The English being naturally a serious and devout people ran eagerly in all ages into all the modes of religion then in vogue. Hence an infinite number of Monasteries of all kinds were erected in the Kingdom, and the Religious thereof being by their institution more attached to the Pope than the secular Clergy were, it came to pass that when the Papal power was first introduced into England in the reign of Henry the First (in whose time the Cardinal de Crema came over the first Legate of the See of Rome, and appeals to that Court began to be introduced), they soon got the Pope to exert the plentitude of his power, and the sovereignty he claimed over all the possessions of the Spirituality (tho’ originally the grant of our Kings) and to appropriate the tythes glebe and revenues of livings to Monasteries. This was done generally between the years 1120 and 1250. Hereupon the Religious of these Monasteries, keeping all the great tythes and sometimes the small ones also, and even the oblations (which in those days were very considerable) to themselves either supplied the cures by one of their own body, or endowed a resident vicar either with a slender portion of the small tythes, or with a stipend in money, which, whatever it was in those days, is now very inconsiderable, and insufficient for his maintenance. When Monasteries were dissolved, and their lands given to Henry 8, the tythes and revenues of Livings thus appropriated to religious houses were given to him at the same time, and were alienated by that Prince together with the Abbey lands. Thus was the Church miserably impoverished, and even to the time of the Rebellion in 1642 there were left 6000 Vicarages in England under £30 a year, 4000 under £20 and 2000 not worth £10 a year. The Bishops upon the Restoration having abundance of leases, particularly of Tythes (for Q. Elizabeth had forced their predecessors to exchange their manners of their Sees for the tythes then remaining in the Crown which she could not keep in conscience as she alledged) that were either expired during the troubles or were near expiring, took care in the renewal thereof to augment great numbers of these poor vicarages. Private persons have since made them considerable benefactions and many Vicarages have been of late augmented out of the revenue of the First fruits and Tenths: yet still there are some thousands so meanly provided for that they do not afford a competent subsistence to a Minister.