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Tithe Controversy in Reformation London

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Susan Brigden
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Extract

Nothing put the clergy and laity at odds so much as money. Quarrels over tithe provide the background against which all the hostility between Londoners and their parish priests must be seen. Since the thirteenth century the citizenry had engaged in periodic disputes with the city clergy over the assessment of tithe, but at the Reformation fervent new issues exacerbated the acrimony and the quarrel seemed to have become intractable. In the city, where individual disputes soon became common knowledge and might stir formidable partisanship, the citizens were often convinced that they were being robbed by their priests. Once the reforming ideas of Protestantism began to spread the London clergy were forced to defend themselves not only against criticism of clerical wealth and privilege but also against far profounder attacks upon their authority and faith. The London tithe controversy in many ways reflects the struggle between the lay and ecclesiastical orders at a national level. The conciliation which had marked the negotiations between the Church and city government in the later Middle Ages gave way to open conflict in the reign of Henry vm until, finally, the tithe issue could be settled only by Parliament, and the Church lost its traditional powers of judgement in tithe causes to the city.

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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , July 1981 , pp. 285 - 301
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

1 Earlier tithe disputes and settlements are discussed definitively by Thomson, J. A. F. in ‘Tittle disputes in later medieval London’, EHR, lxxviii (1963), 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Clergy and laity in London, 1376–1529’ (unpublished Oxford D. Phil, thesis, 1960)Google Scholar, chap. v. See also Victoria History of the Counties of England, London, i. 247–52

2 See, for example, Heath, P., English Parish Clergy on the Eve of the Reformation, London 1969, 153ffGoogle Scholar; Haigh, C. A., Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire, Cambridge 1975, 57–8Google Scholar.

3 Among many accounts of the Hunne case, see Ogle, A., The Tragedy of the Lollards’ Tower: the Case of Richard Hunne with its Aftermath in the Reformation Parliament, 1529–1532, London 1949Google Scholar: Thomson, J- A. F., The Later Lollards, Oxford 1965, chap. 7Google Scholar; Dickens, A. G., The English Reformation, London 1964, 90ffGoogle Scholar; Davis, E. Jeffries, ‘The authorities for the case Of Richard Hunne’, EHR, xxx (1915), 477–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Guildhall Library, MS 4750/1, fo. 91v.

5 The Hunne affair is seen in perspective, as a cause célèbre and very far from typical of relations between London clergy and laity, in my ‘The early Reformation in London, 1520–1547: the conflict in the parishes’ (unpublished Cambridge Ph.D. thesis 1979), chap. 2Google Scholar.

6 Miller, H., ‘London and Parliament in the reign of Henry viii’. Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research (hereafter cited as BIHR), xxxv (1962), 128–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brigden ‘Early Reformation in London’, 29–32.

7 Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII (hereafter cited as LP), ed. J. S. Brewer, R. H. Brodie and J. Gairdner (1864–72), i(2). 3602. The original MS is missing from the Public Records Office, but the schedule attached to a Star Chamber case records the payments generally demanded by the London clergy, and these were high; Lambeth Palace Library, Carte Miscellane viii/2d. The account of the rector’s income at St Margaret Pattens in 1523 shows just how often the laity did have to make offerings to their priests; Guildhall, MS 4750/1, fos. 91v–92.

8 For example, the tenant might grant to the landlord the use of a sum of money while living on the property for a peppercorn rent, double leases might be arranged, but only a nominal one would be shown, a large house might be divided and the new tenants pay no tithe to the church even though they worshipped there; Cf. Lambeth, Carte Miscellane viii/2a; Hill, C., The Economic Problems of the Church from Archbishop Whitgift to the Long Parliament, Oxford 1956, 275Google Scholar; Walton, B., An Abstract of a Treatise concerning the payment of Tythes and Oblations in London, 1641, 8Google Scholar.

9 Heath, , English Parish Clergy, 1973Google Scholar; Bowker, M., The Secular clergy in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1495–1510, Cambridge 1968, 140Google Scholar; Zell, M. L., ‘The personnel of the clergy in Kent in the Reformation period’, EHR, lxxxix (1974), 528–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Valor Ecclesiasticus temp. Henry VIII, auctoritate regia institutus, ed. Caley, J. and Hunter, J. (1810–34), iii. 370ffGoogle Scholar.

11 Hall, Edward, The Union of the two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancastre and York, ed. Ellis, H., 1809, 593Google Scholar, 646.

12 ibid., 783–4; Public Records Office (hereafter cited as PRO), SP 1/67, fos. 8–12 (LP v. 387), Star Chamber 2/II/172; Foxe, John, Actes and Monuments, ed. Townsend, G. and Cattley, S. R., London 1837–41Google Scholar, v. appendix iv. The court of aldermen offered the bishop aid concerning the rebellion made by his priests; Corporation of London Records Office (hereafter cited as CLRO), Repertory 8, fo. 178.

13 Bowker, Secular Clergy in Lincoln, 141–7.

14 The reformers maintained, however, that the clergy did benefit when rents rose, as they were doing in this period; PRO, SP 2/M fos. 199–200 (LP v. 1788); Robert Crowley, Selected Works, Early English Text Society (hereafter cited as EETS), xv. 13, 84–5.

15 PRO, SP6/2, fo. 43 (LP viii. 453); Seldon, J., Tracts on Tithe, London 1619, tract 19Google Scholar; Constable, G., ‘Resistance to tithes in the Middle Ages’, this Journal, xiii (1962), 172–85Google Scholar.

16 Lyndwood, W., Provinciales seu Constituliones, Oxford 1679, v. 17 viiiGoogle Scholar. (For Protestant scorn of Lyndwood as ‘a book of constitutions’ to gather pillage, see Foxe, v. 116). The curse against defaulters read from the pulpit every quarter is printed in Strype, J., Ecclesiastical Memorials, relating chiefly to Religion, and the Reformation of it under King Henry VIII, King Edward VI and Queen Mary I, Oxford 1822, i(ii), 188–93Google Scholar.

17 PRO, SP 1/105, fo. 73 (LP xi. 106). For tithe controversies and litigation in church courts, see Heath, English Parish Clergy, 147–52; Houlbrooke, R., ‘Church courts and people in the diocese of Norwich, 1519–1570’ (unpublished Oxford D.Phil, thesis, 1974), 217ffGoogle Scholar; Lander, S. R., ‘The diocese of Chichester, 1508–1558: episcopal reform under Robert Sherburne and its aftermath’ (unpublished Cambridge Ph.D. thesis, 1974), 256ffGoogle Scholar; Adams, N., ‘The judicial conflict over tithes’, EHR, lii (1957), 1–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bohun, W., The Law of Tithes, London 1713Google Scholar.

18 This does not include disputes between lay farmers and incumbents. The patchy survival of London church court records for this period means that there might have been more cases; it also precludes an analysis of the courts’ efficiency, cost and partiality in tithe cases.

19 PRO, Court of Requests, 2/7/123c;Early Chancery Proceedings, 01/788/28.

20 PRO, Court of Requests, 2/7/123b and c. This action was taken by the whole parish, who communally bore the cost of arresting their priest; Guildhall, MS 1279/2,10. 15v (churchwardens’ accounts for St Andrew Hubberd).

21 PRO, Early Chancery Proceedings, Cl/788/28.

22 For an extreme case of lay animosity and clerical intransigence, see Elton, G. R., ‘Tithe and trouble’, Star Chamber Stories, London 1958, 174–220Google Scholar.

23 Lambeth, Carte Misc., ix/13, fos. 1–3.

24 Greater London Records Office (hereafter cited as GLRO), DL/C/207, fos. 24, 35v–44v, 59v–60, 141v–145.

25 PRO, Early Chancery Proceedings, Cl/540/5. Expenses in tithe suits were apparently often out of proportion to the sums sued for, suggesting the malice which might lie behind the litigation. See Houlbrooke, ‘Church courts and people’, 253.

26 CLRO, DL/C/208, fos. 144–5, 147. 148v.

27 Lyndwood, Provinciale, v. ii. 1; Hill, Economic Problem of the Church, 90. The priests of Montaillou in the early Middle Ages would excommunicate and debar tithe-dodging parishioners; Ladurie, E. Le Roy, Montaillou, village occitan, 1294–1324, Paris 1975, 562Google Scholar. I am grateful to Mr Alexander Murray for this reference.

28 GLRO, DL/C/330, fo. 44V. Shoter did have cause for complaint for he was already owed £3 1s. at Easter 1521, Edward Saunders being one of the debtors; PRO, E 135/23/48 (this is one of very few surviving tithe accounts for this period). Shoter did need the money: he was paid only £8 per annum; B.L., Harleian MS 133, to. 5v.

29 GLRO, DL/C/330, fo. 45v.

30 ibid., fos. 40v–46;DL/C/207, fos. 211–212v, 219,229, 234. The Armourers’ Company had an unsatisfactory chaplain in the 1540s named Shoter, probably the same man; Guildhall, MS 12071/1, fos. 95, 160, 193, 265.

31 Porter, H.C., ‘The gloomy dean and the law: John Colet, 1466–1519’, Essays in Modern English Church History, ed. Bennett, G. V. and Walsh, J. D., London 1966, 19–22Google Scholar.

32 The Dialogue of Sir Thomas More concerning Tyndale, ed. Campbell, W. E., London 1931, 218–20Google Scholar; Dionysius Carthusianus, Lyfe of Prestes, sig. Iiv; LP vii. 523 (8, iii).

33 Stow, John, Annates, or, a generall chronicle of England, ed. Howes, E., London 1631, 548–9Google Scholar.

34 Boulay, F. R. H. du, ‘The quarrel between the Carmelite friars and the secular clergy of London, 1464–1468’, this Journal vi (1955), 156–74Google Scholar; Little, A. G., ‘Personal tithes’, EHR, lx (1945), 67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Foxe, iv. 177.

36 Constable, ‘Resistance to tithes’, 184.

37 Foxe, iv. 183.

38 PRO, SP 1/23, fo. 225 (LP iii (2), 1962); SP 1/47, fo. 79 (LP M2), 4038).

39 Guildhall, MS 9531/10, fo. 133V (Register Tunstal).

40 For example, John Forde, rector of St Margaret Lothbury, was, for this reason, challenged by a parishioner whose tithe he was trying to collect; PRO, E 36/120, fo. 178v (LP. xiii (1), 1492). Cf. also PRO, SP 1/238, fo. 172 (LP Addenda I (1). 878); B.L., Had. MS. Cleopatra E iv, fo.131v (LP x. 462).

41 GLRO, DL/C/330, fo. 100.

42 ibid., fo. 46. Contemporaries as well as historians evidently thought Lollards were to be found in the wool trade. See Davis, J. F., ‘Lollard survival and the textile industry in the South East of England’, Studies in Church History, iii (1966), 191–201CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 GLRO, DL/C/207, fo. 7.

44 Elton, C. R., ‘Sir Thomas More and the opposition to Henry viii’, BIHR, xli (1968), 19–34Google Scholar; Miles, L., ‘Persecution and the Dialogue of Contort: a fresh look at the Charges against Thomas More’, Journal of British Studies, v (1965), 19–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Davis, J. F., ‘Heresy and Reformation in the South East of England, 1520–1558’ (unpublished Oxford D.Phil, thesis, 1968)Google Scholar; Brigden, ‘Early Reformation in London’, chap. 3.

45 Simon Fish, ‘A Supplicacyon for the Beggers’ (EETS, extra series, xiii), 2.

46 B.L., Harl. MS 2252, fos. 34v–5; PRO, SP 1/106, fo. 22 (LP xi. 325); SP 6/2, fo. 44v (LP viii. 453); SP 2/M, fos. 200–1 (LP v. 1788). See Kelly, M. J., ‘The submission of the clergy’, Trans. Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., x (1965), 97–119CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bowker, M., ‘Some archdeacons’ court books and the commons’ supplication against the Ordinaries of 1532’, The Study of Medieval Records: Essays in Honour of Kathleen Major, ed. Bullough, D. A., Oxford 1971, 282–316; Brigden, op. cit., 78–86Google Scholar.

47 Elton, G. R., Reform and Renewal: Thomas Cromwell and the Commonweal, Cambridge 1973, 62–5, 69–70Google Scholar.

48 PRO, SP 6/2, fo. 44v (LP viii. 453); Bindoff, S. T., ‘Clement Armstrong and his Treatise of the Commonweal’, Economic History Review, 1st ser., xiv (1944), 64–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 PRO, SP6/9, fos. 120–30 (LP x. 248); LP xi. 1487.

50 Thomson, ‘Tithe disputes’, 5. For example, in 1526 the court of aldermen took pity upon Roger Deele, who had been before the spiritual courts for years, lending him £25 (CLRO, Repertory 7, fos. 260v, 284). When Edward Marmyon, his rector, made his will in 1540 he left £20 to the parish—if they could extract the missing tithe from Deele’s executors (PRO, Prerogative Court of Canterbury hereafter PCC, Prob. 11/28, fo.243). For the origins of this protracted suit twenty years earlier, see Thomson, ‘Clergy and laity in London’, 316–17). When Sir Michael English and other parishioners of St Stephen Coleman Street were cited before Wolsey’s commissary because of unjust demands for tithe the aldermen decided that they were to be defended at the costs of the Chamber (CLRO, Repertory 7, fos. 195v–196).

51 Houlbrooke, ‘Church courts and the people’, 221.

52 Sylvia Thrupp found that seven of every ten citizens’ wills in the fifteenth century opened with a bequest to the high altar of the testator’s parish church; The Merchant Class of Medieval London, 1300–1500, Ann Arbor 1948, 185Google Scholar.

53 Percentage of wills making provision for tithe. Commissary Court, register of wills, 1521–38 (Guildhall, MS 9171/10): 72% (507 out of 703).Commissary Court, register of wills, 1539–46 (Guildhall, MS 9171/11): 39% (209 out of 530). London Consistory Court Wills, 1492–1547, ed. I. Darlington: 33% (42 out of 128). Prerogative Court of Canterbury 1537–9 (PRO, PCC, Prob. 11/27) 50% (83 out of 166). Prerogative Court of Canterbury 1539–41 (PRO, PCC, Prob. 11/28) 48% (82 out of 169). Total: 54% (923 wills out of 1696).

54 CLRO, Repertory 5, fo. 154.

55 The records of the court, now lost, were studied in the seventeenth century; Walton, Brian, A Treatise concerning the payment of Tythes in London, in Brewster, Samuel, Collectanea Ecclesiastics, London 1752, 23Google Scholar.

56 Lambeth, Carte Miscellane, ix/10, fos. 1–21; Walton, A Treatise, 85–90.

57 CLRO, Letter Book. O, fo. 49. They asked that the court require the bishop of London to order that English copies of the bull be posted in every city church. There is no record of a conclusion to this suit, but on 14 December 1527 the court of aldermen appointed four of its members and various citizens to consult with the bishop about tithe; Repertory 5, fo. 12 7v.

58 CLRO, Repertory 7, fos. 248v, 252v–253v.

59 ibid., fo. 295; Repertory 8, fo. 11.

60 The citizens baulked at paying a tithe assessed at a rate of 14d. in the noble because it produced an extra penny in the £ over the official rate: a small sum, but relations were tense, and Londoners were infuriated by any further proof of clerical greed; Thomson, ‘Tidie disputes’, 15.

61 CLRO, Journal 13, fo. 90v; Letter Book O, fo. 124v.

62 Walton, A Treatise, 92.

63 CLRO, Journal 13, fos. 122–123V; Letter Book O, fos. 140–141v.

64 ibid., Repertory 8, fo. 19v; Journal 13, fo. 116v; Letter Book O, fo. 134v.

65 ibid., Journal 13, fos. 124–5; Letter Book O, fos. 142–3.

66 ibid., Journal 13, fos. 126–7; Letter Book O, fos. 144–5.

67 Lambeth, Carte Miscellane, viii/sb, fos. 13–14.

68 Miller, ‘London and Parliament’, 143ff.

69 LP vi. 120.

70 CLRO, Repertory 8, fo. 260; Letter Book P, fo. 2v.

71 PRO, SP 2/M, fos. 200–1 (LP v. 1788).

72 Walton, A Treatise, 103, 108. Walton copied the proceedings of this suit in Star Chamber, which no longer survive in the PRO: Lambeth, Carte Miscellane viii/2 a–e.

73 ibid., viii/2, fo. 11.

74 John Colyns, a London mercer and printer who kept a commonplace book, recorded that Edmund Grey, the rector of St Benet Gracechurch, had incurred praemunire by appealing to Pope Nicholas’s bull; B. L. Harl. MS 2252, fos. 32v–33.

75 For the suit to Rome in 1518, see Thomson, ‘Tithe disputes’, 13. On 10 February 1534 all the citizens were ordered to assemble in their wards to answer whether they would agree to the dispute being put to arbitration. They did agree, doubtless confident that any decision would be in their favour, given the prevailing attitude to the Church; CLRO, Repertory 8, fo. 275V; Journal 13, fo. 400; Letter Book P, fo. 31; Heinze, R. W., The Proclamations of the Tudor Kings, Cambridge 1976, 134–5Google Scholar.

76 Brigden, ‘Early Reformation in London’, 182–4; Lehmberg, S. E., The Reformation Parliament, 1529–36, Cambridge 1970, 186–7Google Scholar. The records do not record the behind-the-scenes negotiations, but one Thomas Not apparently acted as professional mediator for the city throughout this period. Not was rewarded for his services; CLRO, Repertory 9, fo. 76; Repertory 10, fos. 41v, 195; Journal 14, fo. 113.

77 CLRO, Repertory 9, fo. 50v. A fragment of a ‘declaration of certain inhabitants agenst the persons of London for takying of excessyve ffees and benefyttes’ with a list of tithes gathered from each parish survives, and this is almost certainly the book presented to parliament; PRO, SP 1/238, fos. 171–2 (LP Addenda Id). 878).

78 CLRO, Repertory 9, fo. 51; Letter Book P, fo. 34v.

79 ibid., Journal 13, fo. 404; Letter Book P, fo. 37; Heinze, Proclamations, 134.

80 That this was not intended as a final settlement is clear from the instruction to the officials that this order for Easter would not prejudice the ‘defynytyff arbitrament’ to be made after Easter; CLRO, Journal 13, fo. 404.

81 Tudor Royal Proclamations (hereafter cited as TRP), ed. P. Hughes and J. F. Lark in, New Haven, Conn. 1964–9, 1. no. 145; CLRO, Letter Book P, fos. 41v–42. There was still much resentment; cf. ‘A Supplication of the Poore Commons’ (EETS, extra series, xiii), 84.

82 CLRO, Journal 13, fo. 416v.

83 ibid., Repertory 9, fo. 8gv.

84 TRP I. no. 153; Heinze, Proclamations, 135.

85 27 Henry VIII c. 20.

86 27 Henry VIII c. 21 (Statutes of the Realm, 111. 552); CLRO, Journal 13, fos. 471v–472; Letter Book P, fo. 86; B.L. Harl. MS 2252, fos. 34v–35.

87 CLRO, Journal 14, fo. 122v; Repertory 10, fo. 73.

88 ibid., Journal 13, fo. 472; Letter Book P, fo. 86v.

89 Walton, A Treatise Concerning … Tythes, 117, 137–8, Walton found reference to the clergy’s bill in a tract written by ‘some friend to the City’, printed by the Protestant John Mayler. I have been unable to identify this tract.

90 PRO, SP 1/105, fos. 213–15. (LP xi. 204).

91 CLRO, Repertory 10, fos. 197v, 202v.

92 Helen Miller has discussed in detail the parliamentary manoeuvres for a full and final settlement for tithe; London and Parliament, i46ff.

93 Wunderli, R. M., ‘The ecclesiastical courts in pre-Reformation London’ (unpublished University of California at Berkeley Ph.D. thesis, 1975)Google Scholar.

94 GLRO, DL/C/3 and 4. The erratic way in which the ecclesiastical records have survived, and the fact that the peculiars of the archbishop took their cases to the Court of Arches, may mean that this usurpation of traditionally ecclesiastical jurisdiction is more apparent than real, but it is significant that the consistory was dealing with tithe suits from the diocese and not from the city.

95 All Hallows Barking, CLRO, Repertory 10, fos. 325v, 326; St Andrew Hubberd, Repertory 10, fos. 34, 73; St Botolph Billingsgate, Repertory 10, fo. 328v; Repertory 11, fo. 70; St Dunstan in the East, Repertory 10, fos. 103, 325v, 330v, 335v; Repertory 11, fos. 57, 64, 70, 77v, 80, 81v, 123, 156, 160–161v, 162v, 163v, 164v, 166v, 169v, 173v, 189–90; St Dunstan in the West, Repertory 10, fo. 325v; St John Zachary, Repertory 11, fo. 77; St Leonard Foster Lane, Repertory 10, fo. 325v; Repertory 11, fo. 64; St Magnus, Repertory 10, fos. 295b, 296, 297, 298v, 300–2, 325v, 330v; Repertory 11, fos. 70, 71, 75v; St Margaret Lothbury, Repertory 10, fos. 325v, 330v; St Margaret New Fish Street, ibid., fos. 330v, 331; St Margaret Pattens, ibid., fo. 102v; St Martin Vintry, ibid., fos. 325v, 330v, St Mary Bow, Repertory g, fo. 242; St Mary Magdalene Milk Street, Repertory 11, fos. 64, 331; Journal 15, fos. 102v, 284; St Mary Mounthaw, Repertory 10, fo. 325v; St Mary Woolchurch, ibid., 325V, 328V; St Matthew Friday Street, ibid., 325v, 330v; St Michael Wood Street, ibid., 330V; Repertory 11, fo. 64v: St Mildred Bread Street, Repertory 11, fo. 256v; St Mildred Poultry; Letter Book Q. fo. 111v; Repertory 11, fos. 70, 77v; Journal 15, fo. 102; St Peter Cheap, Letter Book P, fo. 121; Repertory 9, fo. 257v; St Thomas Apostle, Repertory 10, fo. 325v.

96 The first case came before the court of aldermen in February 1537 when Dr Cockes complained against his parishioners at St Mary Bow, and the matter was remitted to the mayor according to the statute 27 Henry viii c. 21; CLRO, Repertory 9, fo. 242.

97 The only case brought by a layman was against the rector of St John Walbrook; CLRO, Repertory 11, fo. 126.

98 See, for example, CLRO, Repertory 10, fos. 326v, 328v, 330v, 334v.

99 PRO, SP 1/105, fo. 215 (LP xi. 204).

100 ibid.

101 CLRO, Journal 15, fo. 213v; Letter Book. Q, fo. 154v.

102 ibid., Journal 15, fo. 213. This cites all the notorious ways the citizens used to extricate themselves from the tax.

103 37 Henry viii c. 12; Lords' Journal, I. 274, 276–7, 281–2; Miller, ‘London and Parliament’, 148. The award was made on 84 February 1546, and by the act had force of statute. It was entered into Bishop Bonner’s register on 25 February; Guildhall, MS 9531/12, fos. 88v–89.

104 The lord mayor's jurisdiction appears not to have been challenged until an address from the Lower to the Upper House of Convocation in 1554; Hill, Economic Problems of the Church, 279, n 2.