It is not quite correct to say at page 52, in the “Brief,” that all the monastic endowments have been swept away and confiscated to the Crown. The properties of the alien priories are now enjoyed by some of our wealthy colleges and public schools. Henry VIII. had endowed, out of the monastic properties, six bishoprics and chapters, of which five bishoprics exist at the present day. Again, Christ Church, Oxford, the aristocratic college for the sons of our nobility, was built and endowed out of the property of over twenty monasteries which were confiscated, with the full sanction of both King and Pope, in order to supply Cardinal Wolsey with funds to build and endow “Cardinal College,” Oxford. This college receives at present £40,000 per annum gross from tithe-rent charges. Again, the eight conventual chapters were not only left in possession of all their monastic endowments, but also received in augmentation of their incomes a great deal of the properties of some of the dissolved monasteries. For example, Canterbury received almost all the endowments of St. Augustine’s monastery. The year 1836 was a turning-point in the episcopal and capitular endowments; the 6 & 7 William IV. c. lxxvii. created the Ecclesiastical Commission. The commissioners utilized the endowments in order to provide for the spiritual destitution of large parishes. Up to 1890, upwards of 5,700 benefices have received £971,700 per annum in perpetuity towards augmenting the incumbent’s incomes. We must add to this the enormous capital sums which have been expended out of the Common Fund of the Commissioners, in erecting some thousands of new parsonages, repairing and clearing off mortgages of others. The average net income of the “Common Fund” is more than one million a year. The gross income of the “Common Fund” of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, on the 31st August, 1890, was £1,722,709; it disbursed that year £1,140,334, leaving a balance of £582,374.[252] Fully four-fifths of the properties in the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners has come, partly from the ancient public landed endowments granted to archbishops, bishops, and chapters by Anglo-Saxon kings with the consent of their respective Witenagemóts; and partly from the monastic rectorial tithes which were transferred by the Crown to the above corporations in lieu or exchange of landed estates surrendered to the Crown at the period of the Reformation. The duties performed by the parochial priests for the tithes were their regular duties, including (1) saying mass, (2) praying for the dead, and (3) invoking the saints. But by Acts of Parliament the mass has been suppressed, the dead by some are not prayed for, and the saints are no longer invoked by some who now enjoy the tithe-rent charges.