TITHES 331
manifest prejudice of ecclesiastical rights and liberties, and to the
grievous harm of their own souls" which may be found set out at
length in Stratford's constitutions and elsewhere.1
The multiplicity of things tithable suggests how important a
source of income tithes represented to the Church, and it is,
therefore, not surprising to find that they were exacted with con-
siderable pressure where this was necessary. "Full loath were
him to cursen for his tithes ", says Chaucer of his model parish
priest, and few of his contemporaries would have failed to
recognise how rare a man this made him. The fiercest curses of
the Church were stored up for those who were recalcitrant, and
the priest was instructed to pronounce their excommunication
with book, bell and candle.
It is without question that these demands for tithe, con-
tinuously asserted and enforced as they were, led to frequent
difficulties, and tended to estrange the priest from his flock.
Men could not see why they should make these payments to a
man, whom, although a priest, they knew to be drawn from their
own ranks, and whose parents and brethren, nay, often himself,
still worked side by side with them in their unending struggle to
win a living from the soil.
The priest, then, needed to be a man of unusual character
to overcome these many difficulties, and we must always bear
Jiiis in mind before we condemn him for the innumerable
lapses that undoubtedly occurred. Throughout these centuries
we need not doubt that many priests tried, and did their utmost
—so far as their birth, education and the system would allow—
to be true shepherds to their flocks. Medieval England would
have been immeasurably the poorer without them: their presence
in the parish gave a natural leader to those forces and aspirations
making for good, even amidst the dangerous passions of a half-
civilised world. Whether from love or fear, many peasants were
kept within bounds by the occasional rebuke or the kindly re-
monstrance of their village priest, and their influence in this way
was undoubtedly considerable.
Yet, it still remains true that, wherever we can glimpse the
actual life of the medieval clergy, it falls far short of what would
seem desirable, even at a moderate estimate. The opportunity
1 G. G. Coulton, Ten Medieval Studies, 124.