decided by the owner of the land, who in most cases naturally assigned the tithe to the parish priest, though he sometimes gave it to the head church of the district, or to the bishop's church, or to some monastery. And although the right of the parochial clergy to the tithe of increase was declared in 1200 by the Council of Westminster, the constitution was often evaded. [Sidenote: Restoration of the archbishopric of York, 734.] Many monasteries had in Baeda's time fallen into an evil condition, and as the Church needed an efficient diocesan organization, he advised Ecgberht to strive for the fulfilment of Pope Gregory's scheme as regards the Church in the north, which provided that the see of York should be metropolitan, and that the province should be divided into twelve bishoprics. The new bishops should, he proposed, be supported out of the funds of monasteries, which were in some cases to be placed under episcopal rule. In the same year that this letter was written, Ecgberht received the pall from Gregory III., and this grant, which had not been made to any of his predecessors since the time of Paulinus, restored the see to metropolitan dignity. Thus one part of Theodore's work was frustrated, and Northumbria was withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the see of Canterbury. The kingdom itself was withdrawing from the contests between the other English states, and the restoration of the archbishopric may be regarded as a kind of declaration of its separate national life. Under Ecgberht and his successor, AEthelberht (Albert), the Northumbrian Church was famous for learning, and the archbishop's school at York became the most notable place of education in Western Christendom. AEthelberht's schoolmaster was Alcuin, who after the archbishop's death resided at the court of Charles the Great, and helped him to carry out his plans for the advancement of learning. Alcuin had himself been a scholar at York, and so the school there became a source of light to other lands. In York itself, however, the light was quenched before Alcuin's death. Civil disturbances were followed by the Scandinavian invasions, and the Northumbrian Church for a long period almost disappears amidst anarchy and ruin. [Sidenote: Ealdhelm, bishop of Sherborne, died 709.]