The Commutation Act of 1836 settled a long-burning question. The gross
value of the tithes was about six millions. These were commuted to four
millions. The landlords not only gained two millions, but also increased
rentals from the improvements which their tenants made when the tithe was
commuted into a corn rent payable in money and permanent in quantity, but
fluctuating yearly in value, so that any improved value given to land
would not increase the amount of the rent charge. Again, the landlords
gained about half a million a year by the various changes which were made
in the extraordinary tithe rent charges. By the Commutation Act, the
landlords and not the tenants are the real tithe-rent payers. But the
landlords having contracted themselves out of the 80th clause of that
Act, and having arranged with the tenants to pay the tithe rent-charge, a
good deal of ill-feeling has sprung up in certain parts of the country,
especially in Wales, on the part of the farmers against the tithe-owners.
The Tithe Act of 1891 makes the owner of the lands and not the occupier
liable for the tithe-rent charge.
Henry VIII., as “Supreme Head of the Church of England,” made no change
in her doctrines, and the clergy received their tithes as hitherto for
saying masses for the repose of the souls of departed parishioners,
granting absolution, teaching transubstantiation and doctrines as regards
purgatory. The tithes and landed endowments were originally granted for
teaching these doctrines. But in the reigns of his son and Elizabeth
changes were made in both ritual and doctrines, and those incumbents who
refused to adopt the doctrines, framed in accordance with those used
in the Primitive Christian Church, were deprived of their incumbencies
and consequently of their tithes and other Church endowments. But there
was no physical transfer made then of such endowments, and the Church
was the same Church of England, but reformed. Their successors, who
embraced the doctrines against masses, purgatory, absolution, confession,
transubstantiation, etc., were appointed on the condition of strictly
complying with the Act of Uniformity and of the doctrines enunciated in
the Thirty-nine Articles. It was in virtue of such compliance that they
were put in possession by Acts of Parliament of the tithes and other
endowments of the Church, which their predecessors had enjoyed. It was
purely a change of usufructuary possessors without the least disturbance
of the property. The new tenant solemnly engaged to comply with the new
laws of the Church; the old tenant refused to do so, and had therefore
to leave. That was all. The incoming trustee held his endowments by
a Parliamentary Title. The present usufructuary possessors of Church
endowments hold them also on the above conditions, and by the same
Parliamentary Title. And as Parliament gave the Title, it can also change
the Title. But how do matters stand now? Dr. Vaughan, the Roman Catholic
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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