Chapter 8
The Historie of Tithes (1618) by John Seldon
-- The predecessor to
all later positions on tithing
The 1618
book by John Selden The Historie of Tithes (491 numbered pages, 47 unnumbered pages) was
important for many reasons. It caused some political uproar because of its
attack on tithing and all those who received that tithing. Apparently, Selden's
approach to history was also different enough to change the general approach to
historical research by other researchers. The book is important to us today
because it was an early and very thorough treatment of all of the historical and
practical foolishness that had been added to the original topic of tithing.
Selden made it clear that there was no religious or historical basis for the
laws concerning tithing at his time. The later book by Rev. Henry William
Clarke relies heavily on the Selden book and quotes from it. Conveniently, the
Clarke book was published much later and so is much more readable for modern
readers.
Rather than attempt the enormous task of fully
translating the Selden work into modern English, including translating Latin
and Greek as well as middle English words, I'm just going to present a small
segment from his book which makes clear his disgust for the possible outcomes
of having corrupt priests receiving the tithes that should go to the poor, and
his support for the idea of "arbitrary consecrations" which was his
term for free-will offerings presented without any coercion from church or
government. Selden is quoting John Wycliffe and is in turn quoted by Clarke:
[page 290]
...
For notwithstanding all
those Ordinances, both Secular and Synodall, anciently here made for due
payment, it is clear, that in the time before about that [Pope] Innocent
[the third], it was not only usual, in fact, for Lay men to convey the right of
their Tithes, as Rents-charge, or the like, to what Church or Monasterie they
made choice of, but by the course and practice of the Law also of that time
(both Common and Canon, as it was here in use) such conveyances were clearly
good, and what was through them so acquired, was continually, and is to this
day (except some particulars, which either the Popes autoritie of later time,
or new Cōpositions or Grants, or the like, have altered) enjoyed by the
Churches, that, yet remaining, had portions so anciently given them, or by the
King or his Grantees of impropriated Tithes; very many of which, had their
chiefe originall from those arbitrarie Consecrations
[page 291]
(which you may well
call Appropriations of Tithes) and not from the appropriating only of Parish
Churches, as some out of grosse ignorance, with too much confidence, deliver.
But thereof you may see more in the examples of the next Chapter. where, for
most apparent proof of the practice of arbitrary Consecrations [free-will
offerings, sometimes called tithing] in those times, Moniments [records,
references] enough are collected. This arbitrary disposition, used by the Laity
as well de jure (as the Positive Law, then received and practiced, was) as de
facto, is that which Wicclef [see note below] remembered in his
complaint to the King and Parliament under Richard the
second. His words are: A Lord God, where this be reason, to constrain
the poor people to find a worldly Priest, sometime unable both of life and
cunning, in pomp and pride, covetous and envy, gluttony, drunkenness and
lechery, in simony [see note below] and heresy, with fat Horse, and jolly and
gay Saddles and Bridles, ringing by the way, and himself in costly Clothes and
Pelure [French: literally skin, perhaps meaning adornments, appearance], and to
suffer their wives and children, and their poor neighbors, perish for hunger,
thirst, and cold, and other mischiefs of the world. A Lord Jesu Christ, sith
[since] within few years, men payed their Tithes and Offerings at their own
will free to good men, and able to great worship of God, to profit and fairness
of holy Church fighting in earth Where it were lawful and needful, that a
worldly Priest should destroy this holy and approved custom, constraining men
to
[page 292]
leave this freedom, turning Tithes and Offerings into wicked uses. But what he calls a few years, will fall out to be about CC. [200]
for he wrote about the year M.CCC.XC. [1390] With him well agrees some passages
in our Year-books of the times before him. [Latin quotations]
...
some later Books tells us, that from the Councell of Lateran [1215
in Rome] the first alteration of that course of arbitrary disposition came. But
plainly, no Councell of Lateran hath any Canon that altered
the Law in it, except that under Alexander the third, before spoken
of in the end of the sixth Chapter, may have place here: which, indeed, the
Canonists will not endure, unless you restrain it only to ancient Feudal
Tithes. And they suppose, every man might have arbitrarily conveyed, before
that Councell, his Feudall Tithes to what Church he would.
The terms "arbitrary consecrations" or "arbitrary
conveyances" also appear at pages
362, 365, 395, 400, 468, and 491 in the book and are further discussed.
Chapter Notes
1. John Wycliffe (/ˈwɪklɪf/; also spelled Wyclif, Wycliff,
Wiclef, Wicliffe, Wickliffe; c. 1320s – 31 December 1384),[2] was an English
scholastic philosopher, theologian, Biblical translator, reformer, priest, and
a seminary professor at the University of Oxford. He became an influential
dissident within the Roman Catholic priesthood during the 14th century and is
considered an important predecessor to Protestantism.
Wycliffe attacked the privileged status of the clergy,
which had bolstered their powerful role in England. He then attacked the luxury
and pomp of local parishes and their ceremonies.
Wycliffe also advocated translation of the Bible into the
vernacular. In 1382 he completed a translation directly from the Vulgate into
Middle English – a version now known as Wycliffe's Bible. It is probable that
he personally translated the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and it
is possible he translated the entire New Testament, while his associates
translated the Old Testament. Wycliffe's Bible appears to have been completed
by 1384, additional updated versions being done by Wycliffe's assistant John
Purvey and others in 1388 and 1395.
Wycliffe's followers, known as Lollards, followed his lead
in advocating predestination, iconoclasm, and the notion of caesaropapism,
while attacking the veneration of saints, the sacraments, requiem masses,
transubstantiation, monasticism, and the very existence of the Papacy.
In the 16th century and beyond, the Lollard movement was
sometimes regarded as the precursor to the Protestant Reformation. Wycliffe was
accordingly characterised as the evening star of scholasticism and as the
morning star of the English Reformation. Wycliffe's writings in Latin greatly
influenced the philosophy and teaching of the Czech reformer Jan Hus (c.
1369–1415), whose execution in 1415 sparked a revolt and led to the Hussite
Wars of 1419–1434. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wycliffe
2. sith -- archaic variant of SINCE
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sith
3. pelure f (plural pelures), Noun: 1. peel, rind (of a fruit), 2. skin (of an
onion)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pelure
4. simony
the buying or selling of ecclesiastical privileges, for
example pardons or benefices.
https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/simony
5. What is the sin of simony?
Simony, buying or selling of something spiritual or closely
connected with the spiritual. More widely, it is any contract of this kind
forbidden by divine or ecclesiastical law. The name is taken from Simon Magus
(Acts 8:18), who endeavoured to buy from the Apostles the power of conferring
the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/simony
Simony /ˈsɪməni/ is the act of selling church offices and
roles. It is named after Simon Magus,[1] who is described in the Acts of the Apostles
as having offered two disciples of Jesus payment in exchange for their
empowering him to impart the power of the Holy Spirit to anyone on whom he
would place his hands. The term extends to other forms of trafficking for money
in "spiritual things."[2][3]
The appointment of ecclesiastical officials, such as
bishops and abbots, by a secular authority came to be considered simoniacal and
this became a key issue during the Investiture Controversy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simony
6. Because
the Selden book is difficult to read in its entirety for a modern person,
perhaps, for our purposes, some of the most interesting aspects of his book are
the way his book was treated by others at his time. In this public argument
started by John Selden, it should not be difficult for each of us to decide
which side of that argument we would like to be on.
Histories of Tithes: Religious
Controversy and Changing Methodologies
by Madeline McMahon
In December 1618, the talented
scholar John Selden was called before King James to answer for the publication
of his Historie of tithes
(London: William Stansby, 1618). Selden’s work on tithes (literally, the “tenth” of all
goods due to the church) had instantly incited controversy. Selden was made to
apologize to the High Commission of bishops and forbidden to respond to the
royally commissioned attacks against his book (G. J. Toomer, “Selden’s ‘Historie of Tithes’: Genesis, Publication,
Aftermath”). Reflecting back on this moment
several decades later in his Vindiciae, Selden recalled that
Although it had been licensed…by the signature of one of the
priestly tribe, yet once it had been printed, it offended very many of them,
and also all the bishops then about the court, with the exception of the then
Bishop of Winchester, that most learned and peerless Lancelot Andrewes, who was
quite pleased by it as being in agreement with the most accepted practices
amongst us…Hence those fierce hornets [i.e. bishops at court]…incited the mind
of the king… (Selden, Vindiciae, 16 – 17. English translation from G. J.
Toomer, “Selden’s ‘Historie of
Tithes’: Genesis, Publication, Aftermath” 361-2.]
Selden’s account reveals the
influence of what Kenneth Fincham called “court prelates”—the
bishops who made their home at King James’s court. It also raises questions.
Why did Selden’s already licensed book offend? And why, alone of all the court
prelates, was Lancelot Andrewes instead “quite pleased” by the Historie of
tithes?
Under James, the status and
collection of tithes had not improved since the reformation reallocated church
property to the state and prominent private citizens: as support for parish
clergy, tithes were inadequate, unreliable, and often went to leading laymen
anyway. In the later years under Elizabeth, clergy began to argue what had been
“politically unacceptable” following the reformation: that tithes were due jure
divino—by divine right (E. A. Bershadsky, “Politics, Erudition and
Ecclesiology: John Selden’s ‘Historie of Tithes’ and its contexts and
ramifications”, 4; Toomer, John Selden: A Life in
Scholarship, 257-8).
Andrewes was one of the first to
make this argument in his dissertation for his Doctorate of Divinity at
Cambridge in 1590, when he was thirty-five years old. Like many writing a
dissertation, he claimed (justifiably in his case) that his argument was new:
“nor is there any by whose candle I shall light mine” (Of the Right of Tithes.
A Divinity Determination… (London:
Andrew Hebb, 1647), 5). This “avant-garde defence of clerical tithes” which
“ran counter to advanced protestant opinion” was a risk that paid off: Andrewes
was immediately made chaplain to both the Archbishop of Canterbury and the
Queen (Peter McCullough, Lancelot Andrewes:
Selected Sermons and Lectures, lviii; McCullough, ODNB). Andrewes was one of the first of
a movement that pushed back against the earlier Protestant reformers,
especially the Calvinism prominent in the Church of England (see Peter Lake’s
essay in The Mental World of the
Jacobean Court). It was true, he admitted, that
before the reformation “the desire to increase the Revenue of the Clergy
proceeded to such a height, that it was greatly to be feared, lest the Church
should swallow up the Common-wealth” (Right of Tithes, 3). The
reformers had addressed this and other abuses, but Andrewes wished they had
“taken care not onely of increasing the light, but also of allowing
oil”—providing means for the church they had reformed (Right of Tithes,
5). Andrewes sought to defend tithes from abrogation by proving that they were
“provided for by the Sacred Law” (jure divino) by “God,
the Lawyer himself” (5).
Andrewes drew on a range of
evidence. He turned to two passages of scripture as the cruxes of his argument:
Abraham giving tithes to the priest Melchizedek in Genesis 14:20 and, ironically, Jesus’s critique
of tithes in Matthew 23:23.
Melchizedek blessed Abraham and Abraham in return gave a tenth of his goods (Right
of Tithes, 6). This, for Andrewes, was the moment that established tithes
by sacred law, as the return due to the priesthood for its services.
Andrewes went on to prove that
tithes had been considered due jure divino throughout history—and not
just in the Jewish and Christian religions. Greco-Roman religions mandated
tithes as well, which meant that not only sacred but also natural law required
such payments (24). He pointed out tithes’ protection by canon and civil law,
including English common law (13) and cited different church fathers to
illustrate the ubiquity of tithes across the early Christian world. He also
argued from “Reason” that clergymen’s dependence on the fruits of the earth
made them more sympathetic to their agrarian parishioners—tithes made for a
better community (22). At the end, though, Andrewes returned to “the example of
Melchisedek, who surpasseth the antiquity and faith of all Histories”
(26).
Under James, it became de rigueur
to argue that tithes were owed according to sacred law. Andrewes’ once
subversive argument had become the norm. While Selden did not write against
tithes, his approach and rationale was opposite to Andrewes’, despite the fact
that he touched on similar topics and even structured his book in much the same
way. For Selden, the Jewish practice of tithes was neither continuous nor
relevant to that of the Christian church. Besides, Selden pointed out with
philological and historical bravado, technically Abraham had paid Melchizedek
spoils of war (The Historie of Tithes,
1-3). The early church was supported by charity rather than legal requirement.
Only in the late medieval church were tithes enforced.
In his defense to the king, Selden
wrote that he had “resolved wholly to leave the point of divine right of
tythes, and keep myself wholly to the historical part” (“Of my Purpose and End
in writing the History of Tythes”, quoted in Toomer, John Selden, 259).
The title of his work—the Historie, rather than Right of
tithes—signaled Selden’s real departure from previous approaches. Perhaps Andrewes
saw something of his own in Selden’s work: another subversive and innovative
treatment of tithes. Both Andrewes’ and Selden’s works were coopted several
decades later when the case for an established church itself was at stake.
Andrewes’ dissertation was translated and published in 1647, while Selden noted
in the 1650s that clergymen then sought
where they might find the best argument for their tithes,
setting aside the jus diuinum; they
were advised to my History of Tithes, a book so much cried down by them
formerly (in which, I dare boldly say, there are more arguments for them than
are extant together anywhere)… (Selden, Table Talk, quoted in Toomer,
“Selden’s ‘Historie of Tithes’,” 374-5)
https://jhiblog.org/2015/02/18/histories-of-tithes-religious-controversy-and-changing-methodologies/
Notes to note 6:
The author McMahon notes that Andrewes cites Matthew 23:23
as proof of the eternal validity of tithing:
23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, ahypocrites! for ye pay btithe of mint and canise and cummin, and have domitted the weightier matters of the law, ejudgment, fmercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other
undone.
Presumably the argument made by Andrewes was that the
phrase "and not to leave the other undone" is a command to live the
law of tithing for all time. However, that seems like a silly argument, since
one of the great purposes of Christ's life and ministry was to end the law of
Moses, including its very intrusive and burdensome law of tithing. Obviously,
one must argue that Christ did not end the law of Moses in order to make this
argument that tithing remained in effect after Christ.
Note 6-2
Presumably, one of the
"royally commissioned attacks against
his book" was the "Animadversions on Selden's "History of
Tithes," in 1621, by Dr. R. Tillesley, Archdeacon of Rochester." as
cited in A
History of Tithes, 2nd ed., (1894) by Rev. Henry William Clarke.
Note 6-3
Even though
he was told not to, apparently Selden did answer the Animadversions book
with an essay of his own, but I have yet to find the text of Selden's
answer. See following mention of the
answer:
These numerous attacks Selden was for the time
forced to suffer in silence, for King James had told him that he would put him
in prison if he or any of his friends made any answer to them. But as he
insists, when he was at length able to reply to Dr. Tillesley's '
Animadversions,' he had been careful in making his submission to retract
nothing. ' I was and am,' he says, ' sorry that I published it, and that I so
gave occasion to others to abuse my history, by their false application of some
arguments.' A full account of the whole matter will be found in Works, vol. i.
Vita Authoris, p. v-viii. See also vol. iii. pp. 1370, 1394 and 1452 ff.
Table Talk of John Selden by Samuel Harvey
Reynolds, Oxford Press. 1892, p.180
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