CHAPTER II.

THE PARSON—ORIGIN AND USE OF TITHE—PARSONAGE, RECTORY, OR VICARAGE—APPROPRIATION, AND IMPROPRIATION—A LIVING—A SINECURE—A CURACY WITHOUT THE MEANS OF CURE.

“A PARSON, _persona ecclesiae_,” says Blackstone, “is one that hath full possession of all the rights of a parochial church. He is called parson, _persona_, because by his person the church, which is an invisible body, is represented; and he is in himself a body corporate, in order to protect and defend the rights of the church, (which he personates,) by a perpetual succession. He is sometimes called the rector, or governor, of the church: but the appellation _of parson_ (however it may be depreciated by familiar, clownish, and indiscriminate use) is the most legal, most beneficial, and most honourable title that a parish priest can enjoy; because such-a-one (Sir Edward Coke observes) and he only, is said _vicem seu personam ecclesiae genere_. A parson has, during his life, the freehold in himself of the parsonage-house, the glebe, the tithes, and other dues. But these are sometimes _appropriated_; that is to say, the benefice is perpetually annexed to some spiritual corporation, either sole or aggregate, being the patron of the living; which the law esteems equally capable of providing for the service of the church, as any single private clergyman. This contrivance seems to have sprung from the policy of the monastic orders, who have never been deficient in subtile inventions for the increase of their own power and emoluments. At the first establishment of the parochial clergy, the tithes of the parish were distributed in a four-fold division; one for the use of the bishop, another for maintaining the fabrick of the church, a third for the poor, and the fourth to provide for the incumbent. When the sees of the bishops became otherwise amply endowed, they were prohibited from demanding their usual share of these tithes, and the division was into three parts only. And hence it was inferred by the monasteries, that a small part was sufficient for the officiating priest; and that the remainder might well be applied to the use of their own fraternities, (the endowment of which was construed to be a work of the most exalted piety,) subject to the burthen of repairing the church and providing for its constant supply. And therefore they begged and bought, for masses and obits, and sometimes even for money, all the advowsons within their reach, and then appropriated the benefices to the use of their own corporation. But, in order to complete such appropriation effectually, the king’s licence, and consent of the bishop, must first be obtained: because both the king and the bishop may sometime or other have an interest, by lapse, in the presentation to the benefice; which can never happen if it be appropriated to the use of a corporation, which never dies: and also because the law reposes a confidence in them, that they will not consent to any thing that shall be to the prejudice of the church. The consent of the patron also is necessarily implied, because (as was before observed) the appropriation can be originally made to none, but to such spiritual corporation, as is also the patron of the church; the whole being indeed nothing else, but an allowance for the patrons to retain the tithes and glebe in their own hands, without presenting any clerk, they themselves undertaking to provide for the service of the church.” {118}

The great modern historian of our ancestors—Mr. Kemble—also informs us that the tithe—that property which cunning and selfish individuals in the course of time, and little by little, appropriated to their own uses—was originally divided into three portions: one for the reparation of the church; a second to the servants of God; “and a third to God’s poor and needy men in thraldom.” And Mr. Kemble further states that when the accidental oblations were replaced by settled payments, whether land or not, they were directed to be applied in definite proportions to these objects.

So that the maintenance of the place of religious worship was as much provided for as the clergy who were to do duty therein; the poor, too, were equally taken care of, at the same time and by the same means; for to use the emphatic words of this great historian, “the state had a poor-law and the clergy were the relieving officers.” Mr. Barnes, the registrar of the diocese of Exeter, in his examination before the select committee of the House of Commons, on the fourth of July, 1851, {119a} says, that he believes Blackstone was mistaken in attributing the charge of the repair of the church to the tithe; but I think Mr. Kemble has fully established the truth of the position taken up by that learned Judge.

And this was not all, the bishops, and clergy, were to feed the poor out of their own incomes. A parson who possessed a superfluity and did not distribute it to the poor was to be excommunicated. And the clergy were to practice handicrafts, “not only to keep them out of mischief, but to help to feed their poor brethren.” Many of them were masons; and Mr. Kemble is of opinion that more churches existed in the tenth century than at the present time.

Before that time there appears to have been “a tendency to speculate in church-building;” for the sake of obtaining “the oblations of the faithful;” the builders claiming for themselves that portion of the church—_the altare_—on which the offerings were laid.

To ensure the support of the churches so built on speculation, the bishops found it necessary “to insist that every church should be endowed with a sufficient glebe or estate in land: the amount fixed was one hide, equivalent to the estate of a single family. Which, properly managed, would support the presbyter and his attendant clerks.” And this glebe-land the bishop could not afterwards interfere with, or alienate from the church to which it was given.

Mr. Kemble also tells us that by the time of Eàdgàr it had become quite a settled thing to pay tithe; “the English prelates having laid a good foundation for the custom long before they succeeded in obtaining any legal right from the state.”

He also states that “cyricsceat,” (as the church-tax was called,) was “originally a recognitory service due to the lord from the tenants of church-lands. But that in process of time a new character was assumed for it, and it was claimed of all men alike as a due to the clergy.” And then those who refused to pay were visited by the king’s reeve, by the bishop’s, and by the mass-priest of the minster, {119b} and they took “by force a tenth part for the minster whereunto it was due.” A ninth part only was left for the refractory subject. While the other eight parts were divided into two. And of this, says the ordinance, “let the landlord seize half, the bishop half, be it a king’s man or a thane’s.” {120}

I think it not at all unlikely that those who cultivated the soil in Paddington received no friendly visits from the tithing man till the time of Edgar. Dunstan, at this time Abbot of the Monastery he had restored at Westminster, looked, without doubt, pretty keenly after the loaves and fishes which were to feed his little flock; and as the enclosure of the Pædings was not too far north to escape his acute glance, he might have been the first who took tithe here. When Bishop of London, which he was at the time of his pretended gift of the little farm, he might, too, have obtained property here, as elsewhere, by the means above indicated. For, if any of the accounts we have of him be true, he was evidently not the man to fail in carrying out any scheme of aggrandisement which he had once planned, even when the law was not, as it was in this case, in his favour. And even so late as the tenth century of the Christian era, some inhabitant of this place might have been found, whose refractory and pagan spirit prevented his seeing all the justice and good policy there might be in giving up quietly the tenth portion of his produce to the monks of Westminster. Those monks, in Dunstan’s time only ten in number, though able to visit Paddington occasionally, were too much engaged at Westminster to pay that attention to this little settlement which was required to teach the inhabitants all their christian duties.

If this saint, who so honoured the old gentleman’s nose, did in truth first tithe Paddington, he may, in one sense, be said to have bestowed on his monks a small estate here; for this impost remained from his time to the Conquest as a fixed charge on the land. And those who first received tithe here (being, in all probability, sufficiently impressed with the necessity of appropriating it according to law) may have built a chapel in Paddington, with that portion which was legally assigned for the support of a material structure in which the services of the church might be _performed_.

There is yet another “probable supposition,” viz. that a speculating builder existed among the Pædings, even in those days, who, for the sake of what he could get for himself, built a chapel here; and the clever Dunstan, or some other bishop, having caught him in thus defrauding God, and God’s poor, made him give a hide of his land to endow the place he had built for his own profit: and who knows, if this were so, but that this churl (ceorl) was aping his betters in some other mark, by aspiring to be greater than he really was; for by a law of Athelstan’s a freeman “who had the possession and property of full five hides of land, and had a church, a kitchen, a bell-house, and a hall, was henceforth entitled to the rank of a Thane.” {121}

We have already seen that a chapel was built and endowed in Paddington before the ecclesiastical decree of 1222 assigned this district, with those of Westbourn and Knightsbridge, to St. Margaret’s, Westminster. And one may well suppose, if no Tybourn rector interfered, that a parson was appointed to the cure, and a district assigned to him, whenever this building was erected; and to say that one of the monks who lived in the Convent at Westminster, under the laws and regulations of St. Benedict, was the person first appointed to this cure, does not, surely, invalidate that supposition.

Paddington, therefore, may have existed as a rectory and a separate parish, before the beginning of the thirteenth century—before the decree of Stephen Langton, and his brother-priests, converted it into an appendage to a vicarage. But this benefice having been thus appropriated to the use of their own corporation by the company of Benedictin monks, the rectory, if there had been one, became a sinecure; and the poor souls in Paddington were transferred to the tender care of the vicar of St. Margaret’s.

How long Paddington remained in this unenviable condition I cannot say; but we are told by Blackstone, that the appropriating corporations served the churches “in so scandalous a manner, and the parishes suffered so much by the neglect of appropriators, that the legislature was forced to interpose: and accordingly it is enacted by statute 15th Richard II, cap. 6, that in all appropriations of churches, the diocesan bishop, shall ordain (in proportion to the value of the church) a competent sum to be distributed among the poor parishioners, annually; and that the vicarage shall be _sufficiently_ endowed.” And this great Judge adds, “It seems the parish were frequently sufferers, not only by the want of divine service, but also by witholding those alms, for which, among other purposes, the payment of tithes was originally imposed: and therefore in this Act a pension is directed to be distributed among the poor parochians, as well as a sufficient stipend to the vicar.” And he goes on to say, “but he being liable to be removed at the pleasure of the appropriator, was not likely to insist too rigidly on the legal sufficiency of the stipend: and therefore by statute 4, Henry IV, cap. 12, it is ordained, that the vicar shall be a secular person, not a member of any religious house; that he shall be vicar perpetual, not removable at the caprice of the monastery; and that he shall be canonically instituted and inducted, and be sufficiently endowed, at the discretion of the ordinary, for these three express purposes, to do divine service, to inform the people, and to keep hospitality. The endowments in consequence of these statutes have usually been a portion of the glebe, or land, belonging to the parsonage, and a particular share of the tithes, which the appropriates found it most troublesome to collect, and which are therefore generally called privy or small tithes; the greater, or predial, tithes being still reserved to their own use.” {122a} And thus, the appropriates of those days were compelled by statute to provide, in some sort, both for the souls and bodies of those, from whom proceeded the revenues of the church.

But before these statutes could be obtained, the voice of Wickliffe had been heard not only at Lutterworth, but in London and Westminster; and the degenerate Church, which this worthy rector denounced, could no longer resist some of those reforms, which the State had long seen to be necessary. {122b}

We have seen by Tanner’s note that Paddington was spoken of as a parish in the time of Richard the second, and by the Valor Ecclesiasticus of Henry the eighth that the rectory, no longer an appendage to St. Margaret’s, yielded, like the manor, a separate revenue to the Abbey.

Since, then, the ancient laws were totally disregarded, and tithe, and other church property, was perverted to individual uses for so long a period with perfect impunity, we cannot be surprised to find these more recent appointments were gradually evaded, or abused; so that, step by step, the doings of that church, which still boasts of its rule and guide over millions of minds, was so utterly detested in this country that even the genius of a Wolsey could not save it from perdition.

And what secures and sustains the present structure? How has the church in Paddington been supported since the Reformation?

We have already seen that the rectory was disposed of, with the manor, by Henry the eighth, to Sir Edward and Dame Baynton. It thus became _impropriate_. {123}

But it was again appropriated; this time by a corporation sole. For, when the bishops of London claimed the rectory of Paddington as a “member and appurtenance” of the manor, did they not become the real rectors of the parish? Certainly, from time to time, since Bishop Sheldon’s day, if not before, they have leased the rectory with the manor, and exercised the right of appointing the curate here. Are they not, then, accountable for the proper application of the rectory revenues? And how have these revenues been applied?

We are informed that the fourth protestant bishop of London thought Paddington would make a comfortable retiring pension for his porter; and the enemies of Bishop Aylmer brought this misdeed as one of their many accusations against him. His faithful biographer, Strype, admitting the fact, thus defends the bishop:—

“As for the charge, that the bishop made his porter a minister; all things considered he thought it to be justifiable and lawfully done, and not to lack example of many such that had been after that sort admitted, both since the Queen’s coming to the crown, by many good bishops, and by sound histories ecclesiastical. That where churches, by reason of persecution, or multitudes of Hamlets and free chapels, had commonly very small stipends for their ministers, honest godly men, upon the discretion of the governors of the church, had been, and might be, brought in to serve, in the want of learned men, in prayer, administration of the sacraments, good example of life, and in some sort of exhortation. And this man therefore when the bishop found him by good and long experience to be one that pleased God, to be conversant in the scriptures, and of very honest life and conversation, he allowed of him to serve in a small congregation at Paddington, where commonly for the meanness of the stipend no preacher could be had; as in many places it came to pass, where the parsonage was impropriate, and the provision for the vicar or curate very small. And how that good man behaved himself there, time and trial proved him; for he continued in that place with the good liking of the people eight or more years till he grew dull of sight for age, and thereby unable to serve any longer.” {124a}

What Fletcher, Bancroft, Vaughan, Ravis, Abbot, and King did for Paddington, I cannot tell. But the truth is, that the protestant bishops, no more than the popish abbots, have applied the revenues of the church to their original purposes. It is true that much of the revenue of the church vanished at the Reformation. The great Reformers of the Church did not possess the princely fortunes of their predecessors; or of the present bishops. {124b} But the reformed bishops did not relinquish the old practice of receiving fines, for granting life-leases, when the impropriate leases dropped in. Rectory lands, and tithes, were still badly managed; and the fines raised by leasing them were appropriated, as heretofore, to individual uses. To such an extent was this “waste of church lands” carried that the people saw little good had been done, in this respect, by that revolution which had been sanctioned by Henry the eighth.

During the next reformation another survey of ecclesiastical property was made. Commissioners were appointed in 1649, by the parliament, to enquire into the nature of ecclesiastical benefices; and from their report we learn the condition of the “living of Paddington” at that time.

The following survey is printed from the original still existing with the Records in the Rolls’ Chapel. The portion in italics being so much defaced in the original document as to be illegible, I have been enabled to supply from the twelfth volume of the Lambeth Manuscripts, by the kind permission of the Archbishop’s secretary.

Survey of Church livings. MIDDX.

“PADDINGTON.—Item there is _a rectory and a_ mannor and Tythes _and_ other oblations and gleabe Lands with certeyne houses thereto belonging of which _a house for two tennants called the_ vicarage house all which is at the rate of fortie-three pounds per annu or thereabouts _And_ Wee _are informed_ that the Tythes _houses and lands before_ mencŏned was let by George Moun_taigne_ late Bishopp of London to Sir Rowland St John, and Sybyll his Wife and to Oliver _St John_ their sonne for their lives and that the said Bishop bound them to noe certayne _stipends or took any nor for the cure of souls butt left it_ unto his Tenants and that the said Sr. Rowland St. John had heretofore _a reading minister or_ Reading ministers who served _for ten_ pounds per annu in Paddington and Marybone at the like sallary of Mr. Forsett and that of late years Sr. Rowland St. John paid _for_ a preaching minister twentie eight pounds per annu which is the Rent of the Tythes of that _land in the parish that doeth_ not belonge to the Bisshopp And that there is a minister that preacheth twice every Lord’s Day one Mr. A_nthony Dodd_ and _that we humbly think_ that the Parish of Marybone and Paddington is very fitt to be united in one and that both the Churches may be pulled down and _both made_ one and sett on Lisson Greene And that we verylie believe that the whole Tythes of Paddynton is worth one hundred pounds per annu if it were lett at the true value And we humbly desire that a godly able preaching minister may bee _placed_ to serve for the Parish of Paddington and Maribone and settled with mointeynance not lesse than one hundred pounds per annu as you in your great wisdomes shall thinke fitt And that we are informed that there is a right of Presentation to the Rectory _or vicearidge in_ one Mr. Browne that hath purchased _the manner_ by vertue of a grant to him _from the trustees appointed_ by Parliament for the sale of the Bishopps Lands.

_Signed_

_William Roberts_ _John Browne_ _Richard Dowton_ _James Pascall_ _Edward Martin_ _John Thorowgood_”

This authentic record is something more than a mere curiosity. It establishes several important facts; and enables the reader to form a just estimate of the care taken of the cure of souls in Paddington, by bishop Mountain.

I think it not at all improbable that the “Vicarage House” had been made into “a house for _two_ tenants,” by Sir Rowland St. John; for, so far as I can discover, he was the first lessee who resided on the Paddington estate. The lords of the manor had preferred to live in the monastery, and the episcopal palace; and their lessees were only middle-men, whose object was—as the object of this class very frequently has been—to get as much out of the land-workers as possible, and give as little as possible in return.

It is my opinion, however, that Sir Rowland St. John added very considerably to the parsonage-house; and adopted it as his own residence, (no uncommon thing at this period), by which it arrived at the dignity of a manor-house; and, as the bishop had “left it unto his tenants” to do what they pleased for the cure of souls, Sir Rowland, also in compliance with the fashion of the time, kindly gave house-room to some poor half-starved curate, who had never taken upon himself the ministry as a money-getting profession, or having done so had found his expectations most woefully deceived. The pay of his “reading minister” may astonish those who do not remember the account given by Mr. Macaulay, or some equally trust-worthy author, of the condition of the great majority of the clergy in the seventeenth century.

The learned historian just referred to, states, what one may readily believe, seeing what the lords of Paddington and Marylebone paid the minister of those places, that “for one who made the figure of a gentleman, ten were menial servants;” and he adds, “a large proportion of those divines who had no benefices, or whose benefices were too small to afford a comfortable revenue, lived in the houses of laymen.”

“The Ordinary,” in his “discretion,” or in his hurry to secure a more lucrative preferment for himself—the see of London in Dr. Mountain’s time was not the richest in England, and therefore not worth sticking to—had forgotten to make any provision for that cure of souls in Paddington, which devolved on him, and for which he was paid. “The reading minister;” and afterwards Mr. Anthony Dodd, “the preaching minister,” were glad therefore to become tenants in the great man’s house; having no rectory-house to themselves, and not being provided with a sufficiency of the rectory profits “to do divine service, to inform the people, and keep hospitality.”

At this time, indeed, “a young Levite, such was the phrase in use, might be had for his board, a small garret, and ten pounds a year, and might not only perform his own professional functions, might not only be the most patient of butts and of listeners, might not only be always ready in fine weather for the bowls, and in rainy weather for the shovel-board, but might also save the expense of a gardener or a groom. Sometimes the reverend man nailed up the apricots, and sometimes he curried the coach horses; he cast up the farrier’s bills; he walked ten miles with a message or parcel; he was permitted to dine with the family, but he was expected to content himself with the plainest fare, he might fill himself with the corned beef and the carrots, but as soon as the tarts and cheese-cakes make their appearance he quitted his seat, and stood aloof till he was summoned to return thanks for the repast, from a great part of which he had been excluded.” {127a}

This certainly was not a very cheerful state of things for the working clergy and the people; and, although the _high dignitaries of the church_ had few kind words to bestow on Cromwell, or the Commonwealth, it will be observed that the clergy and the people of Paddington had no reason to regret the establishment of the Parliamentary Commission. The commissioners wished to see the tithes let at something like their real value: a new church built out of the rectory funds; and “a godly able preaching minister” appointed, whose pay was to be something more than the paltry stipend allowed by the lessee, previous to the Revolution; or than poor Mr. Anthony Dodd’s liberal salary of twenty-eight pounds per annum, for his two full services and two sermons “every Lord’s day.”

But, if the suggestions of the commissioners were not completely carried out, the report of 1649 was not entirely unheeded, even after the restoration of the episcopacy; for the trustworthy public notary, Newcourt, tells us that Bishop Sheldon bound his nephews “to pay the curate here eighty pounds per year, at the four most usual feasts, viz. twenty pounds per quarter;” and he also informs us that “The church was but small and being very old and ruinious was about the year 1678 pulled down and new built from the ground, at the cost and charges of Joseph Sheldon, knight, sometime Lord Mayor of the City of London, and his brother, Mr. Daniel Sheldon, then lessees of the manor of Paddington.” And one would have thought that the memory of these events would have been preserved in less crazy heads than Mr. Dick’s; that the good example set to his successors by Bishop Sheldon would have been followed; and as the population of this place increased, and the value of the rectory-lands was thereby increased, the religious wants of the people would have been provided for out of these increased funds.

Two hundred pounds per annum, and the quantity of waste land for which Bishop Porteus and his lessees agreed to give the parish fifteen pounds a-year, is, as we have already seen, all that the liberal bishops of London, for the last century, have provided for the cure of fifty thousand souls, {127b} out of an estate which now yearly brings in thirty thousand pounds; and which, like the population, must increase for many years to come. Such paltry provisions for the cure of souls in Paddington will be a lasting monument of disgrace to all parties concerned in these transactions.

To smooth down the unmitigated selfishness developed in the several private Acts of Parliament, which we have examined in a previous part of this Work, it has been said “the system was in fault.” But when it was enacted, that two hundred acres of land which had been claimed by the church might be occupied by human beings, instead of cows and cabbage; “the system” could as easily have provided suitably for the religious education of the contemplated dwellers on this soil, as it did for the increase in the stipend of a single curate; or as it did for the transfer of two-thirds of the estate into the hands of lay lessees; and, when permission was given by another Act, to extend the power of granting building leases to four hundred acres of this estate, we find the rector of the parish, the lord of the manor, the bishop of London—three important personages in one—content with providing out of that estate an increased salary of eighty pounds a-year for a single curate; and with obtaining permission to give, “in case of need or convenience,” land which cost the owners of this estate fifteen pounds a year, I think the most charitable must say, that the inhabitants of this parish are not indebted to “the system” alone, for all the paternal care which their governors have bestowed on them and the cure of their souls.

Newcourt tells us Paddington “is exempt from the Archdeacon, and wholly subject to the Bishop of London and his Commissary;” and that the church is a donative of curacy in the gift of the bishops of that see, and is “supplied by a curate by virtue of the bishop’s license, wherein is committed to him the _cura animarum_.”

Whether Paddington has lost much by not having been overlooked by the archdeacon—“the bishop’s eye”—I cannot pretend to say; but we see that the rectory of Paddington, like that of many other places, overlooked by archdeacons, has been allowed to become a sinecure; and the curacy to exist without the means of cure; that the parson is a triune body; and that _the rights_ of the parochial church belong much more to the bishop, and his lay lessees, than to the excellent minister, to whom the “cure of souls,” with a stipend few gentlemen could live on, and none perform the necessary duties with, is so considerately bestowed. And, with such scandals as this daily staring us in the face, is it very surprising that the law, which heretofore reposed confidence in bishops, and assumed, “that they will not consent to anything that shall be to the prejudice of the church,” should have at length begun to discover, that its confidence has been somewhat misplaced, and that all bishops cannot be trusted?

It certainly has been discovered that Parliamentary enquiries are necessary in our day; and it has been found out, even by ecclesiastics, that the appointment of ecclesiastical commissioners could no longer be delayed if the church was to be saved. But ecclesiastical commissioners are but men; the people, therefore, in every parish in England should themselves look into their own ecclesiastical affairs; and demand with one united voice the fulfilment of those religious duties to God and God’s poor, which devolve on those who claim the lands of the church. Sooner or later a demand so just must be fully recognised; and governors will assuredly arise, who will have both the power and the will to execute justice.

Such malversations as those which have been recently exposed by the Rev. Mr. Whiston, and others, cannot last for ever; and the sooner the whole system is altered, if it be the system that is in fault, the better for all parties.

By returns moved for by our honourable member, Sir B. Hall, (to whom the whole country is deeply indebted for the information on ecclesiastical affairs which he has brought to light,) we find that the portion of the “REVENUES of the SEE of LONDON, for the seven years ending thirty-first December, 1850,” arising from the “SHARE OF PADDINGTON RENTS, &c.” amounted to £56,939 1_s._ 6_d._, while the “share of the various payments in respect of share of Paddington estate,” for the same period, amounted to £1742 10_s._ 3_d._ The correctness of that return is certified to, and signed “C. J. London.” {129}

The lay lessees received double this sum, as per agreement, so that for seven years £170,817 4_s._ 6_d._ has been paid, _chiefly in the shape of increased house-rent be it observed_, by that portion of the people of Paddington, who have had the felicity of living on “The Bishop’s Estate.”

A law, which already exists, will affect the income of the next occupant of the See of London, and therefore his relations to the rectory of Paddington; and it has been hinted that something may be done, in that event, for this parish. But the people of Paddington do not desire such patchwork arrangements. They want that which the whole country is asking for, and which cannot be much longer delayed—a law to regulate the whole of the estates of the church; and there is one pleasing anticipation for the people of Paddington in the contemplation of such a measure; viz. that, whatever may be the effect of that law, it cannot make _their_ position worse than it is at the present time.