It is only by shutting their own eyes, and carefully seeking to shut those of others, to the facts, that the least show of ground for this assumption can be set up. The facts are entirely against it; and these facts are found incidentally admitted and reinforced by the most authoritative writers among even ecclesiastics themselves.

The truth-seeker will find that, in the old Anglo-Saxon Laws and books, terms occur, applied to ecclesiastical persons and duties, which themselves prove that the priests became, by degrees only, attached to the existing divisions of the land; which latter were very naturally adopted for ecclesiastical purposes, though unquestionably not originally erected for the sake of those purposes. Thus the term "shrift-shire"* is used, not "parish," to express the range within which the priest fulfils his duties. Late translators have, indeed, but in the teeth of the plain meaning, given this word the form "parochia" (parish). Bede, again, has a term which King Alfred renders "mynstershire." This also has been translated "parish,"‡ not only without the shadow of warrant, but in defiance of the plain actual meaning. In neither of these cases had the reference anything to do with the present and even then-existing Parish divisions. The very same authorities, indeed, prove that parish priests did not then exist. Thus Bede, in various places, expressly refers to the existing secular divisions, as above illustrated; and in some cases records, and in others asks, the establishment of churches therein. In his History, for example, he tells of wealthy men who built churches in their "Vill," §translated by Alfred "tun" (town),-the common name by which Parishes long went. In his letter to Ecgbert, again, he complains that there were then many places where the word of

*Wilkins's A. S. Laws, p. 83, secs. 6, 9, 15: Thorpe, ib. vol. ii. pp. 245,

246.

+ Hist. Eccles. lib. 5, chap. xix., which compare with (e. g.) lib. 3, chap. xix. ; and see King Alfred's translation of the passages.

Bosworth's A. S. Dictionary, p. 245; and see "preost-shire," ib. p. 278. This translation is absolutely absurd, Bede's own original term not being "Parochia" but "Monasterium." But these cases afford an instructive illus tration of the untruthfulness of the means by which ecclesiastical encroachment manages to mislead the shallow and unwary.

§ Book 5, c. iv., Smith's edition, p. 185, for Latin "Villa;" p. 617, for A. S. "Tun." It is only very recently that the name "town" has become appropriated to only groups of closely-built dwellings. See after, p. 33, and Chap. VII. Sec. 12, on Parish Records.

NOT AN ECCLESIASTICAL DIVISION.

25

God was preached not more than once a year; and beseeches him to take helps, by ordaining priests who should remain in such places, and administer the rites of religion there. And presently after, enforcing the same wish, he declares that there are many parishes and hamlets (villæ et viculi) of the land where no priest is ever seen.' ." The Canons and Constitutions made and passed at the Council of Cloveshoe (A.D. 747), with peculiar care and unusual solemnity of sanction, put this highly important point of fact with remarkable precision and clearness. While they confirm the authorities already quoted, they would, standing alone, be conclusive. The ninth of these Canons and Constitutions ordains that, "the Priests shall take care to fulfil the offices of baptism, teaching, and visiting, in such places and divisions now existing for secular purposes as may be assigned to them by the Bishop of the province." Thus, in accordance with the idea of Bede, the pre-existing secular divisions of the land were avowedly taken as the districts to which the churches were adapted. And one of the highest-esteemed authorities. in ecclesiastical Law and Literature tells us,-quoting many canonical authorities for the statement,-that "the form of establishing a parish, according to the rules of the Canon Law, is, that some precinct or place, limited with certain boundaries within which the people dwell, should be allotted to some certain church." Kennett himself, a devoted advocate of ecclesiastical authority, admits the limits of Parishes to have been of lay origin.§ Blackstone, though he does not appear to have consulted the above authorities, states it as "pretty clear and certain, that the boundaries of parishes were originally ascertained by those of a manor or manors."|| Domesday Book indeed affords proof that whatever profits there might be assigned for the support of churches, were estimated as a subsidiary part in the valuation of the secular divisions in which the churches stood.¶

*

Epist. Bædæ ad Ecgbert, Smith's edition, pp. 306, 307.

+ Spelman's Concilia, p. 248. The expression in the original, though incapable of a literal translation, has at least the full force of the above. The words are 'per loca et regiones laicorum.”

Ayliffe's Parergon, p. 407.

§ Parochial Antiquities, pp. 586, 587.

1 Comm. p. 114. See after, Chap. VII. Sec. 13, on the relation of Manors to Parishes.

¶ See, for instance, Domesday Book, vol. ii. fol. 265 a, the last line. See before, p. 18, as to this point as illustrated by the Inquisitiones Nonarum.

C

Ecclesiastics appear, however, to have no sooner got established in parishes, than they endeavoured to make their authority paramount there. But such attempts were never submitted to in former times in England. And, although they have been more successful, in many respects, since the “Reformation,"* the secular character and functions of the Parish yet remain as unquestionable as ever. It only needs that the true nature of the Institution shall be better and more generally understood, for these to become as universally and valuably active and efficient as ever.

It must be here remarked that the attempt to attach a saint's name to parishes, has been a late ecclesiastical innovation, introduced with the aim of helping the unsecularization of the Institution. It has latterly become common (though highly improper) to describe parishes by the addition of the saint's name to whom the church in the Parish happens to be dedicated. This is entirely incorrect. It is, indeed, curious that, in many places, the saint to whom the church was dedicated is, and has long been, quite unknown.† Some indeed never were dedicated at all. It is unnecessary to dwell on this point, it being absolutely conclusive as to it that, neither in the "taxation of Pope Nicholas," nor the " Inquisitiones Nonarum,”both of them being the express and formal records of Parishes, the one made for ecclesiastical purposes, the other for purely secular purposes, more than five hundred years ago, are the parishes distinguished by saints' names, except in those few and plainly exceptional cases which only serve the more clearly

* The philosophy of this is very simple. When dissent was a thing unknown, and the whole feeling was—self-respect and independence against the encroachments of a foreign church, all joined to resist priestly arrogance. Since the Reformation, a foreign church has ceased to have influence. Domestic sects have arisen. Hence the old patriotic feeling has ceased to enter into the question. Each sect seeks, naturally, to exalt itself; and, as to the Established Church, the support or opposition to its pretensions is made always a home party question. It is unquestionable that the result, on the public liberties, has been very injurious. Ecclesiastical encroachments have been gradually extending ever since the Reformation. No man was more alive to the tendency of such encroachments than Lord Clarendon. See illustrative quotations in Chapter VI. Such is always the mixture of evil with good. Happily, it only needs that the nature of the evil shall be thoroughly understood, for it to be even yet remedied. But a vast deal has to be done in order to recover lost ground.

+ Kennett's Parochial Antiquities, p. 609; Spelman's Glossary: Feriæ.

PREFIX OF A SAINT'S NAME, WRONG.

27

to prove the rule. The description is simply, the Hundred, and the Parish. Where the church is named, it is called the church of such and such a parish (using the secular name),not the church of St. Peter or John, or any other, compounded with the true name of the Parish.*

The assessment just named, as "the taxation of Pope Nicholas," was made A.D. 1290, to ascertain the value of the tythes then paid to the different churches throughout England. It was carefully made; the first-fruits and tenths out of the value of the Benefices, otherwise claimed by the Pope, having been granted by him to the King, to enable him to carry on the Holy Wars. This assessment was, for long afterwards, used as a convenient datum, or basis, for the assessment of the secular taxes voted by Parliament, which were taken on the same class of property. It is clear that the annual value of a tenth being ascertained (as it was professed to be by "Pope Nicholas's Taxation"), the assessment of the annual value of a ninth, or a fifteenth, derived from the same sources, was a simple opera

* A few places have become known, in modern times, by a Saint's name only. This is readily explained. In the case of many Metropolitan Parishes, they were only erected into Parishes by the Act of Anne which will be presently noticed (after, p. 39). In other instances, places originally waste and uninhabited, have, long since the introduction of Christianity, attracted a population and a church. The name of the Saint to whom the church was dedicated has hence been adopted in later times to designate the place. In other cases, an older name has become merged, or sunk into secondary rank only, in consequence of that part of the original parish near to where the church was built having long become of more importance than the remainder of the Parish; and thus, for the sake of clearness, the former part was distinguished from the rest by the constant use of the name of the Church. The Parish of St. Pancras (Middlesex), now one of the most important of the Metropolitan Parishes, seems to afford a curious illustration of this. I conceive that a church was very early built on that part of the old Parish nearest to the City of London, round which church an inhabited neighbourhood grew up, the other part of the Parish long remaining uninhabited. "Saint Pancras" is named (but not as a Parish) in Domesday Book (fo. 128 a). But, in the Inquisitiones Nonarum, while no such Parish as Saint Pancras is named, the Parish of Kentishtown is expressly named-both the terms "parochia" and "villa" being used in regard to it,-while St. Pancras is not so much as even mentioned, which it could not have failed to have been had it then been considered as an actual Parish. It is worth notice, in confirmation of the above, that the attempt, made at a very much later period, to set up Kentishtown and St. Pancras as being separate Vills, was defeated. See this case noticed, under the name of R. v. Middlesex, in 1 Term Reports 375; 3 Burrow's Reports, 1613; Bott, No. 51; but reported at length in Sayer, 148.

tion. The other assessment above named, called " Inquisitiones Nonarum," was made (A.D. 1340) on this datum. But laymen only made this assessment; as has been already stated to have been always the case. In their returns they show how far, and why, the datum or basis just stated to be used is not applicable, under the then present special circumstances of each several parish; and by these returns the assessment was bound. The statements thus made render this Record of unusual interest and value. The "taxation of Pope Nicholas," and this use of the results thereof as the basis of assessment in other cases, thus prove the very reverse of the admission of any ecclesiastical character or influence as pertaining to the Institution of the Parish.

66

The older Statutes and Rolls of Parliament, moreover, prove that the purposes of the endowments which were afterwards unrighteously monopolized to purely ecclesiastical uses, or diverted to the still worse form of irresponsible appropriations under an ecclesiastical cover, were much more comprehensive and beneficial than the selfishness of those who sought selfaggrandisement under holy pretences, would make them seem, at first sight, to have been. They were charitable trusts" in the fullest sense of the term. The Saxon Laws and the Venerable Bede both show that it was desired there should be schoolmasters everywhere; that is, those who should teach as well the truth of the Faith, as how evil actions might be avoided and good pursued.* The Statute of Carlisle (35 Edw. I. A.D. 1306) sets forth loud complaints as to the abuses of church endowments. These are declared to have been made, originally, "to the intent that clerks and laymen might be admitted in religious houses; and that sick and feeble men might be maintained; and hospitality, almsgiving, and other charitable deeds, be done." In short, these endowments were intended to fulfil all the needs of modern Poor Law establishments and taxation, and of public hospitals, as well as of religious teaching. This Statute goes on to state, in the plainest terms, that the churchmen were seeking to oppress the people and abuse the endowments; whereby "the service of God is diminished,―alms are not given to the Poor, sick, and feeble,-the healths of the living and the souls of the dead are miserably defrauded,—and hospitality, almsgiving, and other godly deeds do cease: and so

* Wilkin's A. S. Laws, pp. 186, 187; Bede, Smith's ed. p. 307.