“If the credit of this,” continues Selden, “be valued by the inscription, then it is about 850 years old. For, that Egbert lived Archbishop of York from the year 743 (?) to 767 (?). But the authority of that title must undergo censure. Whoever made it, supposed that Egbert gathered that law and the rest joined with it out of some former church constitutions; neither doth the name ‘Excerptions’ denote otherwise. But in that collection some whole constitutions occur in the same syllables, as they are in the Capitularies of Charles the Great, as that of ‘unicuique ecclesiæ unus mansque integer,’ etc., and some others, which could not be known to Egbert, that died in the last year of Pipin, father to Charles. How came he then by that? And how may we believe that Egbert was the author of any part of those Excerptions? unless you excuse it with that use of the middle times which often inserted into one body and under one name laws of different ages. But admit that; yet, what is ‘secundum canonicam autoritatem coram testibus dividant’? The ancientest ‘canonica autoritas’ for dividing tithes before witnesses is an old Imperial, attributed in some editions to the eleventh year of the reign of Charles the Great, being King of France; in others to the Emperor Lothar the First. But refer it to either of them, and it will be divers years later than Egbert’s death. And other mixed passages there plainly show that whosesoever the collection was, much of it was taken out of the Imperial Capitularies, none of which were made in Egbert’s time.”[47] This is a reasonable and argumentative statement of facts. In addition to the above, I may refer to the seventh canon, “That all priests pray assiduously for the life and empire of our lord the emperor, and for the health of his sons and daughters.” Again, canon 24 is found in Charlemagne’s Capitulary of A.D. 813. Egbert died on the 19th November, 766,[48] and Charles became King of France in 768. These dates are very important in this controversy. The first twenty-one canons are from the Audain manuscript in the monastery of St. Herbert in the Ardennes. Canons 22 to 28 inclusive are taken from other Gallican Capitulars. These twenty-eight canons were made between A.D. 789 and 816. The remaining 135 canons are taken from other foreign sources. It is quite unnecessary to introduce into the discussion of the threefold division of tithes in England, doubtful canons, such as the “Excerptions” of Egbert and other writings copied from them. There are, without these, sufficient solid, genuine facts at our command with which to prove the threefold division of tithes in England, and these are stated further on. CHAPTER VI. _THE FIRST PUBLIC LAY LAW FOR THE PAYMENT OF TITHES._