A history of tithes

This work traces the development of the obligation to pay a tenth from antiquity through medieval and modern transformations, examining textual and legal evidence, disputed manuscripts, and competing historical interpretations. It reviews early church practice, medieval canons and monastic appropriations, Norman and later changes, Reformation and parliamentary adjustments, and the nineteenth-century commutation and redemption of tithes. It combines narrative history with statistical returns and legal analysis, critiques prior authorities and their use of negative evidence, and includes county-by-county data, appendices of returns, and an assessment of church revenues and endowments.