The legates, on their return to Rome, made a report to the Pope of their proceedings in England. The document was published in A.D. 1567 at Basle by the Magdeburg Centuriators, from a manuscript of which they give no account.[69] It contains, however, as Lord Selborne admits, abundant internal proof of authenticity.[70] Yet he adds: “But because it is not probable that, if the Injunctions which we now know from this source only had entered into the body of the public law of the three greatest Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the eighth century, they would, in this country, have entirely disappeared.”[71] When such arguments from negative evidence as to laws are urged, I always think of Mr. Thorpe’s wise remarks, that “what we now possess of Anglo-Saxon laws is but a portion of what once existed.”[72] It contains twenty Injunctions, and was signed by the two kings and all the bishops, including an Irish and Welsh bishop. In this document the object of the mission is thus stated: “To travel through and visit the island, and to confirm the authority of the Roman Pontiff acquired there formerly through the mission of Augustine.”[73] FIRST CIVIL LAW IN ENGLAND FOR PAYMENT OF TITHES. The seventeenth Injunction is this: “Of giving tithes, as it is written in the law. Thou shalt bring the tenth part of all thy crops or first fruits into the house of the Lord thy God. Again, by the prophet: ‘Bring,’ he says, ‘all the tithe into My barn, that there may be meat in My house, and prove Me upon this if I shall not open unto you the windows of heaven, and pour out a blessing even to abundance, and I will rebuke the devourer for your sake, who eats and spoils the fruit of your land, and your vineyard shall no more be barren.’ As a wise man says, ‘No man can justly give alms of what he possesseth, unless he had first separated to the Lord what he from the beginning directed to be paid to Him.’ And on this account it often happens that he who does not give a tenth is himself reduced to a tenth. Wherefore we solemnly enjoin that all be careful to give tithes of all that they possess, because it is the special part of the Lord God; and let a man live on the nine parts and give alms, and we advise that these things should be done secretly, because it is written, ‘When thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee.’”[74] “The terms of this article,” says Lord Selborne, “speak for themselves; their character is evident, being that of a _pastoral precept, not legal enactment_.”[75] He therefore rejects this as a civil enactment for payment of tithes. “There can be no doubt,” says Haddan and Stubbs, “that the legatine canon, approved by the kings and Witan, had the force of law, although it is uncertain by what means the law was enforced, or whether it was enforced at all.”[76]