IN very early times, and certainly prior to A.D. 1228, the ministers and clergy in London were supported, in addition to their glebe land, by certain oblations, obventions, and other casual duties which arose upon marriages, christenings, burials, and other similar events. The clergy had also, apparently, been receiving voluntary gifts from the people, for in the year 1200 A.D. these voluntary gifts were made compulsory, but the amount was not fixed. The lay owner could pay these offerings to whatever church or monastery he chose, so that in the 23rd year of the reign of Ed. I. Robert Winchester, Archbishop of Canterbury, held a council in London, and it was thereby ordered that each person should pay these offerings to his own parish. church.
These casual payments were at first personal, but in course of time became regulated by the rental paid by the parishioners for their houses. Thus every one whose rental was of the value of 20s. paid a halfpenny to the minister on every Sunday and every Apostles' day the vigil of which was a fast; this amounted at most to 2s. 6d. in the pound, and sometimes it was less, as when one of the Apostles' days fell on a Sunday; and Linwood says that these payments came so near a tenth on the rent actually paid that they were thought to be a tithe. There was a dispute also whether the citizens were liable or not to pay in addition personal tithes on their gains, and it was