Church-Scot = _Cyriesceat_ = Firstfruits, _primitiæ seminum_. The Jews had been commanded to give firstfruits[146] as well as tithes. Here again the Levitical legislation was taken to be applicable to the Christian ministry, and hence we find firstfruits as well as tithes given to them. This impost remained a fixed charge upon the land till the time of the Conquest, when it ceased to be generally paid.[147] The first instance of this payment in Anglo-Saxon law is found in the laws of King Ina [A.D. 690]: “Let church-scots be rendered at Martinmas. If any one do not perform that, let him forfeit 60 shillings and render the Church-scot twelve-fold.”[148] This Act was passed more than 200 years before the legal enactment of tithes. It is strange that we should find firstfruits but not tithes enacted by King Ina. The omission proves that tithes were not then paid in Wessex. In Athelstan’s law passed at Greatanlea, it is stated, “I will also that my reeves so do that there be given the church-scots.”[149] Between the laws of Ina and that of Athelstan, there is no mention of church-scots in Anglo-Saxon laws. There must have been a large number of landowners’ churches erected in the country at the time the above law was passed, for the priests received only one-third of the tithes, the remaining two-thirds was paid to the baptismal churches of the diocese and placed at the bishop’s disposal; one-third of the two-thirds was for the repairs of churches. The bishop who had the control of these funds must have neglected their repairs, and this law commanded the bishops not only to repair the churches but also “to remind the king that all God’s churches be well conditioned.” If there had been no customary appropriation of tithes, as some assert, why should this law place the expenses of repairing the churches upon the bishops? We are gravely told by Mr. Fuller that this law passed in A.D. 940 is no law, although presided over by the king, because the meeting was called a “_Synod_” and not a “_Witan_”![150] Prideaux calls it a law.[151] Selden says: “About 940, Edmund, king of England, in a great synod or council, a kind of Parliament both of lay and spiritual men held in London, made this Act.”[152] Kemble, Freeman, Bishop Stubbs, and every writer of distinction admit this to be a proper legislative enactment. KING EDGAR’S LAWS. Edgar succeeded his brother Edwig, or Edwy, in 959; died 975. In the following law, Mr. Thorpe takes his text from a collection of two important manuscripts; (1) Corpus Christi MS. 265 (K. 2); (2) Cott. Nero, A. 1, both apparently written in the middle of the 11th century. “This is the Ordinance[153] that King Edgar, with the counsel of his Witan, ordained, in praise of God and in honour to himself and for the behoof of all his people.”