in the exact degree in which it was cherished, the principle of self-sacrifice, which was considered the essence of charity, led to the other establishments of the kind, had the same tendency. There were of the whole, great and small, not less on an average than fifty in each county, so that the revenues of the land diffused themselves in great part immediately among the people at large. What must have been the effect of twenty such monasteries, in every county, expending a great part of their incomes on the spot? Somebody must own the lands; and the question is, whether it be best for them to be owned by those who constantly live, and must live, in the country, and in the midst of their estates, or by those who frequently will, and do, live at a great distance from their lands, and draw away the revenues of them to be spent elsewhere. The lay landowner and his family spend more of their revenues in a way not useful to the people than the monasteries possibly could. But besides this, besides the hospitality and charity of the monasteries, and besides, moreover, the lien, the legal lien, which the main body of the people had in many cases to a share, directly or indirectly, in the revenues of the monasteries, we are to look at the monks and nuns in the very important capacity of landlords and landladies. All historians, however, Protestant or malignant, agree that they were 'easy' landlords; that they let their lands at low rents, and on leases of long terms of years, so that, says even Hume, the farmers regarded themselves as a species of proprietors, always taking good care to renew their leases before they expired. And was there no good in a class of landlords of this sort? Did they not necessarily create a good many men of property? Did they not cause a class of yoemen-real yeomen-to subsist, independent of the aristocracy? And was not this class destroyed at the Reformation; which made the farmers rack renters and absolute dependants, as we see them to this day? Monasteries could possess no private property, could save no money, could bequeath nothing. They had a life interest in their estates, and no more. They levied, received, and expended in common. Historians hardly need have told us that they were 'easy landlords'. "Then look at the monasteries, as causing in some of the most important of human affairs that fixedness which is so much the friend of rectitude and morals, and which so powerfully conduces to prosperity, public and private. The monastery was a proprietor that never died; its tenantry had to do with a deathless landlord; its lands and tenants were liable to none of many uncertainties that other tenants were; its oaks had never to tremble at the axe of the squandering heir: its villagers had all been born and bred up under its eye and care. Then the monastery was the centre of a circle in the country, naturally drawing to it all that were in need of relief, advice, and protection. The monasteries built for posterity. The never dying nature of their institutions set aside in all their undertakings every calculation as to time and age. Whether they built or planted, they set the generous example of providing for the pleasure and honour of generations unborn. They executed everything in the very best manner: their gardens, fish-ponds, the giving up of property while men lived, not merely the leaving of it when they died. And, in point of fact, all the principles of the religion precluded any unseemly solicitude, or still more rapacity for property.* The result of the law, as it stood at the opening of the Reformation, was, that land could not be granted to religious houses, or other corporate bodies, without the consent of the crown,† and of course, where they had acquired enough lands, it was in the power of the crown to prevent any further accumulation of land in their hands. At the same time let it be clearly remarked, that no objection had been taken before the era of the Reformation to the holding of any quantity of land by persons not incorporated, in trust for pious uses or other permanent farms-in all, in the whole of their economy, they set an example tending to make the country beautiful, and to make it an object of pride with the people, and to make the nation truly and permanently great." * Generally after the sermons of St. Francis, the people used to build a convent for his priors on their ground. But we read that when one left his all to follow the saint, he obliged him to give the property to his relations. The rule of the order was thus laid down:-"No one who is the support of his friends can be received into it. If the parents of a friar fall into necessity, he is to succour them: if, however, he refused to leave the order to work for them, he must still do so, because he is more obliged to the divine and natural law, than to his vows. The friars could not, directly or indirectly, induce a novice to leave his goods to the poor. No one having debts could be received into the order; and if any should be so received, the order were obliged to pay." (Expos. Litt. de la Règle des FF. Mineurs, c. ii.) The rule of the Friars Minors required, that if a sum were left to any one on condition of his paying annually a part to one of their convents, they could not claim the payment; and if they should say to the heir that, if given as alms, they would accept it, they could not receive it.-Recherches de la France, iii, 19; cited in Mores Catholici. 66 "The effect of the statutes was", says Sir F. Palgrave, “ that upon any gift or devise of land being made to a corporation, the legal estate vested in the corporation; then the statutes authorized the crown to seize the lands which had been so conveyed. The conveyance operated; and, until some step was taken by the crown, the land was in the corporation. When the crown took that step, it became vested in the crown; the crown then having the right of seizing the land, it was considered that the crown had the right to waive the claim to seize, or, in other words, to grant a licence to the corporation to hold the land; so that, during the whole of this period, it was the practice that, if any land was conveyed to a corporation, the corporation might hold it in mortmain, if they could get a licence from the crown." purposes, although the practice, as is found by the cases cited, had long been prevalent of giving land to be so held in trust; and this, indeed, was the common mode in which chantries,* or endowments for masses for the dead, were ordinarily established, as those cases amply illustrate. The Reformation commenced with spoliation, and the statutes of suppression were aimed equally at the "chantries" and the religious houses. In the reign of Henry VIII, passed the first act of "chantries",† which recited : "That there have been divers chapels, chantries, hospitals, fraternities, brotherhoods, guilds, and stipendiary priests, having perpetuity for ever, which by licence, &c. have been incorporated, founded, established, and made by divers names and corporations to have a perpetual continuance for ever." And enacted, "That all chapels, chantries, &c., and all the lands, &c., appertaining or assigned to such chantries, &c. or stipendiary priests, be adjudged and deemed in the possession of the king." And in the reign of Edward VI, passed another act of chantries, by which it was enacted :— "That all chapels and chantries in esse, and all lands, tenements, rents, and other hereditaments and things, limited, appointed, or assigned,§ to the finding of any priest to have continuance for ever, whereby any priest was *Shakespeare represents Henry V speaking thus of the foundations of the Carthusian monasteries of Bethlehem and Sion, which he had founded for the fault of his father in usurping the crown:— "Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay, Who twice a day their withered hands hold up It will be observed, the penitence of the king is represented by the poet as proved by gifts in his lifetime, and not at his death. The modern notion of Catholic piety, that it delights in death-bed charity, had not been invented at that time; or the recollections of Catholicity were too recent to permit so mendacious a misrepresentation the least chance of credit. +37 Henry VIII, c. 4, A.D. 1545. § That is, in trust 1 Edward VI, c. 1547. sustained or found, &c., and all rents or profits paid or employed towards the finding or support of any stipendiary priest intended by any act or writing to have continuance for ever, shall be adjudged and deemed the possession of the king. And that where any lands, &c. have been given for the maintenance or finding of a priest for term of years yet continuing, and any priest hath been maintained and found within the same or with the revenues thereof, the king shall have and enjoy the same, &c.* And that the king shall have all lands, &c. at any time heretofore given, to be employed wholly to the finding or maintenance of any anniversary or obit, or such other like intent or purpose, or of any light or lamp in any church or chapel to have continuance * These statutes gave the crown power to establish other charities, not superstitious: but, says Eden, the rapacity of the courtiers rendered this impracticable, And indeed there was little chance of much being done in this way, when even hospitals or alms-houses, for the suppression of which even the sacrilegious rapacity of the reformers could devise no decent pretext, have hardly fared better than if they had been comprised in the shameless decrees of spoliation. How Catholic charities have fared in modern times, may be illustrated by a case reported so recently as 1849. In the twelfth century a charity was founded, called "the Master, Brethren and Sisters of the Hospital of St. John the Baptist". In the time of Charles II the mastership and lands were granted to the corporation of Chester, who assumed the title of "Masters of -the Hospital". And an information having been filed against the corporation, to ascertain the lands, and have a scheme for the management of the charity, the court made a decree; some years after which, the corporation took a technical objection as to the hospital being a corporate body, which, however, the court disregarded, adhering to the former decision. (Att. Gen. x. Corp. of Chester, 1 Hall and T. 46.) In another case, charity lands granted in the reign of Henry VIII, and now worth £7,000 a-year, only produced to the charity £1,200! (Att. Gen. v. Wyggerston Hospital, 12 Beavan's Reports, 113.) In another case, it appeared that in 1699, property of a charity was leased by the trustees for a thousand years, at £8 a-year! The case was last year set aside as "improvident", the Court of Chancery phrase for such transactions on the part of trustees. (Att. v. Pilgrim, 14 Jurist, 1053.) A singular case recently occurred in relation to this act. Some chantry lands were incorporated by the crown, and granted to Morpeth School. In 1685, a lease for five hundred years was granted to the Thornton family. In 1710, an information was filed to recover them for the charity; and a commission was issued to ascertain the identity of the lands, which the commissioners reported was impossible; and a compromise ensued, one condition of which was the obtaining of an act of parliament confirming it, which had never been obtained. An information was filed in 1833, to carry on the proceedings commenced in 1710, the conditions of the compromise not having been performed. And the vice-chancellor held it sustainable, and directed an inquiry to ascertain the ancient chantry lands confiscated by Edward VI. (Att. Gen. v. Trevelyan, 16 Law for Cha. 521.) for ever, and all monies given to have continuance for ever, and employed by any corporation to the finding or support of any priest or any anniversary or obit, &c. And that the commissioners under the act shall have authority to assign lands of such chantries, &c. to continue in succession for a preacher or schoolmaster for ever; or to such stipendiary priests as they shall think necessary; or to make assignments of moneys to be paid to poor people for ever." It is conceived that these acts conclusively shew that there was previously no law against land being vested in persons in an individual and unincorporate capacity, in trust of perpetualty for religious purposes, although the land thus became unalienable. For if this were so, the chantry acts would have been useless, and chantries were common after the mortmain law had been established, as already has been seen. It appears plainly therefore, that the policy of the mortmain acts was not at all to prevent such vesting of lands in trusts in perpetuity, for they apply only to peculiar Catholic trusts, and expressly authorize the continuance of lands on other trusts in succession for ever. The paltry pretence about the lands so vested being inalienable, had not yet occurred even to the rapacious ingenuity of the spoliators and suppressors of religious houses; and their pretence was "superstition". This is remarkably illustrated in the "leading case" on the subject; which is extremely interesting as shewing what the law really allowed of, before the statutes of superstitious uses, not only under the law of mortmain, but before the statute of wills. In that case, decided in 1602, in the reign of Elizabeth, it appears from the record :-* "That on the 5th June, 1431, in the 9th year of King Henry VI, one J. Barton was seised of certain lands, &c. and enfeoffed W. Brampton to hold to him and his heirs to the use of the said J. Barton and his heirs. That on the same day J. Barton made his will in this manner :-'I give and bequeath my soul to God and my Omnipotent Creator and Saviour, and to the Blessed Mary, the Virgin his Mother, and to all the saints; and my body to be buried in the church of the Blessed Peter the apostle, &c. and I bequeath to John Barton, the younger, my brother, all my tenements for life, on the conditions that he during his life find a chaplain to celebrate (mass) for my soul, and the souls of my father, mother, brother, sisters, and benefactors, and friends, and of all the faithful deceased, at the altar of St. James in the aforesaid church; and that my brother John, yearly during his life, pay the * Adams and Lambert's case, Coke's Reports, part iv. |