VII CHAP the property of the deceased was under the value of 100 shillings; three shillings and sixpence only for probates where the value was above that sum and under £40; and five shillings where the goods were above this latter value. As a provision is inserted permitting those bishops and their officers who had been accustomed to take smaller fees than these to continue to do so, it does not seem as if the grievance was one that bore very hardly upon the laity. Mortuaries Act. 2. An Act was also passed [21 Hen. VIII. cap. A.D. 1530 6] declaring "where mortuaries ought to be paid, for what persons, and how much; and in what case none is due." The preamble of this Act alleges as the reason for passing it, that ambiguity and doubt had arisen as to "the order, manner, and form of demanding, receiving, and claiming of mortuaries, otherwise called corse presents," and that the greatness and value of some that had been lately taken was "thought over-excessive to the poor people and other persons of this realm." of this realm." Its enacting clauses simply regulate the amounts to be paid, and declare that they shall only be claimed where the custom is already established. But after these there is a clause permitting the clergy to receive any amount of money or goods bequeathed to them by the deceased for their own use or that of the Church. It was one of those statutes which have sometimes been passed for the purpose of soothing agitation or putting an end to discord: but it may be seriously doubted from its terms whether there was really any general grievance that required it, or whether any one benefited by its addition to the Statute Book. 6 A constitution of Archbishop Meopham, 200 years before, enacts precisely the same thing. See Lyndewood, p. 170. VII Pluralities 3. The Pluralities Act [21 Hen. VIII. cap. 13], CHAP passed in the same session, was chiefly aimed at the dispensations for pluralities granted by the Pope. Little attempt was made actually to put an end to Act the evil system of pluralities, for provision was made A.D. 1530 respecting the purchase of licenses from the King, which were to have precisely the same effect as those from the Pope. The exceptional cases in which such licenses might be granted amount to the number of some hundred, and royal chaplains were allowed to hold any number of benefices. These licenses provided a new source of revenue for the Crown; but, perhaps, the real object of the Act was that of preventing the Pope from conferring English benefices on non-resident foreigners. did not comes of It cannot be said that any of these Statutes were These Acts of such a character as to indicate that much was much taken from the "riches" of the clergy by means of affect intheir operation, or much added by them to the wealth clergy of the laity. What they do indicate is, that there was a large class of the latter who were hankering after Church property, as the King himself was, and that when the "great bell-wether" of the flock-as More (swimming with the tide) shamefully called his old friend and patron-was down, it was hoped that the confiscation might be safely and effectually carried on. Bishop Fisher is said to have read the signs of the times with a prescient eye, and when he complained that such attempts at spoliation showed how "the faith" was "lacking" in the country, he declared also that he believed these to be only the beginnings of a spoliation which would eventually leave the Church shorn of nearly all her possessions. The spirit of the times is also strongly illustrated VII CHAP by the refusal of many persons to pay tithes. This practice grew to such a head as to necessitate an Act of Parliament on the subject. As this was passed payment of in the same year, 1535, in which the King began to Tithes make his assault upon the monasteries, there can be A.D. 1535 little doubt that the people at large were encouraged firming by his measures to think that Church property in general was to be abolished: but however this might be, the preamble of the Act [27 Hen. VIII. cap. 20] shows that many were trying to confiscate it on their own account. "Forasmuch," it alleges, "as divers numbers of evil-disposed persons inhabited in sundry counties, cities, towns, and places of this realm, having no respect to their duties to Almighty God, but against right and good conscience, have attempted to subtract and withhold, in some places the whole, and in some places great parts of their tithes and oblations, as well personal as predial, due unto God and Holy Church; and, pursuing such their detestable enormities and injuries, have attempted in late times past to disobey, contemn, and despise the process, laws, and decrees of the ecclesiastical court of this realm in more temerous and large manner than before this time hath been seen ;" that, therefore, it is enacted that any member of the privy council, or any two justices of the peace, shall have power on proof of such contempt of the ecclesiastical court to commit the offender to prison without bail until he obey the decree of that court.7 7 In an Irish Act to the same purport, but passed seven years later [A.D. 1542], the preamble goes on to say that the tithe-payers have been encouraged in their conduct by the fact that lay titheholders could not as the law had hitherto stood recover in a court of law. This is a significant indication of the feeling of the day : since lay tithe-holders only came into existence with the dissolution of the monasteries. Till familiar, they inust have seemed monstrosities. VII Such an act in support of the rights of the clergy CHAP (for lay tithe-holders were not yet known) must be balanced against others of the same period, which seem to the superficial reader of history to prove extortionate habits on their part. It shows how great difficulty they had in asserting their just rights, and how some of the laity were endeavouring to defraud them of their very livelihood for their own profit. spirit of against In short, we may conclude that this charge of General extortion brought against the clergy of the sixteenth extortion and preceding centuries is founded on very insuf- not proved ficient data. Here and there a single black sheep clergy among them has been taken as a type of the whole flock; and if one priest caused the velvet cloak of a deceased person to be seized as his mortuary fee, prejudiced historians have written as if all the clergy were laying violent hands upon all the velvet cloaks of all deceased laymen. It was a time of discontent, a time too when all were suffering from the taxation rendered necessary by the selfish wars and extravagance of the Crown. Men were easily irritated; the clergy are always a good mark, and a comparatively easy prey. The King had set an example of making all that could be made out of them, and the subject was only too ready to follow the royal lead. Thus Their men willingly laid hold of every pretext they could money to stint the clergy of their just and reasonable money easy praty rights, and the more unprincipled of men exaggerated all the faults that they could find in their priests for the sake of justifying their own injustice. It was not the last time that such a course of conduct was exhibited by a large class of half-hearted churchmen and until the clergy can live on air, rights an the CHAP they will always have to suffer this kind of annoyance in time of any great ecclesiastical crisis. VII Principle of the system Its expan sion and § 2. THE BENEFIT OF CLERGY A constitutional change of great importance was, however, made at this time in regard to Church discipline, and one which was of advantage to the clergy, by abolishing, to a certain extent, a legal fiction which had often brought an unnecessary and unjust odium upon them as a class. This was the modification of the law respecting "Benefit of Clergy." It had been a principle of English law, time out of mind, that the persons of the clergy were sacred, and (so long as they remained clergy) punishable only by ecclesiastical law. If they were to suffer death they must previously be degraded from their orders and suffer as laymen; and under no circumstances were they to go without just punishment for any offences of which they were convicted. This principle was extended in the Middle Ages, perversion so as to be brought to bear on a large number of persons who were not in holy orders, nor even in any of the minor orders, such as those of sub-deacon, reader, &c. At first this extension took place by permitting persons accused of crime (perhaps very unjustly) to come under the shield of the Church by taking minor orders, thus making these orders answer the purpose of a city of refuge. Eventually the walls of this city of refuge were so extended as to embrace all who, being able to read Latin (a sign 8 Gibson's Codex, Tit. xlix. cap. 5. |