Title XIII: On Tithes, First Fruits, and Offerings

The people are to be exhorted in sermons and otherwise to pay the rights owed to churches. This states the point according to Zenzel.

Gregory IX, to the Friars Preachers and Minors.

We command your discretion, strictly prohibiting you from hereafter presuming, in your sermons or elsewhere, to put forward things that may draw your hearers away from payment of tithes or of other things owed to churches, or may otherwise corrupt the souls of your hearers. Rather, by word and deed you shall instruct them to be intent, with a mind of ready will, upon payment of the aforesaid things.

A privilege granting tithes from newly cultivated lands does not include tithes from newly cultivated lands possessed by others at the time of the application, and it includes only places where the old tithes were received, and only to the old proportion. This states the point as far as § “We establish,” according to Dominicus. — § 1. A privilege of tithes from newly cultivated lands, limited to the measure of the old tithes, cannot include more than half; the rule fails in the case of Cistercians and Carthusians. This states the point. — § 2. Those privileged concerning the receipt of tithes ought freely to assign to parish churches a portion for supporting the burdens owed. This states the point. Dominicus. — § 3. Tithes received in fief by laymen from religious before the Lateran Council, and acknowledged by the laymen to be held in fief, cannot be granted to those religious without the consent of the diocesan bishops. This states the point. Dominicus. — § 4. Diocesan bishops compel exempt religious to pay tithes to parish churches if exempt property is not at issue. This states the point. Dominicus. — § 5. Religious, even exempt religious, ought to pay tithes from possessions acquired and to be acquired to parish churches if they are not privileged. This states the point. Dominicus. — § 6. Those who have old tithes by the gift of laymen do not receive tithes from newly cultivated lands subsequently arising in the same place. This states the point. Dominicus.

Alexander IV.

By a perpetual statute we declare that the apostolic indult granted to very many persons, that they may receive the tithes from newly cultivated lands in the proportion in which the old tithes fall to them, in no way extends to those tithes from newly cultivated lands that others possessed at the time when this indult was applied for or obtained, since no mention of this is made in it. Nor does it extend to any others except only in those places where the applicants themselves had the old tithes when the said indult was applied for, and only in the proportion in which they received the old tithes at the time of such application.

§ 1. We establish, moreover, that the same indult, when obtained by persons who at the time of the application received the old tithes in their entirety, shall in no way extend beyond half of the tithes from newly cultivated lands. For it is not probable that, if full and entire receipt of the old tithes had then been expressed, the Apostolic See would equally and similarly have granted the tithes from newly cultivated lands to the so-grave loss of parish churches. By reason of such an indult, whether already applied for or to be applied for hereafter, no more than half of the tithes from newly cultivated lands can be claimed, acquired, or received in newly cultivated lands that shall be made from now on, even if more was held in the old tithes. For it is not to be called harsh, but rather pious and benign, if opposition is made in this manner concerning tithes of future newly cultivated lands to a burden upon parish churches that can arise from the distinction of an indult of this kind. Nevertheless, with regard to these two articles, namely concerning half of the tithes from newly cultivated lands, we do not wish religious of the Cistercian and Carthusian orders to be included in or constrained by a statute and declaration of this kind.

§ 2. But where through grants of tithes of this kind parish churches happen to be so burdened that their rectors cannot be suitably maintained from their revenues, conveniently render the episcopal dues, and support the other burdens owed, provision and disposition shall be made by the ordinaries of the places in such a way that so much from their revenues is left to those rectors that they can thereby have suitable maintenance, pay the episcopal dues, and support the other burdens owed.

§ 3. Indeed, although perhaps exempt religious and others make infeudations of tithes detained by laymen, and those laymen acknowledge that they hold them in fief from the religious themselves, nevertheless, after such an infeudation or acknowledgment thus de facto presumed, it is not lawful for the religious to acquire or receive tithes of this kind from the hands of those laymen without the assent of the diocesan bishops. We understand that those tithes can thus be received or acquired by religious from the hands of laymen that were granted perpetually in fief to the laymen before the Lateran Council.

§ 4. At the request of the rectors of parish churches, the diocesan bishops shall render the fullness of justice against the religious themselves concerning tithes that the religious have or happen to have, and that otherwise belonged to those churches, unless exempt property is at issue.

§ 5. Moreover, those religious, exempt as well as nonexempt, shall pay tithes in full from lands and possessions acquired hitherto and to be acquired from now on to those churches to which the same possessions and lands were previously subject to tithes, unless they are furnished with a special right or privilege concerning this.

§ 6. Nor, because perhaps in certain parishes they acquire from the hands of laymen all the greater tithes or a part of them, can they seek or receive, for the same or a similar proportion, the tithes from newly cultivated lands in those places if newly cultivated lands are afterward made there, unless there is a reasonable cause by which they may do this.