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The Tithe-Heresy of Friar William Russell*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Craig A. Robertson
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Extract

The growth of subjectivity in the religious life of the later Middle Ages, in discipline and worship as well as doctrine, both without and within the corporation of the clergy, was an important motif in the history of the Church in England. A more personal interpretation of religious obligations affected even matters of bedrock importance to the life of the organized church, such as the duty of tithing. Of particular interest in this connection in England was the cause célèbre created in London in the 1420's by a maverick Franciscan, William Russell, who preached that under certain conditions lay persons might devote their personal tithes at will to any pious or charitable use. Russell's sermon led to his condemnation as a heretic. But the reasons for the extraordinary controversy that he stirred up become clear only when one recognizes the place of his sermon in a long dispute between the parish clergy of London and their parishoners about the precise obligation of personal tithes in the city.

The prosecution of William Russell before Archbishop Henry Chichele and the Convocation of Canterbury was an odd affair and, in spite of their prolixity, its records leave unsolvable riddles for medievalists. The process against Russell comprises the longest trial in Archbishop Chichele's register—perhaps in that of any medieval Archbishop of Canterbury. Minutes of the prosecution and wordy ancillary documents fill all or parts of twenty-six folio pages of the register (fifty-two printed pages in the splendid printed edition of E.F. Jacob). Yet in reading this material one gathers hardly more than a crabbed impression of the learned proofs and literary citations that Russell mustered in defense of this teaching on personal tithes. What is most striking to a reader of this transcript is the vehemence with which Archbishop Chichele and his clergy in the Convocation prosecuted this errant friar, in whose sermon they saw a clear and present danger to the endowment of London parish churches.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , Spring 1976 , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1976

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Footnotes

*

I wish to express my gratitude to the Faculty Research Fund of the University of Maine, whose support enabled me to consult manuscripts and books in British libraries relevant to this topic.

References

1 The Register of Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1414-1443, ed. Jacob, E. F. (Oxford, 1943–1947), III:155–157Google Scholar. [Hereafter cited as Register].

2 Perhaps, as Professor A. G. Little suggested, this was an instance of “deliberate suppression and suggests that Russell made out a case too attractive to be fairly represented with safety.” “Personal Tithes,” English Historical Review, LX (1945): 67–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 The following have given brief mention of the trial: Little, A. G., The Grey Friars in Oxford (Oxford, 1892), pp. 85–86Google Scholar and “Personal Tithes,” pp. 67-68; Gairdner, James, Lollardy and the Reformation in England: An Historical Survey, 4 vols. (London, 1908), I:132–135Google Scholar; Capes, W. W., A History of the English Church in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (London, 1909), p. 320Google Scholar; Emden, A. B., A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, 3 vols., (Oxford, 1957-1959), III:1611–1612Google Scholar; Jacob, E. F., The Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1961 ), p. 298Google Scholar; Thomson, J.A.F., “Tithe Disputes in Later Medieval London,” English Historical Review, LXXVIII (1963):4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Constable, Giles, “Resistance to Tithes in the Middle Ages”, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, XIII (1962):184.Google Scholar

4 Register, III:17Google Scholar. Later in the process, Winchelsey, whom his accusers called the “most learned doctor of his order” in England, defended Russell's opinion for some time in the presence of the Archbishop, in spite of the fact that it had already been condemned.

5 “Registrum Fratrum Minorum Londoniae,” Monumenta Franciscana, R.S., ed. Brewer, J. S. (London, 1858), II: 519–520.Google Scholar

6 Register, III:104–105Google Scholar: “decime personales non cadunt sub precepto divino saltern ut solvantur parochiali curato, et licet unicuique nisi consuetudo in contrarium fuerit ipsas in pios usus pauperum dispensare.”

7 Ibid., p. 105.

8 These distinctions were rather new in the twelfth century and the early Decretists recognized them as such. Full payment of tithes from personal income as well as agriculture was always required in theory. See Constable, Giles, Monastic Tithes from their Origins to the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1964), p. 268, n.1.Google Scholar

9 Decretal. Gregorii IX, III. 30.26.

10 Register, III:131.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., p. 177.

12 British Museum, Landsdowne Ms. 409, fols. 48v-49.

13 Register, III: 120–123.Google Scholar

14 Ibid., pp. 123-126; Cal. Close R., Henry VI, 1422-1429, p. 236.

15 Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church, ed. Powicke, F. M. and Cheney, C. R. (Oxford, 1964), II, part II, 1255–1263.Google Scholar

16 Extravagantes communes, V. 7.1.

17 Councils and Synods, II, part II, 1257–1258.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., pp. 1258-1260.

19 Ibid., p. 1261: “laici homines et mulieres qui confessioni et consilio dictorum fratrum se supposuerunt, qui ecclesias suas parochiales diebus dominicis et festivis tenentur visitare, et in eisdem sacramenta et sacramentalia rescipere, ac servitium divinum devote audire, nec non oblationes debitas et consuetas in missis solempnibus offere, ad loca fratrum predictorum se transferunt et ecclesias parochiales suas spernunt et relintiquitus sunt dotate fratribus conferunt antedictis, et de eisdem iuribus suas ecclesias parochiales defraudent in periculum animarum suarum.”

20 Ibid.,: “Item, fratribus confessi qui de negationibus suis ecclesiis parochialibus iure canonico solcbant annuatim conferre decimas, a tempore quo confessionibus fratrum se submittunt modo debito nec quod huiusmodi decimationes fratres in subsidium ecclesiarum suarum procurant, precipiunt, et convertunt, in preiudicium rectorum et periculum animarum suarum.”

21 See Moorman, John, A History of the Franciscan Order from its Origins to the Year 1517 (Oxford. 1968). pp. 201–203.Google Scholar

22 Walsingham, Thomas, Historia Anglicana, ed. Riley, Henry Thomas (London, R.S., 1863–1864), II:32–33.Google Scholar

23 See, for example, The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, ed. Townsend, George (London, 1843–1870), III:33Google Scholar (Masters Philip Reppyngdon and Nicholas Hereford), 107 (William Swinderby), 131-133 (William Brute), 590 (the East Anglian Lollards of 1428).

24 Fasciculi Zizaniorum Magistri Johannis Wyclif cum Tritico, Ascribed to Thomas Netter of Waiden, ed. Shirley, Walter (London, R.S., 1858), p. 496Google Scholar: (No. XVIII). “Item quod decime sunt pirae eleemosynae, et quod parochianae possunt propter peccata suorum eas detinere, et ad libitum aliis conferre.”

25 Foxe, III:21-22. Nor did Russell draw such a “Donatist” distinction between sinful and righteous priests.

26 Walsingham. II:208: “Erant [i.e., Londoners], quippect conclusioncs prcdictasct conclusioncs prcdictasct conclusioncs prcdictasct conclusioncs prcdictas tunc inter omnes fere nationes gentium elatissimi, arrogantissimi, et avarissimi, ac male creduli in Deum et traditiones avitas, Lollardorum sustcntatores. religiosorum detractores. decimarum detentatores.…”

27 Moore, John, Case Respecting the Maintenance of the London-Clergy, Briefly Stated and Supported by Reference to Authentick Documents, 3rd ed. (London, 1812), pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

28 Malcolm, James, Londinium Redivivum or an Ancient History and Modern Description of London Compiled from Parochial Records, Archives of Various Foundations, the Harlelan MSS. and Other Authentick Sources (London, 1802–1807), II:166–168.Google Scholar

29 Wilkins, David, Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae (London, 1737), III:67.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., p. 231; Cal. Papal Reg., 1404-1415, pp. 107-108.

31 13 Edw. 1, stat. 4; also 18 Edw. III, stat. 3, c.7.

32 Lyndwood, William, Provinciale seu Constitutiones Anglie continens Constitutiones Provinciales quatuordecem Archiepiscoporum Cantuariensum, viz. a Stephano Langtano ad Henericum Chicheleium; cum Summariis atque eruditus Annotationibus, summa accuratione denuo revisum atque Impressum (Oxford, 1679), pp. 199ff.Google Scholar

33 Woodcock, Brian L., Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts in the Diocese of Canterbury (Oxford, 1952), p. 86.Google Scholar

34 Wilkins, III:231.

35 Register, III:105Google Scholar: “et eandem conclusionem confirmando postmodum scripsit seu saltern scribi fecit.…”

36 Ibid., p. 143: “propter predicacionem predictam et conclusiones predictas ortum est in provincia Cantaurien scandalum non modicum et seditiones graves contra clerum exorte sunt, et multi sunt qui decimas hujusmodi subtrahere nituntur. et multi eciam jam de facto subtraxerunt.…”

37 Ibid., pp. 126-131.

38 Epistolae Academicae Oxon., ed. Anstey, Henry (Oxford, 1898), I:15–17.Google Scholar

39 Register. III:133–134.Google Scholar

40 Clementinae, V.8.3: “Illos etiam religiosos, qui aliqua, ut audientes a decimarum ecclesiis debitarum solutione retrahant, in sermonibus suis vel alibi praesument, ex-communicationis subiacere sententiae discernimus ipso facto.”

41 Register, III:139–147Google Scholar; Cal. Papal Reg., 1417-1431, p. 17.

42 Register, III:151-152, 175–176.Google Scholar

43 Ibid., 155-157.

44 Ibid., p. 153.

45 Ibid., pp. 152-155.

46 The ascription of Sancta Ecclesia and a number of other statutes to Robert Winchelsey and John Pecham has been called into guestion by Cheney, C.R., “The So-Called Statutes of John Pecham and Robert Winchelsey,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History, XII (1960): 14–33Google Scholar. Nevertheless it was accepted as authentic in Lyndwood's time.

47 In fact, Lyndwood never cited “case law” from English ecclesiastical courts, as Frederic Maitland pointed out, Roman Canon Law in the Church of England (London, 1898) p. 44Google Scholar: “Again, we shall not find in Lyndwood's book any English “case law”…If any decisions are referred to, they will be decisions of the Rota…What his predecessors in the provincial court may have done has no interest for him.”

48 One cannot, of course, determine when he wrote specific notes in his gloss. But after having edited the provincial constitutions, he began to compose the gloss in 1423, shortly after his return from a diplomatic mission to Portugal, and he completed it on 3 June 1430. Thus the period of Russell's intermittent trial spanned most of the time of his composition of the whole gloss. See Cheney, C.R., “William Lyndwood's Provinciale,” The Jurist, XXI (1961):407.Google Scholar

49 Provinciale, p. 201: “Quaero ergo, quid dicemus de artificibus et negotiatoribus civitatis London, qui ex ordinatione antiqua in dicta civitate observata tenetur singulis Dominicis diebus, et in principalibus testis et sanctorum apostolorum et aliorum quorum vigiliae jejunantur.…Nunquid excusetur per hujusmodi oblationem a personalibus decimis, quae solvi debent ex lucro sui artificii vel negotiationis? Quod non arguitur. Nam decima praedtalis et personalis sunt decimae omnino distinctae et separatae.”

50 In support of these points he cited Decretal. Gregorii IX, III. 30.28 (“Pastoralis officii”) and ibid., III. 30.20 (“Ad Apostolicae”).

51 Decretal. Gregorii IX, V.19.18 (“Quanto amplius Christiana”).

52 Provinciale, p. 201.

53 Decretal. Gregorii IX, III. 39.1: “Sancitum est, ut unicuique ecclesiae unus man-sus integer absque ullo servitio tribuatur.”

54 These later disputes, between the rectors and the City corporation, are the subject of ProfessorThomson's, “Tithe Disputes in Later Medieval London,” English Historical Review, LXXVIII (1963):1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar