First-Fruits and Tenths. [Law; English History]

FIRST-FRUITS AND TENTHS. At the time when the papal authority was at its height, the popes laid on the clergy the taxes known as first-fruits and tenths. The first-fruits were the first year's income of a benefice paid by the new incumbent. They were also known as Annates (Lat. annus a year). The tenths were 10 per cent of the income of the benefice paid in subsequent years.

After Henry VIII had quarrelled with the pope, the first-fruits and tenths payable by the English clergy were transferred to the crown by an act of 1534. The annual produce of these taxes then amounted to £14,000.¹ It was expended on secular objects until the reign of Queen Anne, who was persuaded by Gilbert Burnet, the celebrated bishop of Salisbury, to devote it to the augmentation of poor livings. An act of 1703 empowered the queen to incorporate the persons whom she should appoint to be trustees of the fund, and relieved them from the restraints imposed by the statute of mortmain, thus enabling them to receive gifts of land.

The tenths and first-fruits continue to be levied upon the ancient valuation, so that their proceeds have not increased. Since 1703 the fund has been augmented by parliamentary grants and by private liberality, but it is still known as Queen Anne's Bounty.²

£14,000 in 1534 was roughly equal to £9.7 million in 2020. Source: Measuring Worth.

Queen Anne's Bounty was merged with the Ecclesiastical Commissioners on April 2, 1947 by the Church Commissioners Measure of 1947. See Chandler, The Church of England in the Twentieth Century (2003). Appendix 3.[link].

      Excerpted from:

      Dictionary of Political Economy. Vol II.
      R. H. Inglis Palgrave, Ed.
      London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1896. 85.

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