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CHAP. XII.: Establishment of the Tithes. - Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Complete Works, vol. 2 The Spirit of Laws [1748]

Edition used:

The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu (London: T. Evans, 1777), 4 vols. Vol. 2.

Part of: Complete Works of Montesquieu, 4 vols.

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CHAP. XII.

Establishment of the Tithes.

THE regulations made under king Pepin had given the church rather hopes of relief, than effectually relieved her; and as Charles Martel found all the landed estates of the kingdom in the hands of the clergy, Charlemaign found all the church lands in the hands of the soldiery. The latter could not be compelled to restore a voluntary donation; and the circumstances of that time rendered the thing still more impracticable than it seemed to be of its own nature. On the other hand, christianity ought not to have been lost for want of ministers , churches, and instruction.

This was the reason of Charlemaign’s establishing the tithes, a new kind of property, which had this advantage in favour of the clergy, that as they were given particularly to the church, it was easier in process of time to know when they were usurped.

Some have attempted to make this establishment of an earlier date; but the authorities they produce seem rather, I think, to prove the contrary. The constitution of Clotharius* says only that they shall not raise certain tithes on church-lands; so far then was the church from exacting tithes at that time, that its whole pretension was to be exempted from paying them. The second council of Macon, which was held in 585, and ordains the payment of tithes, says indeed that they were paid in ancient times; but it says also, that the custom of paying them was then abolished.

No one questions but that the clergy opened the Bible before Charlemaign’s time, and preached the gifts and offerings of the Leviticus. But I dare say, that before that prince’s reign, though the tithes might have been preached up, they were never established.

I took notice that the regulations made under king Pepin had subjected those who were seized of church-lands in fief, to the payment of tithes, and to the repairing of the churches. It was a great point to oblige by a law, whose equity could not be disputed, the principal men of the nation to set the example.

Charlemaign did more; and we find by the capitularyde villis, that he obliged his own demesnes to the payment of the tithes: this was still a more striking example.

But the commonalty are rarely influenced by example to sacrifice their interests. The synod of* Frankfort furnished them with a more cogent motive to pay the tithes. A capitulary was made in that synod, wherein it is said, that in the last famine the spikes of corn were found to contain no seed, the infernal spirits having devoured it all, and that those spirits had been heard to reproach them with not having paid the tithes; in consequence of which it was ordained that all those who were seized of church-lands, should pay the tithes; and the next consequence was that the obligation extended to all.

Charlemain’s project did not succeed at first; for it seemed too heavy a burthen . The payment of the tithes among the Jews was connected with the plan of the foundation of their republic; but here it was a burthen quite independent of the other charges of the establishment of the monarchy. We find by the regulations added to the law of the Lombards the difficulty there was in causing the tithes to be accepted by the civil laws; and as for the opposition they met with before they were admitted by the ecclesiastic laws, we may easily judge of it from the different canons of the councils.

The people consented at length to pay the tithes, upon condition that they might have a power of redeeming them. This the constitution of Lewis the Debonnaire* , and that of the emperor Lotharius his son, would not allow.

The laws of Charlemaign, in regard to the establishment of tithes, were a work of necessity, not of superstition; a work in short, in which religion only was concerned.

His famous division of the tithes into four parts, for the repairing of the churches, for the poor, for the bishop, and for the clergy, manifestly proves that he wanted to restore the church to that fixed and permanent state of which she had been divested.

His will shews that he was desirous of repairing the mischief done by his grandfather Charles Martel. He made three equal shares of his moveable goods; two of these he would have divided each into one-and-twenty parts, for the one-and-twenty metropolitan churches of his empire; each part was to be subdivided between the metropolitan, and the suffragan bishops. The remaining third he distributed into four parts, one he gave to his children and grandchildren, another was added to the two thirds already bequeathed, and the other two were assigned to charitable uses. It seems as if he looked upon the immense donation he was making to the church, less as a religious act, than as a political distribution.

[]In the civil wars which broke out at the time of Charles Martel, the lands belonging to the Church of Rheims were given away to laymen; the clergy were left to shift as well as they could, says the life of Remigius, Surius tom. 1. page 279.

[]Law of the Lombards, book 3. tit. 3. sect. 1. and 2.

[* ]It is that on which I have descanted in the 4th chapter of this book, and which is to be found in Baluzius’s edition of the capitularies, tom. 1. art. 11. page 9.

[]Agratia & pascuria vel decimas porcorum ecclesiæ concedimus, ita aut actor aut decimator in rebus ecclesiæ nullus accedat. The capitulary of Charlemaign in the year 800. Baluzius’s edition, page 336. explains extremely well what is meant by that sort of tithe from which the church is exempted by Clotharius; it was the tithe of the swine which were put into the king’s forests to fatten; and Charlemaign enjoins his judges to pay it, as well as other people, in order to set an example: it is plain, that this was a right of seigniory or œconomy.

[]Canone 5. ex tomo 1. conciliorum antiquorum Galliæ opera Jacobi Sirmundi.

[]Art. 6. Baluzius’s edition, page 332. it was given in the year 800.

[* ]Held under Charlemaign, in the year 794.

[]Experimento enim didicimus in anno quo illa valida fames irrepsit, ebullire vacuas annonas a dæmonibus devoratas, & voces exprobrationis auditas, &c. Baluzius’s edition, page 267. art. 23.

[]See among the rest the capitulary of Lewis the Debonnaire, in the year 829. Baluzius’s edition, page 663. against those who to avoid paying tithes neglected to cultivate the lands, &c. art. 5. Nonis quidem & decimis, unde & genitor noster et nos frequenter in diversis placitis admonitionem fecimus.

[]Among others, that of Lotharius, book 3. tit. 3. chap. 6.

[* ]In the year 829. art. 7. in Baluzius, tom. 1. page 663.

[]In the law of the Lombards, book 3. tit. 3. sect. 8.

[]It is a kind of codicil produced by Eginhard, and different from the will itself, which we find in Goldastus and Baluzius.