[geeks] Socialized medicine [was Re: nVidia 8800GT for Apple Mac Pro]

[Mike Meredith]

On Tue, 27 May 2008 17:57:04 -0400, Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> Also, who was responsible for things like mandatory tithing in the UK?
> 
> Priests went out and executed people for not doing it, without the  
> government's knowledge or support?
> 
> Or did the government support this and enforce it with their soldiers?

I must admit I didn't know much about medieval tithing in England, so I
went and had a look.

Firstly tithes were paid direct to the parish vicar or rector rather
than to the civil government. Supposedly this was their means of
support in the community.

Secondly the tithing was "enforced" by ecclesiastical courts, so
officially wasn't enforced by the King's officials. An extract from a
book[0] makes it plain that the church's enforcement relied on
excommunication as a threat, which whilst probably very effective
during the early medieval era probably wasn't so effective (especially
amongst non-conformists) later.

Oddly there seems to be some indication that some tithes were owed to
"laity" after the dissolution of the monasteries. It's probable that
the enforcement of these tithes had to be done as a standard civil
claim for unpaid debts; whether the church used the same route or not I
don't know.

I suspect that at the lowest level, the community would have enforced
the payment of tithes except where a community was sufficiently annoyed
by the church to refuse to pay as a whole.


[0]:
	"A History of the English Parish: The Culture of Religion from
	 Augustine to ..." By Norman John Greville Pounds

	Looks pretty interesting too.

-- 
Mike Meredith (http://zonky.org/)
  'I find film very seductive ... like a woman my parents would not
like me to date. She's expensive, inconvenient, and you really can't
know you'll get what you want. But you'll be certain you'll want a
cigarette before the night is out.