“Wherefore I, Ethelwulf, king of the West Saxons, with the consent of my bishops and princes, resolved on a salutary counsel and also a uniform remedy; viz., to give _a certain portion of my land_ to God, the blessed Mary and all the saints, possessing it by a perpetual right; viz., the _tenth part of my land_, so as to be safe, protected and free from all secular services, and also from royal tributes, the greater and less, or from the taxes which we call ‘Witereden,’”[108] etc. Attention is drawn to the words in italics. SELDEN’S CONCLUSION ON ETHELWULF’S CHARTER. “If we well consider the words of the chiefest of these ancients, that is, Ingulphus, we may conjecture that the purpose of the charter was to make a general grant of tithes payable freely and discharged from all kind of exactions used in that time.”[109] Selden is not correct in this conclusion; for if we take the collateral evidence of the chronicles, we shall find that the king’s grant referred to land and not to tithe of increase. Selden says, “In Matthew of Westminster no other _decima_ is mentioned in it than _decima terræ meæ_. Out of the corrupted language [of the charter] it is hard to collect what the exact meaning of it was.”[110] Here Selden unquestionably expresses a doubt as to the interpretation of the charter. And we are therefore bound to give him credit as having been the first to doubt Ingulph’s interpretation of the charter; namely, that “Ethelwulf first endowed the whole English Church throughout his kingdom with the tithes of the lands.” Therefore I agree with Lord Selborne that Haddan and Stubbs have not done justice to Selden in not having taken this doubtful statement into consideration.[111] CHAPTER VIII. _TITHE LAWS MADE BY ANGLO-SAXON KINGS._ Prideaux says: “For King Alfred, the son of Ethelwulf, about thirty years afterwards (885), having published a body of laws for the well government of the realm, in one of them strictly enjoins the payment of these tithes to the Church.”[112] He quotes as his authority for this statement, Spelman’s “Concilia,” tome i. p. 360, No. 38: “Decimas, primigenia, et adulta tua Deo dato.” This is the Vulgate translation of the Saxon. Thorpe translates the Saxon thus: “Thy tithes and thy firstfruits of moving and growing things, render thou to God.”[113]