 of a controversy ’twixt the Abbess and Nuns of Chartris by 
 Ely, and Robert Passelaw, Archdeacon of Lewes, about some 
 tithes of the possession of the Nunnery in Barrington, it 
 appears that in Passelaw’s libel, no other title is made, but 
 that the land lies infra limites Parochiae suoe de Barenton, 
 unde petit dictam Abatissam compelli integre ad solutionem 
 
136 
 
 dictarum Decimarum cum damnis et interesse, &c Seldcn. 
 
 c. xi. p. 36*2, 363. 
 
 Note (C.) p. 3. 
 
 The offerings of devout Christians were received, and dis- 
 posed of in maintenance of the clergy and relief of distressed 
 Christians, by theCEconomi, the Deacons or other officers there- 
 to appointed under the Bishop. Neither had those parochial 
 Priests at first such a particular interest in the profits received 
 in oblations as in later times. All that was received what- 
 soever in the bishoprick, was a common treasury to be so dis- 
 pensed. One part was allowed to the maintenance of the 
 Ministry, (out of which every parochial minister had his 
 salary, according to the monthly pay spoken of before) another 
 to the relief of the poor, sick, and strangers, a third to the re- 
 paration of Churches, and a fourth to the Bishop : so it ap- 
 pears by the ancient canons, if we may at least herein conjecture 
 of the use of the tim^ } by what they have ordained, And it is 
 like enough to have been no otherwise, so long as these paro- 
 chial functions were so personal , that they were not as now, so 
 annexed to foundations and endowments, but rather exercised 
 as by messengers , sent from the Bishops. All this in pri- 
 mitive times, and from the first establishing of Christianity, by 
 a disposition of the Hierarchy, till about 300 years from Christy 
 it seems , it continued. But not long after such time, as laymen 
 began to build and endow parish-oratories or churches in their 
 lordships, and in them place or invest Chaplains, that might 
 receive the offerings of such as repaired thither for holy service ; 
 that former kind, of making a common treasury in every dio- 
 cese, was discontinued, and the Chaplain or Incumbent received 
 now the profits that rose out of Christian devotion , to a particular 
 use of his own Church, the canons nevertheless saving the 
 fourth part to the Bishops. — Selden. p. 82, 83. 
 
137 
 
 So that the existence of the name of quarta pars as found 
 in Ireland, proves nothing as to the original allotment of the 
 property of the Church into a fourfold division. 
 
 “ It is further worthy of remark, that, during those ancient 
 periods, when these (equal) threefold or fourfold divisions of 
 the Church revenue are said to have generally prevailed, and 
 the poor to have been supported by the clergy, we find very 
 strong injunctions upon the laity, in addition to their other 
 payments, to be charitable to the poor. The seventh chapter, 
 for instance, of the “ Council of Chalchuth,” is very urgent 
 upon all persons to give to the Church tenths of all things 
 which they possess, and to live upon the nine parts and to give 
 alms. (Wilkins, vol. i. p. 150. a . d . 785.) Thus, again, in 
 the “ Canons of King Edgar,” the priests are exhorted so 
 to distribute the alms of the people, that the people may be 
 accustomed to almsgiving, (p. 2*28. a . d . 964.) In a similar 
 manner, the “ Liber Legum Ecclesiasticarum,” enjoins agri- 
 culturists, sailors, &c. after paying their tenths, to give alms 
 likewise out of the nine parts, (p. 278. a . d . 1003.) So 
 also the “ Laws of Ethelred,” require the payment of the 
 cyrisceat (certain church-dues) and tithes, and then in a 
 following chapter the alms-money. (p. 295. a . d . 1018.) 
 Flow all this is to be reconciled with the alleged fact, that 
 in those days the poor were supported by the Church, is, at 
 least, not self-evident. — Dr. Dealtry’s Charge, p. 51. 
 
 Note (D.) p. 4. 
 
 “ Responsiones S. Gregorii papse ad qusesita per nuntios 
 Augustini primi Cantuarensis Archiepiscopi pro nascente jam 
 apud Anglo-Saxones ecclesia gubernanda. 
 
 “ Interea vir Domini Augustinus venit Arelas, et ah archie- 
 piscopo ejusdem civitatis iEtherio, juxta quod jussa sancti 
 patris Gregorii acceperat, archiepiscopus genti Anglorum ordi- 
 
 N 3 
 
138 
 
 natus est. Reversusque Britanniam, misit continuo Romani 
 Laurentium presbyterum, et Petrum monaclium, qui beato 
 pontifici Gregorio, gentem Anglorum fidem Christi snscepisse, 
 ac se episcopum factum esse, referrent. Simul et de eis, quae 
 necessaria videbantur, quaestionibus ejus consulta flagitans. 
 Nec mora, congrua quaesitui responsa recepit, quae etiam 
 liuic historiae nostrae commodum duximus indere. 
 
 “ I. Interrogatio beati Augustini episcopi Cantuariorum 
 ecclesioe. 
 
 “ De episcopis, qualiter cum suis clericis conversentur, vel 
 de bis quae fidelium oblationibus accedunt altario, quantae 
 debeant fieri portiones, et qualiter episcopus agere in ecclesia 
 debeat ? 
 
 “ Respondit Gregorius papa urbis Romae : 
 
 “ Sacra Scriptura testatur (quam te bene nosse dubium non 
 est) et specialiter beati Pauli ad Timotheum epistolae, in 
 quibus eum erudire studuit, qualiter in domo Dei conversari 
 debuisset. Mos autem sedis apostolicae est, ordinatis episco- 
 pis praecepta tradere, ut in omni stipendio quod accedit, qua- 
 tuor debeant fieri portiones : una videlicit episcopo et familbe, 
 propter liospitalitatem atque susceptionem, alia clero, tertia 
 pauperibus, quarta ecclesiis reparandis. Sed quia tua frater- 
 nitas monasterii regulis erudita, seorsum fieri non debet a 
 clericis suis in ecclesia Anglorum, quae, auctore Deo, nuper 
 adhuc ad fidem adducta est, hanc debet conversationem insti- 
 tuere, quae initio nascentis ecclesiae fuit patribus nostris, in 
 quibus ‘ nullus eorum, ex bis quae possidebat, aliquid suum 
 esse dicebat, sed erant eis omnia communia.’ 
 
 “ II. Secunda interrogatio Augustini. Opto etiam doceri, 
 an clerici continere non valentes, possint contrahere. Et si 
 contraxerint, an debeant ad seculum redire. 
 
 " Responsio beati Gregor. 
 
 “ Si qui vero sunt clerici extra sacros ordines constituti, qui 
 
se continere non possunt, sortiri uxores debent, et stipendia 
 sua exterius accipere. Quia et de iisdem patribus, de quibus 
 praefati sumus, novimus scriptum, quod ‘ dividebatur singulis, 
 prout cuique opus erat : ’ de eorum quoque stipendio cogitan- 
 dum atque providendum est, et sub ecclesiastica regula sunt 
 tenendi, ut bonis moribus vivant, et canendis psalmis invigi- 
 lent, et ab omnibus illicitis et cor, et linguam, et corpus, Deo 
 auctore, conservent : communi autem vita viventibus , jam de 
 faciendis portionibus , vel exhibenda hospitalitate , et adimplenda 
 misericordia , nobis quid erit loquendum ? cum omne quod 
 superest in causis piis ac religiosis erogandum est, Domino 
 omnium magistro docente, £ quod superest, date eleemosynam, 
 et ecce omnia munda sunt vobis.” 1 — Ex Bedahist. Ecclesiast. 
 lib. I. cap. *27.— Wilkins, Concilia, vol. i. p. 18. 
 
 Note (E.) p. 7. 
 
 The canonists and others in provincial synods have in the 
 latter ages compiling their decrees, made to serve as if they had 
 expressly named tithes , as you may see in that example remem- 
 bered before out of Juo and Burchard ; in that of the Council 
 of Gangra in C. 16, q. 1, c. 57, in Canonibus; in that of the 
 29 chapter of Gelasius his decree in the Council of Tribur 
 held 890, cap. 13, in that of the first Oecumenical Council of 
 Chalcedon, cap. 1 7, in c. 14, of the same synod of Tribur ; and 
 in that of the ninth Council of Toledo, in an old Council of 
 Cologne. He that reads those old canons only, as they are so 
 applied, in late authority, to tithes, might perhaps soon think 
 that at first they were made specially and by name for them. 
 The matter is plainly otherwise. What was ordained in them 
 about oblations, is out of them in later times (tithes and obla- 
 tions being then supposed of equal right) expressly extended 
 also to tithes, the word oblations, as you see in those times , 
 being usual for tithes also when they were given. — Selden,p.63. 
 
140 
 
 Of the genuineness of Excerptiones Egberti, Selden says ; 
 Egbert lived Archbishop of York from the year 743 to 767. 
 But the authority of that title must undergo censure. Who- 
 ever made it supposed that Egbert gathered the law and the 
 rest joined with it out of some former church constitutions, 
 neither doth the name excerptiones denote otherwise. But in 
 that collection some whole constitutions occur in the same syl- 
 lables as they are in the capitularies of Charles the Great, as 
 that of unicuique Ecclesiae unus mansque integer, &c., and 
 some others which could not be known to Egbert that died in 
 the last year of Pepin, father to Charles. How came he 
 then by that ? and how may we believe that Egbert was the 
 author of any part of those Exceptions ? unless you excuse it 
 with that use of the middle times, which often inserted into 
 one body and under one name laws of different ages. But ad- 
 mit that : yet, what is secundum Canonicam autoritatem co- 
 ram testibus dividant ? The ancientest Canonica autoritas, 
 for dividing tithes before witnesses, is an old imperial, attri- 
 buted in some editions to the eleventh year of the reign of 
 Charles the Great, being King of France, in others to the 
 Emperor Lothar the First. But refer it to either of them, 
 and it will be divers years later than Egbert’s death. And 
 other mixt passages there plainly show, that whose soever the 
 collection was, much of it was taken out of the Imperial Capi- 
 tularies, none of which were made in Egbert’s time. — p. 197. 
 
 Of the synod held under Kenulph, King of West Saxony, 
 Selden says : In the relation of the Legates to the Pope, men- 
 tion is of Kenulph King of West Saxony, his joining with 
 Offa in calling the Council. But the confirmations of the 
 decrees have no reference to him. But, by the way, if you 
 examine it by story and synchronisme, Kenulph perhaps could 
 not have at all to do with it. For some of our old monks 
 expressly affirm, that in the second year of Brithric, next sue- 
 
141 
 
 cessor after Kenulph’s death, Pope Adrian sent his Legates in 
 Britanniam ad renovandam fidem quam praedicaverat Augus- 
 tinus. And that they then held their synod at a place called 
 Cealchithe. How could Kenulph he there then, as the Le- 
 gates relate ? Believe the monks as you will. But indeed, an 
 exactness here is not easy extracted out of the disturbed times 
 of our Chronicles, p. 202. 
 
 Of the laws of Edward the Confessor he says : But how- 
 ever those laws are attributed to the Confessor ; it is certain 
 that as the ordinary copies of them are, and as they speak in 
 the published volume of Saxon laws, they are not without 
 many mixtures of somewhat later transcribers. — p. 225. 
 
 Note (F.) p. 27. 
 
 Dr. Doyle relies much on the council of Mascon. What 
 says Mr. Selden? He thus introduces his description of it. 
 “ Some canons, both Pontifical and Synodal, made for the 
 right and payment of tithes, are attributed *to the ages that 
 fell about the middle of this, that is, the sixth century. But 
 I have not observed above one, as referred hither ; neither 
 was that ever received into the body , or any old code of the 
 canons. That one is Provincial , and made in the year 586, 
 in the council of Mascon.” p. 57. 
 
 But, however, that before-cited canon of Mascon, had its 
 provincial authority, no canon, as yet, (for 800 years) was 
 received in the church, generally, for a binding law, for pay- 
 ment of any certain quantity, which not only appears, in that 
 we find no such now remaining, but also, is confirmed by the 
 testimony of a great and learned Bishop, (in whose province 
 also Mascon was) that could not be ignorant of the law 
 received in his time.” This Bishop wrote in the ninth cen- 
 
142 
 
 tury. “ And in a treatise, about the dispensation of church 
 revenues, expressly denies, that before his time, any synod or 
 general doctrine of the church, had determined or ordained 
 anything touching the quantity that should be given, either 
 for maintenance, or building of churches. Because his words 
 are special authority, also, against those counterfeit titles of 
 canons before spoken of, they shall have place here — “ Jam- 
 vero de donandis rebus et ordinandis ecclesiis, nihil unquam 
 in Synodis constitutum est, nihil a sanctis patribus publice prse- 
 dicatum. Nulla enim compulit necessitas fervente ubique 
 religiosadevotione et amore illustrandi ecclesias ultro astuante.” 
 This author is Agobard, Bishop of Lions, very learned and 
 of great judgment, and had not so confidently denied what 
 you see he doth, if any decree, canon, or council, generally 
 received, had, before his time, commanded the payment or 
 offering of any certain part. How the authority of that 
 council of Mascon stands with this meaning, I well conceive 
 not. But clearly, he speaks truth in regard of what was 
 generally received. For neither in the codex ecclesiae univer- 
 salis, or the codex ecclesise Romanae, or Afrcanse, Fulgentius, 
 Fernandus, Cresconius or Isidores collection, (all of which in 
 those elder ages, were as parts of the body of the canon law) 
 is once any mention of the name of tenths .” p. 65 . 
 
 Note (G.) p. 62 . 
 
 De reparationibus Ecclesiarum, et clausuris coemeteriorum. 
 
 Licet parochiani ecclesiarum parochialium suarum naves, et 
 rectum ecclesiarum interius, et exterius, ipsarumque campanile, 
 altaria, et imagines, vitreasque fenestras, in dictis navibus ex- 
 istentes, et coemetorium clausuras, de consuetudine laudabili 
 in nostra provincia diutius obtenta facere, ac, quoties fuerit 
 necesse, reparari suis sumptibus teneantur : tamen religiosi 
 et alii, possessiones, aut prsedia, seu reditus, infra fines et li- 
 
143 
 
 mites ecclesiarum hujusmodi nostrae provinciae Cantuariensis 
 obtinentes, possime degentes extra parochiam ecclesiarum ip- 
 sarum, fabricae earundem, aut coemeteriorum clausuris, et cae- 
 teris incumbentibus oneribus, a parocbianis supportandis de 
 consuetudine vel de jure, cum eis contribuere, quamvis, ut 
 plurimum, onera hujusmodi, secundum praediorum ac posses- 
 sionum quantitatem in parochiis existentium limitentur, et 
 taxentur, recusant injuste. Sed religiosi in locis variis nostrae 
 provinciae possessiones, et praedia diversa in parochiis hujusmo- 
 di ecclesiarum, per acquisitiones novas, necnon et alii extra 
 parochiam degentes occupant et obtinent his diebus, adeo ut 
 eorum reliqui parochiani ia. ipsarum ecclesiarum parochiis de- 
 gentes, onera, aut refectionem, seu reparationem praemissorum, 
 eisdem incumbentia per se nequeant asportare, unde domorum 
 Dei publicus deformatur aspectus, et earum ex his dehonesta- 
 tibus sequuntur alia etiam incommoda manifesta. Nos igitur, 
 praesentis approbatione concilii, duximus statuendum, quod 
 tarn religiosi quam alii, possessiones, aut praedia, seu reditus, 
 quae de gleba reficiendarum ecclesiarum, seu dote non extant, 
 in quibuscunque parochiis nostrae provinciae obtinentes, seu in 
 posterum habituri, in ipsis degentes, vel alibi, ad quaevis onera 
 parochianis praedictis in his incumbentia, de consuetudine vel 
 de jure, quae consideratis possessionum, et redituum quantita- 
 tibus imminent, vel imponentur eisdem, cum caeteris parochia- 
 nis ecclesiarum hujusmodi, quoties opus fuerit, censuris eccle- 
 siasticis per locorum ordinarios compellantur. — Consti. Provin. 
 p. 50. Edit. Oxon. 1679. 
 
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