CHAPTER II. Review of the Statutes relating to the Poor Laws for the Purpose of ascertaining their Principles. SECTION I. EARLIER PROVISION MADE FOR THE POOR. THE first question to which I would direct the attention of the reader is, What are the leading principles on which the Poor Laws are founded? And these will be most easily developed by giving a brief history of their establishment. The maintenance of the poor, though deriving its origin from the most palpable instincts of our nature, and, under limitations, enforced emphatically by the precepts of the New Testament, has left no traces of its existence among the early records of Christianity, but as connected with its grossest superstitions and corruptions. The Church taught that prayers, purchased by donations to the poor, conferred everlasting happiness on the living and the dead. The benefits were supposed to accrue, not only to the donor himself, but to all his ancestors and heirs: so that these superstitious notions were the cause of immense sums being given to the Church, both in the life-time and at the death of the pious laity. These funds for the redemption of souls were intrusted to the management of the clergy, who received them therefore as treasurers for the poor. Selden in his "History of Tithes" has a great deal of obsolete learning collected on this subject, at which I shall only glance in passing to a later and better authenticated period of history. "In Egypt," says he, "some holy abbots had tithes of all fruits offered them about the beginning of this age (i. e. the fourth century); and one of them receives the offering with this kind acknowledgement: Devotionem hujus oblationis (cujus dispensatio mihi credita est) gratantèr amplector, quia fideliter primitias vestras ac decimas indigentium usibus futuras, velut sacrificium Domino bonæ suavitatis offertis—where it appears the abbot received them as treasurer to the poor. And about the year CCCCLXX. Christians also in Pannonia, by example of S. Severins bountie, gave the tenth of their fruits to the poor. Devotissime (saies my autort that then livd also) frugum suarum decimas pauperibus impendebant; quod mandatum, licet cunctis ex lege notissimum sit, tamen quasi ex *History of Tithes, p. 47. + Eugippius in Vita S. Severini, cap. 17 & 18 ore angeli præsentis grata devotione servabant. And a little after, he relates that the inhabitants of Lauriacum (which some take for Lorch in Austria), being often admonisht by S. Severin to pay the tenths of their fruits to the poor, had notwithstanding omitted it; whereupon their corn being blasted, they humbly come unto him, pœnas suæ contumaciæ confitentes, acknowledging their loss as a reward for their fault. And the saint answers them: Si decimas obtulissetis pauperibus, non solum æterna mercede frueremini, verum etiam commodis possetis abundare præsentibus: whence is seen both the received use of offering them in that place, as also the opinion of Severin." Selden goes on to say, that the curates of parishes (the word parish first denoting a whole bishoprick) received the offerings of devout Christians, which were employed in maintaining the clergy and relieving distressed Christians, by the oeconomit, deacons, or other officers thereto appointed under the bishop. Neither," says he, "had those parochial priests at first such a particular interest in the profits received in oblations, as of later times. All that was received wheresoever * P. 81. + The oeconomi or yconomi are said by Kennet, Paroch. Antiq. p. 616, to have corresponded with our Churchwardens. 2 in the bishoprique, was as a common treasury to bee so dispensed. One part was allowed to the maintenance of the ministerie (out of which every parochiall minister had his salary, according to the monthly pay spoken of in the first four hundred years); another to the reliefe of the poor, sick, and strangers; a third to the reparation of the churches; and a fourth to the bishop." An ancient collection of canons, written about the time of Henry the First, with an inscription, somewhat suspicious indeed, stating that they were gathered by Egbert, arch-bishop of York, who lived in the eighth century, has these remarkable words: "Ut ipsi sacerdotes à populis suscipiant decimas; et nomina eorum, quicunque dederint, scripta habeant, et secundum autoritatem canonicam coram testibus dividant, et ad ornamentum ecclesiæ primam eligant partem, secundam autem ad usum pauperum atque peregrinorum per eorum manus misericorditèr cum omni humilitate dispensent; tertiam verò sibimet ipsis sacerdotes reservent *.” So that it would appear from the passages here referred to, that at the first establishment of parochial clergy, the tithes were divided into four parts; but "when the sees became otherwise amply en *MS. in Biblioth. Cottoniana, quoted by Selden, p. 196. dowed, the bishops were prohibited from demanding their usual share, and the division was in three parts only*,” reserving a third for the use of the poor. But besides this ecclesiastical provision, King Edgar in the tenth century enjoined, "that as the priests so also the people should distribute alms to the poor, that thereby they might render the Deity propitious to them, and that thereby the people might be accustomed to the giving of alms and it was required that the priests, when they distributed their alms, should sing psalms; and the poor at the same time pray for their benefactors t." And by The Mirrour, we find, that "by the common law the poor were to be sustained by parsons, rectors of the church, and the parishioners; so that none of them die for default of sustenance;" and this, it is apprehended, is the law which would enforce the relief of the poor of extra-parochial places at the present day. "It is not true, what some people imagine," says Mr. Justice Foster §, "that the common law of England made no provision for the poor: The Mirrour shews the contrary. How, * Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. i + Burn's History of the Poor Laws, p. 3. See Inhabitants of Forest of Dean v. Linton. 2 Salk. 487, § Rex v. Loxdale. 1 Burr. 450. |