ART. II.-1. A Brief History of Church Rates. By the Rev. WILLIAM GOODE, Rector of St Antholin. London: Svo. 1838.

2. A Reply to the Article on Church Rates in the Edimburgh Review, No. 124. By the Same. 8vo. 1838.

these two performances, the first is in substance, and the

O second in form, a reply to an article we published some

time ago on Church Rates. It is true, there is no mention of our article in the Brief History;' but there are several pages of it devoted to an examination of the authorities we had used, none of which are omitted; though many of them had not been noticed by those who had preceded us in the controversy.

It is but justice to Mr Goode to acknowledge, that in his History of Church Rates,' he maintains the side he has espoused with better temper, and with more skill and discretion, than had been done by his predecessors. If, in his Reply to us, he has departed from the urbanity he had preserved in his historical essay, we regret his intemperance; and, profiting by the lesson he has given us, we shall carefully abstain from following his example. 'Idle

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rodomontade, the produce either of party prejudice or of want of information, in the highest degree reprehensible'-tam'pering with every important authority we had adduced'—' ig6 norance of the real nature and bearing of these authorities'— slippery translations and loose paraphrases, which give to false conclusions an air of truth, and deceive readers who will not 'care to search after the ponderous volumes from which they ' are derived' assertions' contrary to common sense'-are some of the mild phrases and courteous expressions he has applied to We are sorry theological bitterness should have led him to forget the decencies of literary discussion. He may be assured that a good cause does not suffer from the modesty and moderation of its defenders, and that zeal and good manners are not incompatible. But, without adverting further to his petulance and presumption, we shall proceed to his arguments.

us.

It is admitted on both sides that church rates, for the reparation of churches and the expenses of religious worship, have beer levied in England since the thirteenth century; through assessment imposed on the parish by the parishioners assembled in vestry. The question in dispute is, at what time was this practice introduced? We have contended that there is no proof of its existence before the thirteenth century; and that in the course of that century it was completely established as it now exists. Mr Goode, in support of his opinion, that early in the thirteenth century

it was already an established and acknowledged custom, cites the authority of John de Athon, or, as he chooses to call him, John of Acton, who wrote Commentaries on the Constitutions of Otho-a papal legate that held a national council at London in 1237-and on those of Ottobon, another legate who held a similar council in 1268. John de Athon unquestionably tells us (and we were quite aware of the fact), that though the canon law imposed on the rector the reparation of his church, and exempted the laity from that burden, the laity in England were nevertheless bound by custom to keep their parish church in repair, and ought to be compelled to the performance of that duty. The question is, at what time did John de Athon write his Commentary? If it was early in the thirteenth century, it would be a proof that we were in the wrong; and that the custom he commemorates, had been established before the time we had assigned for its first introduction. But if he wrote, as we contend he did, in the middle of the fourteenth century, his testimony is of no weight in the present controversy; because it is admitted on both sides, that in the fourteenth century, the system or abuse of church rates was completely established.

Mr Goode tells us that John de Athon was contemporary with the legatine constitutions on which he comments-that he was one of Otho's chaplains in 1237; and for this piece of history he refers us to Duck as his authority, 'who asserts,' as Mr Goode assures us, 'from Matth. Paris, that the commentator upon the Legatine Constitutions of Otho and Ottobon was one of Otho's chaplains, who is mentioned by Matth. Paris as having spoken • at the national council held at St Paul's in 1237.’*

Mr.

Duck's volume is not very ponderous; but, duodecimo as it is, we suspect Mr Goode has never looked into it. If he had done so, he would have found there is no such passage in Duck, who was too well informed to have fallen into so gross an error. Goode seems to have borrowed his knowledge of Duck, from the Oxford edition of John de Athon's Commentaries; to which the editor has prefixed a short character of John de Athon from Duck -inserting an interpolation of his own, which Mr Goode has unwarily copied. The words within brackets ['quem Matthæus 'Parisiensis nominat Othonis clericum ;] are not in Duck.

Matthew Paris, the innocent author of this mistake, informs us, that doubts having arisen whether constitutions made by the Papal legate would have force in England after his departure from the kingdom, and these doubts having been communicated

* History, 41, 48.

VOL. LXX. NO. CXLI.

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to the legate, jussu ejusdem surrexit in medio quidam, clericus 'suus, magister scilicet Attho, et aperto libro authentico, scilicet 'registro Domini Papæ, ad majorem auctoritatem, ut validius 'talium opinionum improbaret, quandam decretalem legit distincte 'et aperte, quam Dominus Legatus distinguens approbavit, per 'illam asserens manifeste, quod etiam post recessum ejus sua statuta 'perpetuæ firmitatis robur obtinerent.'* The improbability that Magister Attho (a common Italian name, and borne by some of the first canonists of the age), who had most probably accompanied the legate from Rome, and to whose custody the authentic register of the Pope had been instrusted, could have been the same person with John de Athon, a canon, as he calls himself, of Lincoln, or prebendary of that cathedral as he is termed by others, might have deterred, we think, both the Oxford editor and Mr Goode from confounding personages so dissimilar. It might have further occurred to them as highly improbable, that one who had attained the rank of magister in 1237, should not only survive to the time of Ottobon, who came to England in 1268, but have strength and elasticity of mind afterwards to compose a learned and laboured commentary on the constitution of the two legates. If such reflections had occurred to Mr Goode, he would probably have read, what he evidently has not done, the Commentary on which he rests so much. He would there have seen that John de Athon, in the course of his work, refers more than a dozen times to the 'Extravagantes' of John 22d, who became Pope in 1316, and died in 133-4; and whose Extravagantes' were not collected and published till 1340—more than a hundred years after the supposed selection of the commentator by the legate Otho, to read a decretal epistle of the Pope to the English clergy.

John de Athon styles himself Canonicus Lincolniensis, and Bishop Nicolson calls him a prebendary of that cathedral. We have looked into the catalogue of prebendaries of Lincoln, published by Browne Willis, and find in it no such name as John de Athon; but in 1343 we meet with a John de Eaton in the list of prebendaries. The time agrees; and we should not be surprised to find, on more careful search, that John de Eaton was the same person with John de Athon.

At all events, we are sure, from the works referred to by John de Athon in his Commentary, that he flourished in the middle of the fourteenth century; and consequently that his testimony of the existence of a particular custom in England, is no proof that that custom was not introduced in the course of the thirteenth century.

Matth. Paris, 448-Ed. of 1610.

More need not be said of the most plausible of the additional proofs which Mr Goode has brought forward in support of the antiquity of church rates.

This is not the only chronological error into which Mr Goode's haste and carelessness have betrayed him. Desirous to prove that, before this writ of Circumspecte agatis,' the ecclesiastical courts had exclusive jurisdiction in pleas concerning the reparation of churches, he tells us, and repeats it with triumph,* that the law treatise called Britton,' which declares that Holy Church has conusance de defaut de esglises,' was the work of John le Breton, bishop of Hereford, who died in the third year of Edward I.; and must consequently have been written ten years at least before the promulgation of that writ. For this mistake he has the excuse to offer, that he found it so asserted in the Flores Historiarum.' But if he had given himself the trouble to make the slightest enquiry into the subject before be adopted this assertionif he had looked into Selden's notes on Hengham or Fleta-if he had even cast his eyes over the leaves of the treatise on which he descants so learnedly--he would have found in Britton' references to many statutes passed after the death of the Bishop of Hereford; and among others to the statute of Westminster 2d, which was not enacted till ten years afterwards. How this mistake could have crept into the Flores Historiarum,' we can give no better reason than the one suggested by Selden :-' A sciolo aliquo temere ingestum,' says that learned author, dubitare nequeo.' It is needless to add, that if 'Britten' was written after the writ of Circumspecte agatis,' the enumeration given in this treatise of the pleas of the Church, is no proof that the exclusive jurisdiction given to the ecclesiastical courts over the reparation of churches was not derived from that writ.

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It seems never to have occurred to Mr Goode, that if the treatise called Britton'-if King Edward's Book of Laws,' which declared that Holy Church should retain her privileges unble'mished,' viz. that she should have cognisance of judging of the repairs of churchyards and defects of churches,'-had been promulgated' between 1270 and 1275,' the courts of common law could not have issued those prohibitions, of which the clergy complain in 1285, and falsely attribute to some edict then recently published; nor would the writ of Circumspecte agatis,' which secured to them those privileges, have been wanted.

Mr Goode complains of the animus with which our observations were written; and, as a proof of the unfriendly spirit in which

*

History, 46.-Reply, 29, 22.

+ Reply, 20.

they were dictated, he quotes our expression, that in preferring the interests of religion to the payment of tithes, Alcuin showed himself an unclerical member of his profession. It has escaped Mr Goode, that we had the instant before extracted a passage from Sarpi, which describes the clergy in the days of Alcuin as persons that neglected to inculcate religion in their sermons, and represented the payment of tithes as the chief duty of a Christian. Contrasted with such clergymen, Mr Goode will not deny that Alcuin was an unclerical member of his profession.

Mr Goode cannot but admit, that by the decretal epistles of Pope Gelasius, and by other canonical authorities of the early Church, ecclesiastical revenues were to be divided into four parts, and one of these to be appropriated to the repair of the church. But, finding in one of the decretal epistles, that the division was to be made prout cujuslibet ecclesiæ facultas admittit,' he endeavours, by a new translation of the word prout, which he renders as far as, to convert this absolute into a conditional command, which left to the authorities of each church to determine whether such a division could be made; and if made, to what ' extent, and in what proportion.'* Now, in the first place, we protest against this translation of the word prout, which has no restrictive meaning; but should be rendered even as, or, as Mr Goode himself translates it in another place, according as. On this point we refer our readers to Facciolati or Ainsworth, or, if Mr Goode likes it better, to the Vulgate; or to the Mediæval Latinity of Bishop Quivil, who concludes his partition of burdens between the rector and his flock, by assigning little more than nothing to the former-' Prout in nostra diœcesi huc usque fieri consuevit.' In the second place, why has Mr Goode, in quoting from the epistle, decretal of Gelasius, stopped short in the midst of a sentence, precisely at the point where it began to make against his argument? That we may not be suspected of injustice to Mr Goode, we shall give the entire passage, printing the part omitted by him in italics. De quibus sicut sacerdotis intererit integram ministris ecclesiæ memora'tam dispendere quantitatem, sic clericus ultra delegatam sibi 'summam nihil insolenter noverit repetendam.' Why, we also ask, has he omitted the sentence immediately following ?-Ea ve" ro quæ ecclesiasticis restaurandis ædificiis attributa sunt, huie operi prærogata locorum doceat instauratio sanctorum manifesta, quia nefas est, si (sacris ædibus destitutis) in lucrum