Infeudations are the conveyances of the perpetual right of tithes to laymen. The Third Council of Lateran, held in _A.D._ 1180, was the first to forbid infeudations. Such conveyances, although frequent on the Continent, were not so in England until the general dissolution of monasteries. Very little of the lands, tenements, and tithes in possession of the alien priories was given away or sold to laymen when Parliament had at various times alienated the same. The properties were bestowed on other monasteries and on colleges for religious and educational purposes. In the latter case, the owners were clergymen. This was not so with the enormous properties of the dissolved monasteries and chantries which Parliament had given to Henry VIII. and Edward VI. The amount of confiscated property was about £250,000 per annum. If this vast property had been placed under the management of Commissioners, it would realize an annual income at the present time, of eight and a half millions, quite sufficient to defray all the expenses which are now paid by the ratepayers for the maintenance of the poor in England and Wales. I shall deal here only with the tithes, which form but a small part of the immense properties which were then confiscated, and which Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth lavishly bestowed on the numerous poor hungry court favourites and court flunkeys, who were the ancestors of many who are now high in the peerage. The War of the Roses had swept away the ancient nobility of England, and in their places sprang up a crowd of poor hungry men who surrounded Henry VIII. and his children. Nothing could possibly turn out more opportune for them than the confiscation of the vast monastic properties which Parliament handed over to Henry VIII. and Edward VI. to do with them as they thought proper. What could possibly be better for these poor court sycophants? We have only to open out the county histories of the country, and there we shall find very sad accounts of the manner in which the vast monastic estates had been given away to the ancestors of some of the aristocracy. Archbishops, bishops, and chapters had to surrender to the Crown numerous manors which had been given by Anglo-Saxon kings to their predecessors out of folcland which was the national property of the Anglo-Saxons. These manors were afterwards given away by the Crown to these poor hungry court favourites, and thus formed the title-deeds of many aristocratic families who now carry high heads in the country.