Selected quad for the lemma: land_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
land_n	hold_v	lord_n	rent_n	2,560	5	9.6389	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86306	The undeceiving of the people in the point of tithes: wherein is shewed, I. That never any clergy in the Church of God hath been, or is maintained with lesse charge to the subject, then the established clergy of the Church of England. II. That there is no subject in the realme of England, who giveth any thing of his own, towards the maintenance of his parish-minister, but his Easter-offering. III. That the change of tithes into stipends, will bring greater trouble to the clergy, then is yet considered; and far lesse profit to the countrey, then is now pretended. / By Ph. Treleinie Gent.	Heylyn, Peter, 1600-1662.	1647 (1647)	Wing H1741; Thomason E418_1; ESTC R204596	25,471	32

tithes and not that onely which he held in his own possession is evident both by that which was said before from Sir Edw Coke and by the severall passages of the former Authours For if all the lands in the kingdome were the Kings Demesnes and the King conferred the tithes of all his lands on the church of God it must follow thereupon that all the lands of the Realm were charged with tithes before they were distributed amongst the Barons for defence of the kingdome And that the lands of the whole Realm were thus charged with tithes as well that which was parted in the hands of tenants as that which was in the occupancy of the King himself the words before alledged doe most plainly evidence where it is said that he gave the tenth of all his lands as Ingulph the tithe of his whole land as Henry of Huntingdon the tenth part of his whole kingdome as in Florence of Worcester the tenth part of the lands throughout the kingdome in the Charter it self And finally in the book of Abingdon the Charter is ushered in with this following title viz. Quomodo Ethelwolfus Rex dedit decimam partem regni sui Ecclesiis that is to say how Ethelwolf gave unto the church the tenth part of his kingdome This makes it evident that the King did not only give de facto the tithe or tenth part of his whole Realm to the use of the Clergy but that he had a right and a power to doe it as being not onely the Lord Paramount but the Proprietary of the whole lands the Lords and great men of the Realm not having then a property or estates of permanency but as accomptants to the King whose the whole land was And though it seems by Ingulph their consents were asked and that they gave a free consent to the Kings Donation yet was this but a matter of form and not simply necessary their approbation consent being only asked either because the King was not willing to doe any thing to the disherison of his Crown without the liking and consent of his Peers or that having their consent and approbation they should bee barred from pleading any Tenant-right and be obliged to stand in maintenance and defence thereof against all pretenders And this appears yet further by a Law of King Athelstanes made in the year 930 about which time not only the Prelates of the church as formerly but the great men of the Realm began to be settled in estates of permanency and to claim a property in those lands which they held of the Crown and claiming to make bold to subduct their tithes For remedy whereof the King made this Law commanding all his Ministers throughout the kingdome that in the first place they should pay the tithes o of his own estate that is to say that which he held in his own hands and had not estated out to his Lords and Barons and that the Bishops did the like of that which they held in right of their churches his Nobles and Officers of that which they held in property as their own possessions or inheritance By which we finde that tithes were granted to the Clergy out of all the lands in the kingdome and the perpetuall payment of them laid as a rent-charge on the fame by the bounty and munificence of the first Monarchs of this Realm before any part thereof was demised to others And if perhaps some of the great men of the Realm had estates in property as certainly there were but few if any which had any such estates in the times we speak of they charged the same with tithes by their own consent before they did transmit them to the hands of the Gentry or any who now claim to lay hold under them So then the land being charged thus with the payment of tithes came with this clog unto the Lords and great men of the Realm and being so charged with tithes by the Kings and Nobles have been transmitted and passed over from one hand to another untill they came to the possession of the present owners Who whatsoever right they have to the other nine parts either of fee-simple lease or copy have certainly none at all in the tithe or tenth which is no more theirs or to be thought of then the other nine parts are the Clergies For whether they hold their lands at an yearly rent or have them in fee or for tearm of life or in any other tenure whatsoever it be they hold them and they purchased them on this tacite condition that besides the rents and services which they pay to the Lord they are to pay unto the Clergy or unto them who do succeed in the Clergies right a tenth of all the fruits of the earth and of the fruits of their cattell and all creatures tithable unlesse some ancient custome or prescription doe discharge them of it And more then so whether they hold by yearly rent or by right of purchase they held it at lesse rent by far and buy it at far cheaper rates because the land it self and the stock upon it is chargeable with tithes as before was said then they would doe or could in reason think to do were the land free from tithes as in some places of this Realm it is To make this clearer by example of an house in London where according to the rent which the house is set at the Minister hath 2 s. 9 d. out of every pound in the name of a tithe Suppose we that the rent of the house be 50 l. the Ministers due according unto that proportion comes to 6 l. 17 s. 6 d. yearly which were it not paid and to be paid by law to the Parish-Minister there is no question to be made but that the Landlord of the house would have raised his rent and not content himself with the 50 l. but look for 56 l. 17 s. 6 d. which is the whole rent paid though to divers hands And if this house were to be sold at 16 years purchase the Grantee could expect no more then 800 l. because there is a rent of 6 l. 17 s. 6 d. reserved to the Minister by Law which is to be considered in the sale thereof whereas if no such rent or tithe were to issue out of it he would have as many years purchase for the sum remaining which would inhaunce the price 110 l. higher then before it was Now by this standard we may judge of the case of lands though by reason of the difference of the soil the well or ill husbanding of grounds and the greatnesse or smalness of the stock which is kept upon them it cannot be reduced to so clear a certainty But whatsoever the full tithe of all be worth to the Minister we may undoubtedly conclude that if so much as the tithe comes to yearly were not paid to him the Landlord would gain it in his rent and the Grantee get it in the sale no benefit at

adde all those which were under 20 years and unfit for service the number would at least be doubled But the Levites being all reckoned from a month old and above their number was but 22000 in all of which see Num. 1. 46. 3. 39. which came not to so many by 273 as the onely first-born of the other Tribes and therefore when the Lord took the Levites for the first-born of Israel the odde 273 were redeemed according to the Law at five shekels a man and the money which amounted to 1365 shekels was given to Aaron and his sons Num. 7. 47 48. Which ground so laid according to the holy Scriptures let us next take a view of the English Clergy and allowing but one for every parish there must bee 9725 according to the number of the parish Churches or say ten thousand in the totall the residue being made up of Curates officiating in the Chappels of Ease throughout the Kingdome and reckoning in all their male children from a month old and upwards the number must be more then trebled For although many of the dignified and beneficed Clergy doe lead single lives yet that defect is liberally supplied by such married Curates as do officiate under them in their severall Churches And then as to the disproportion which is said to be between the Clergy and the rest of the people one to five hundred at the least the computation is ill grounded the collection worse For first the computation ought not to be made between the Minister and all the rest of the parish men women and children Masters and Dames men-servants maid-servants and the stranger which is within the gates but between him and such whose estates are Titheable and they in most parishes are the smallest number For setting by all children which live under their parents servants apprentices artificers day-labourers and poor indigent people none of all which have any interest in the Titheable lands the number of the residue will be found so small that probably the Minister may make one of the ten and so possesse no more then his own share comes to And then how miserably weak is the Collection wch is made from thence that this one man should have as much as any sixscore of the rest of the parish supposing that the parish did contain 500 persons or that his having of so much were a cheat and robbery And as for that objection which I find much stood on that the Levites had no other inheritance but the Tithes and offerings Numb. 18. 23. whereas the English Clergy are permitted to purchase lands and to inherit such as descend unto them the answer is so easie it will make it selfe For let the Tithes enjoyed by the English Clergy descend from them to their posterity from one generation to another as did the Tithes and Offerings on the Tribe of Levi and I perswade my self that none of them will be busied about purchasing lands or be an eye-sore to the people in having more to live on then their Tithes and Offerings Til that be done excuse them if they doe provide for their wives and children according to the Lawes both of God and Nature And so much for the parallel in point of maintenance between the Clergy of this Church and the Tribe of Levi Proceed we next unto the Ministers of the Gospel at the first plantation during the lives of the Apostles and the times next following and we shall finde that though they did not actually receive Tithes of the people yet they still kept on foot their right and in the mean time till they could enjoy them in a peaceable way were so provided for of all kind of necessaries that there was nothing wanting to their contentation First that they kept on foot their Right and thought that Tithes belonged as properly to the Evangelicall Priesthood as unto the Legall seems evident unto me by S. Pauls discourse who proves Melchisedeks Priesthood by these two arguments first that he blessed Abraham and secondly that he tithed him or received Tithes of him For though in our English translation it be onely said that he received Tithes of Abraham which might imply that Abraham gave them as a gift or a free-will-offering and that Melchisedek received them in no other sense yet in the Greek it is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} which in plain English is that he tithed Abraham and took them of him as his due Heb. 7. 6. If then our Saviour be a Priest after the order of Melchisedek as no doubt he is hee must have power to tithe the people as well as to blesse them or else he comes not home to the type or figure which power of Tithing of the people or receiving Tithes of them since he exerciseth not in person it seems to me to follow upon very good consequence that hee hath devolved this part of his power on those whom he hath called and authorised for to blesse the people Certain I am the Fathers of the Primitive times though they enjoyed not Tithes in specie by reason that the Church was then unsettled and as it were in motion to the land of rest in which condition those of Israel paid no Tithes to Levi yet they still kept their claim unto them as appears clearly out of Origen and some other Ancients And of this truth I think no question need be made amongst knowing men The only question will be this Whether the maintenance which they had till the Tithes were paid were not as chargeable to the people as the Tithes now are supposing that the Tithes were the subjects own For my part I conceive it was the people of those plous times not thinking any thing too much to bestow on God for the encouragement of his Ministers and the reward of his Prophets They had not else sold off their lands and houses and brought the prices of the things which were sold and laid them at the Apostles feet as we know they did Acts 4. 34 35. but that they meant that the Apostles should supply their own wants out of those oblations as well as the necessities of their poorer brethren I trow the selling of all and trusting it to the dispensing of their Teachers was matter of more charge to such as had lands and houses then paying the tenth part of their house-house-rent or the Tithe of their lands And when this custome was laid by as possibly it might end with the Apostles themselves the offerings which succeeded in the place thereof and are required or enjoyned by the Apostolicall Canons were so great and manifold that there was nothing necessary to the life of man as honey milke fowl flesh grapes corn oyl frankincense fruits of the season yea strong drink and sweet mears which was not liberally offered on the Altars or oblation-Tables insomuch as the Authour of the Book called the Holy Table name and thing c. according to his scornfull manner saith of them that

parish where the tax or sessement cometh to 400 l. per annum the Minister may not be allowed above an hundred The residue will be wholly in Mr Treasurers power either to feast it with his friends or lay up for his children or at the best to settle it on such who relate unto him or can make means and friends to enlarge their pensions though such perhaps as were never seen nor heard of by the parish whence the money comes And if men think it as it is an ill peece of husbandry to have the soil carried off their own land and laid on anothers to the impoverishing of their own and enriching of his I cannot see but that it will be thought a worse peece of husbandry and prove of very ill digestion to most Country stomacks to have the fat of their livings carried to another place and given unto a man whom they never saw and who is never like to feed their souls with the bread of life or their bodies with the life of bread their own poor Minister mean while from whom they have reason to expect it being so discouraged and impoverished that he can doe neither For whereas those who were possessed of the richer benefices did use to keep good hospitality to entertain their neighbours and relieve their poor and doe many other good offices amongst them as occasion served both to the benefit and comfort of all sorts of parishioners it may so happen and it will as before I said that the Minister may be so ill befriended by Mr Treasurer and the rest of the Trustees for the County that in stead of being either a benefit or a comfort to them in the way proposed he may prove a burden a charge And though I doubt not but as great care will be taken as can be desired in the choice of those who are to have the disposing of the publick monies yet to suppose that men once settled in an office of such trust and power may not be subject unto partialities and corrupt affections were an imagination fitter for the Lord Chancelour Verulams new Atlantis or Sr Thomas More his predecessors old Vtopia or a Platonick Common-wealth then the besttempered government in the Christian world For my part looking into the designe with the best eyes I have and judging of it by the clearest light of understanding which God hath given me I am not able to discern but that the change of Tithes into Stipends in the way propounded will bring greater trouble to the Clergy then is yet considered and far lesse profit to the countrey then is now pretended which is the third and last of my Propositions and is I hope sufficiently and fully proved or at the least made probable if not demonstrative I have said nothing in this Tract of the right of Tithes or on what motive or considerations of preceding claim the Kings of England did confer them upon the Clergy contenting my self at this time with the matter of fact as namely that they were settled on the Church by the Kings of this Realm before they granted out estates to the Lords and Gentry and that the land thus charged with the payment of Tithes they passed from one man to another untill it came unto the hands of the present Occupant which cuts off all that claim or title which the misperswaded subject can pretend unto them I know it cannot bee denied but that notwithstanding the said Grants and Charters of those ancient Kings many of the great men of the Realm and some also of the inferiour Gentry possessed of Manours before the Lateran Councell r did either keep their Tithes in their own hands or make infeodations of them to Religious houses or give them to such Priests or Parishes as they best affected But after the decree of Pope Innocent the 3d which you may find at large in Sr Edw Cokes Comment upon Magna Charta and other old Statutes of this Realm in the Chapter of Tithes had been confirmed in that Councel Anno 1215 and incorporated into the Canons and conclusions of it the payment of them to the Minister or Parochiall Priest came to be settled universally over all the kingdome save that the Templars the Hospitalers and Monkes of Cisteaux held their ancient priviledges of being excepted for those lands which they held in occupancy from this generall rule Nor have I said any thing of Impropriations partly because I am perswaded that the Lords and Gentry who have either Votes or Friends in Parliament will look well enough to the saving of their own stakes but principally because coming from the same original grant from the King to the Subjects by them settled upon Monasteries and Religious houses they fell in the ruine of those houses to the Crown again as of due right the Tithes should doe if they be taken from the Clergy and by the Crown were alienated in due form of law and came by many mean conveyances to the present Owners Onely I shall desire that the Lords and Commons would take a speciall care of the Churches Patrimony for fear lest that the prevalency of this evill humour which gapes so greedily after the Clergies Tithes doe in the end devour theirs also And it concerns them also in relation to their right of Patronage which if this plot goe on will be utterly lost and Churches will no longer be presentative at the choice of the Patron but either made Elective at the will of the People or else Collated by the Trustees of the severall Counties succeeding as they doe in the power of Bishops as now Committee-men dispose of the preferments of the sequestred Clergy If either by their power and wisdome or by the Arguments and Reasons which are here produced the peoples eyes are opened to discern the truth and that they be deceived no longer by this popular errour it is all I am at who have no other ends herein but onely to undeceive them in this point of Tithes which hath been represented to them as a publick grievance conducing manifestly to the diminution of their gain and profit If notwithstanding all this care for their information they will run headlong in the ways of spoil and sacriledge and shut their eyes against the light of the truth shine it never so brightly let them take heed they fall not into that infatuation which the Scripture denounceth that seeing they shall see but shall not perceive and that the stealing of this Coal from the Altars of God burn not down their houses And so I shut up this discourse with the words of our Saviour saying that no man tasteth new wine but presently he saith that the old is the better FINIS a As in the answer to those of Hartford Kent c. b Levit. 2. 3. 7. 5. 7. c Lev. 7. 33 34. d Ib. v. 8. e Lev. 27. 12 13. f Tithegatherers no Gospel-Ministers g Locuples dives in dominicum sine sacrificio venis partem sacrificii quod pauper obtulit sumis Cypde piet Eleemos h Beda in histor Eccles. l. 1. i Anno 855. Rex Ethelwulfus omnium Praelatorum Principum suorum qui sub ipso variis Provinciis totius Anglia praeerant gratuito Consensu tunc primo cum decim●s terrarum bonorum aliorum sive Catallorum universam dotavit Ecclesiam per suum Regium Chirographum Ingulph k Decimavit de omni possessione sua in partem Domini in universo regimine Principatus sui sit constituit Ethelward l Aethelwulphus Rex decimam totius Regni sui partem ab omni Regali servitio tribut● liberavit in sempiterno Graphio in Cruce Christi pro Redemptione Animae suae Praedecessorum suorum uni trino Deo immolavit Florent Wigorn m Totam terram suam propter amorem Dei redemptionem ad opes Ecclesiarum decimavit Henr. Huntingd. n Qui augere voluerit nostrā donationem augeat omnipotens Deus dies ejus prosperos siquis verò mutare vel minuere praesumpsert noscat se ad Tribunal Christi redditurū ration● nisi prius satisfactione emendaverit o Vt imprimis de meo proprio reddant Deo decimas Episcopi mei similiter faciant de suo proprio Aldermanni mei Praepofiti mei p As in the Book called Tithegatherers no Gospel-officers q As in the Kentish Petition and other projects of that kind r Ante Concilium Lateranense bene poterant Laici decimas sibi in feudum retinere vel aliis quibuscunque Ecclesiis dare Lindwood in Provine cap. de decimis