Tithe commutation was a 19th-century reform of

land tenure In Common law#History, common law systems, land tenure, from the French verb "" means "to hold", is the legal regime in which land "owned" by an individual is possessed by someone else who is said to "hold" the land, based on an agreement betw ...

in Great Britain and Ireland, which implemented an exchange of the payment of a

tithe A tithe (; from Old English: ''teogoþa'' "tenth") is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a contribution to a religious organization or compulsory tax to government. Modern tithes are normally voluntary and paid in money, cash, cheques or v ...

to the clergy of the established church, which were traditionally paid

in kind The term in kind (or in-kind) generally refers to goods, services, and transactions not involving money or not measured in monetary terms. It is a part of many spheres, mainly economics, finance, but also politics, work career, food, health and o ...

, to a system based in an annual cash payment, or once-and-for-all payment. The system had become complex, with lay owners by

impropriation Impropriation, a term from English ecclesiastical law, was the destination of income from tithes of a church benefice to a layman. With the establishment of the parish system in England, it was necessary for all church property and income to have ...

entitled to some tithes, which were of a number of kinds.

History

In Scotland, a form of commutation of

teind In Scotland a teind () was a tithe derived from the produce of the land for the maintenance of the clergy. It is also an old lowland term for a tribute due to be paid by the fairies to the devil every seven years. Found in the story of Tam Lin as ...

s applied from 1633. A full reform was carried out in the 1930s. Commutation of tithes occurred in England before the 19th century major reform, since it was an aspect of

enclosure Enclosure or inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land", enclosing it, and by doing so depriving commoners of their traditional rights of access and usage. Agreements to enc ...

, a legal process under which rights to

common land Common land is collective land (sometimes only open to those whose nation governs the land) in which all persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect wood, or to cut turf for fuel. A person ...

were modified by an act of parliament. An estimate places 60% of enclosure acts as involving tithe commutation. In such cases, commissioners who dealt with the detail of enclosure acts handled tithes by allocation of land, as part of the division of ownership. By this mechanism, in the period between 1750 and 1830,

the glebe The Glebe is a neighbourhood in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It is located just south of Downtown Ottawa in the Capital Ward. As of 2016, the neighbourhood had a population of 13,055. The Glebe is bounded on the north by the Queensway, on the e ...

land increased, and clerics in some places became active farmers. From the 17th century, tithe commutation became seen as part of agricultural improvement, and by the later 18th century, tithes were seen as a major obstacle to improvement, for example by

Adam Smith Adam Smith (baptised 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the field of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as the "father of economics"——— or ...

. and the

Board of Agriculture The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) was a United Kingdom government department created by the Board of Agriculture Act 1889 ( 52 & 53 Vict. c. 30) and at that time called the Board of Agriculture, and then from 1903 the Boar ...

. In England and Wales, existing tithe payments were abolished by the

Tithe Commutation Act 1836 The Tithe Act 1836 ( 6 & 7 Will. 4. c. 71), sometimes called the Tithe Commutation Act 1836, is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is one of the Tithe Acts 1836 to 1891. It replaced the ancient system of payment of tithes in kin ...

. It introduced in their place a cash payment, the "corn rent". The legislation was shaped by the parliamentary contribution of William Blamire, a farmer and self-styled "practical man" who became a tithe commissioner.

Tithe maps

Implementation of the Commutation Act for England and Wales required detailed maps. Robert Kearsley Dawson took the opportunity to press for a substantive

cadastral survey Cadastral surveying is the sub-field of cadastre and surveying that specialises in the establishment and re-establishment of Real estate, real property boundaries. It involves the physical delineation of property boundaries and determination of dim ...

Notes

{{reflist History of the Church of England Land tenure History of the Church of Scotland

Commutation Commute, commutation or commutative may refer to: * Commuting, the process of travelling between a place of residence and a place of work Mathematics * Commutative property, a property of a mathematical operation whose result is insensitive to th ...