“I, Athelstan the king, with the counsel of Wulfhelm, archbishop, and of my other bishops, make known to the reeves at each burgh, and beseech you in God’s name, and by all His saints, and also by my friendship, that ye first of my own goods render the tithes both of live stock and of the year’s earthly fruits, so as they may most rightly be either meted or told or weighed out; and let the bishops then do the like from their own goods, and my ealdormen and my reeves the same. And I will that the bishops and the reeves command it to all those who ought to obey them, that it be done at the right term. Let us bear in mind how Jacob the patriarch spake, ‘Decimas et hostias pacificas offeram tibi’; and how Moses spake in God’s law, ‘Decimas et primitias non turdabis offerre Domino.’ It is for us to think how awfully it is declared in the books: if we will not render the tithes to God, that He will take from us the nine parts when we least expect; and moreover we have the sin in addition thereto.”[127] This is unquestionably the first general law in England for the payment of predial and mixed tithes. I admit, and have stated, that tithes were paid by Edward’s treaty with Guthrum, and that clause in the treaty implied that they were paid previously, but there was no public law recorded like Athelstan’s, which set forth the payment of predial and mixed tithes. Now, Lord Selborne states that Athelstan’s ordinance is not in form a public legislative Act, but merely a royal message addressed to his reeves, bishops, and ealdormen.[128] Against this opinion, I place the opinions of Selden, Kemble, Bishop Stubbs, and Dean Prideaux. (1) Selden says: “King Athelstan, about the year 930, by the advice and consent of the bishops of the land made a general law for predial and mixed tithes.”[129] (2) Kemble says: “It is well known that the earliest legislative enactment on the subject of tithes in the Anglo-Saxon laws is that of Athelstan, bearing date in the first quarter of the tenth century.”[130] Kemble further adds: “The tithes mentioned by Athelstan is the predial tithe, or that of the increase of the fruits of the earth, and increase of the young of cattle. The nature of the sanction of tithes is obvious; it is the old, unjustifiable application of the Jewish practice, which fraud or ignorance had made general current in Europe.”[131] (3) Bishop Stubbs says: “The formula by which the co-operation of the Witenagemót was expressed is definite and distinct. Alfred issues his code with the counsel and consent of his Witan; Athelstan writes to the reeves with the counsel of the bishops.”[132]