Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	church_n	lord_n	word_n	4,134	5	3.9920	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38520	Epistola Medio-Saxonica, or, Middlesex first letter to His Excellency, the Lord General Cromwell together with their petition concerning tithes and copy-holds of inheritance, presented to the supreme authority, the Parliament of England : wherein the tortious and illegal usurpation of tithes, contrary to Magna Charta, is discovered, the blemished dignity of copy-holders revived, and how lords of manors have formerly incroached upon their liberties, by imposing arbitrary fines, and multiplying of heriots : whereunto is annexed two additional cases concerning the unreasonable exactions of fines and heriots, contrary to law, in these latter times ...	Cromwell, Oliver, 1599-1658.; Wingfield, Augustus. Vindiciae Medico-Saxonicae.	1653 (1653)	Wing E3170; ESTC R5296	18,776	30

Magna Charta no Custome of the Land for Clergy-men to have Tithes out of every Proprietors Estate but that they were the proper right and inheritance of the owner of the Land And for confirmation hereof it is said by learned Selden in his book of Tithes that in H. 2. his time which was a little before the said Decretal Parochial right was the right of having the Cure and offering of the Parishiones and that to that Parochial right no right of Tithes was annexed by the practise of that time Whereupon it was usual with the Religious and secular of the Clergy to covenant with their Tenants to pay them the Tithes of their Lands that so they might prevent the Minister of the Parish where the Lands lay Now if there had been then any Parochial right or custom for receiving Tithes how could such a Covenant have prevented the Parochial Minister And that this is a clear truth is evidenced by an Act of Parliament in the first year of Rich. the 2. and in the year of our Lord 1377. in these words It is accorded that at what time any person of Holy Church be drawn in plea in the Secular Court for his Tithes taken by the name of Goods taken away and he which is so drawn in plea maketh an exception or allegeth that the substance and sute of the businesse is only upon Tithes due of right and of Possession to his Church or to another his Benefice that in such case the General averment shall not be taken without shewing specially how the same was his Lay Catall that is to say for him to aver and maintain that the Tithes he laid claim to did belong unto him by Parochial right and custome as Minister of the place was no good and allowable plea in Court but that he must shew in special and in particular how the said Tithes he laid claim to became his Lay Catall whether by grant gift or otherwise So that here is not only an acknowledgement of the Pope and Clergy but an Act of Parliament against Parochial right and custome of Tithes And yet should we grant them a custome for Tithes which they cannot claim without blushing of what weight how like a feather would it be being put in the scale with Magna Charta And although it may be objected that they have now a long time enjoyed them even time out of mind yet that will not avail much since it is not a lawfull user but an abuser and tortious Act carryed on with a power contrary to all Law equity and justice Moreover in customes Non diuturnitas temporis sed soliditas rationis est consideranda Not length of time but soundnesse of reason is to be weighed Upon which ground at a Parliament at Kilkenny in Ireland in the 40th of Edw. 3. The Irish customes called the Brehon Law though of long continuance were null'd by that Parliament upon this ground or Maxim that malus usus est abolendus an ill custome as Tith-taking is ought to be abolished So that the plea of a long continued custome of taking Tithes contrary to Magna Charta ans common right will but little conduce to the justification of its authority and lawfullnesse And if from hence any shall fly to Scriptures refuge which none but avaritious Sciolists in sacred law and language will attempt we shall if the weaknesse of their own arguments be not a clear confutation of their errors and injustice return a modest and sober answer Secondly and lastly as to the other branch of our Petition concerning Copy-hold Lands of inheritance finable and also heriotable by the Tyrannicall practise of many at the will of the Lord of the Manor we humbly conceive that by the equity of the tenth chapter of Magna Charta Let no man be distreined to do greater service for his free Tenement than he ought grounded upon the 25. ch of Levit. v. 17. Ye shall not oppresse one another all those arbitrary and unreasonable exactions of Fines and Heriots exercised of late years by Tyrannical Lords of Manors have been illegal and repugnant to the equity if not the letter of the said Charter and have run beside the chanell of charity law and justice But because many of late and former times have laboured much to vilifie and obscure the credit and esteem of Copy-holders of inheritance and their tenure thereby to make way for their pride avarice and Tyranny we shall therefore make a little further inquiry into the discovery of them Bracton lib. 4. ch 28. saith that Villenagiorum aliud purum aliuà privilegiatum Of Villenages one kind is pure and perfect Villenage the other a more free honourable and privileged Where note that Villenage in its proper and genuine signification is nothing but the service of a Husbandman which may be either honourable or base according to the quality of the person and tenure and therefore he saith Pure or base Villenage is that whereby either a free man or a bond-man so holds of his Lord as that he is tyed to do whatever he shall command him not knowing over night what he must do the next morning and always in all things is held to uncertainties and of this sort is Littletons Tenure of Villenage whose large Tract upon that subject might well have been spared since there were very sew if any even in his time who held by that base and unworthy I enure Now the other sort called by Bracton Privilegiatum Privileged Villenage or as he termeth it in his 2d book and 8th and and 35th Chap. Villanum Soccagium qualified Soccage which is the same with Littletons Tenure of Copy-holds where the Tenants hold their Land by Copy of Court Roll as Cook in his Commentaries upon Littleton 1. p. Inst fo 58. acknowledgeth So that Bractons qualified or privileged Soccage and our Copy-holds are one and the same which is more clearly proved by the same manner of conveyance in alienations for saith he in li. 2. cap. 8. Si Villanus Sockmanus Villanum Soccagium if a qualified Sockman or Copy-holder will convey his qualified Soccage to another let him surrender the same unto the hands of the Lord or his Steward and let the other receive it from them which is the form we now use And in his 1. Book and 2d Ch. they are called Gleba ascriptitii Inrolled Tenants of the Glebe or Manor and who did enjoy such privileges as that they could not be put out so long as that they paid their certain and yearly pensions whosoever was Lord neither might they be compelled to keep their Tenement but might alien when they pleased and they them as we now did hold their Tenements ad voluntatem Domini secundum consuetudinem Manerii at the will of the Lord according to the custome of the Manor Yet was not that such an unbridled will as many pragmatical Novices in Iurisprudential Learning now Imagine not a naturall will but a legall will bounded by

the confirmation of Magna Charta Tithes were not at all comprehended in the Rights of the Church Which will yet more fully appear if we consult Mr. Seldens book of Tithes and the Roll of Winten In the first whereof pag. 137. It is delivered for a clear truth that there never was any Canon of any General Council as yet found that purposely commanded payment of Tithes nor any that expresly supposed them a duty of Common right before the Council of Lateran under Pope Innocent the 3d. 1615 So that at the Council of Lateran which was in the latter end of K. John and but 12 years or thereabouts before the confirmation of Magna Charta by H. the 3d. Tithes were not due by common right that is by Common Law and so consequently no rights of the Church And if not then due by Common Law then certainly not at the confirming of Magna Charta since in the judgment of all both Canonists and Common Lawyers 12 years is not a competency of time either for custom or prescription the one allowing 40 years at least the other time out of mind And yet to proceed this Respondent doth further acknowledge p. 14. that there was no Parochial Right of Tithes till after the Council of Lateran aforesaid 1615. and that after the Decretal Epistle of Innocent the 3d sent to the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury in the year aforesaid the right of Tithes was allowed but you must know by whom viz. the Pope and his Clergy not the People and so became Lex Terrae a Law of the Land which are likewise the words and judgement of Cook Now of what force and validity a Right of Tithes grounded upon a Canon of the Pope and diametrically repugnant to Magna Charta can be let all men judge since Cook their Oracle hath declared in his Chapter of Tithes that all Canons which are against the Common Law or Custom of the Land are of no force Now as to the Roll of Winton called by some Doomsday Book which was a survey of all the Lands Revenues both of Clergy Laity exactly taken by Commiss in every County throughout the Nation and returned into the Exchequer about the latter end of the Conquerours Reign It is there Recorded in particular what the Revenues and dues of every Presbyter and Church were but yet notwithstanding very rarely if at all are any Tithes found among the Church Revenues So that bence it is most cleer First that in William the Conquerrors time Tiths were no Revenue nor rights of the Church nor yet Secondly in H. 2. his time see the Letter and Petition p. 5. And lastly by the Authors own confession they became due onely but from the latter end of K. Johns Reign and that grounded meerly upon a Popish Canon contrary to Magna Charta which is acknowledged by the Learned to be the Common Law of England both before and after the Conquest The second and last objection which the Author of the said Treatise maketh is upon our exposition of the Statute of 1 R. 2. cap. 14. which wee shall here make good to be most genuine and true notwithstanding his false calumniation and that his Anti exposition is most absurd and false and such as had not Custom wrought another Nature in him to speak and write untruly could never have fell from him Now the question between us is whether the Averment there spoken of be Lay Averment and so to be made by the Plaintiff according to his exposition or Church Averment and so to be made by the Defendant according to our exposition whether of which is most true we shall leave to every one to judge by opening unto you the Nature of Averment out of the judgment of the Learned and by holding forth such reasons as shall in brief be produced And first Cowells Interpreter saith That Averment signifieth according to the Author of Terms of the Law an offer of the Defendant to make good or to unstifie in exteption pleaded in abatement or bar of the Plaintiffs Act. And Sir Hen. Smith in his book of Law fo 359 also saith That Averments must be offered to be proved true in Barrs 1. Answers Replications Rejoinders c. but not in Counts andDeclarations And of the same judgment is Sir Edw. Cook in his first part of Institutes fo 362. So that it is evident Averments are properly to be made by Defendants in their answears or in after pleadings and not by Plaintiffs in their Declaration unlesse in some few particular cases of which this is none as is evident not only by the Grammatical and Logical Construction of the said Statute but even in the judgement of Learned Rastal a Iustice of the Common-pleas in Q. Maries days who to put the question out of doubt hath set it down in the margent of his Abridgement of the Statutes to be Church Averment which we conceive to be a final determination of the question And as to your Ordinance of Nov. 1644. for the payment of Tithes we clearly conceive it to be the judgement of all the learned that it is of no longer validity than during Parliamentary Session which is now dissolv'd upon sure grounds of Piety Publique freedome right reason and honestie and that notwithout the Generall consent of the major part either precedent or subsequent of the Supreme Authority the People Now by what hath been said it will easily appear who doth most abuse and mislead the People and whether exposition of Magna Charta and the other Statute of R. 2. is most true That of the Letter and Petition back'd with right reason and the Authorities of great Lawyers and learned Iudges or that of the Author of the Treatise being a fancy of his own brain and raised out of implicite Terms which he that believs had need of of a Popish and implicite faith FINIS