“Teche hem also welle and greythe How they schell paye here teythe Of all thynge that doth hem newe They shuld teythe welle and trewe After the custome of that cuntraye Every mon hys teythynge schale pay.” The author, however, says that he has no need to speak much of that matter, as priests will see to it that their tithes are paid in due time; and in a _Sarum Manuale_ it is found set down that by law “men of religion, freres, and all other,” who “go about and preache Goddes worde,” are commanded to preach eight times in the year upon the nature of tithes and on the obligation of paying them to the parish priests. That this duty was recognised, and that on the whole it was cheerfully complied with in the Middle Ages, would appear to be certain. It is, moreover, no less apparent that these payments were regarded, not in the light of a charge upon the land, but of a genuine acknowledgment to God of His supreme governance of the world, that all things were His, and that in His hands were the ends of the earth. The general spirit in which the obligation was regarded may be seen in the wills of the period, where the testators not only desired that all lawful tithes might be paid from their estates, but very generally left benefactions to their parish churches “for tithes forgotten.” CHAPTER II THE PARISH CHURCH The “parish” is described by Bishop Hobhouse as the community dwelling in an area defined by the Church, organised for Church purposes, and subject to Church authority. “Within this area,” he says, “every resident was a parishioner, and, as such, owed his duty of worship and contribution to one stated church, and his duty of confession and submission to the official guidance of a stated pastor, entitled his Rector, or to the Rectors deputy, entitled Vicar.” The centre of every mediæval parish, then, was its church. It was, as it were, the mainspring of the machinery of parochial life, which cannot be understood without a full knowledge of its position in regard to the people generally, and of all that it was to the inhabitants of a district in pre-Reformation days.