First Fruits and Tenths

First Fruits and Tenths was a form of tax

Tax

To tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law. Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities...

 on clergy

Clergy

Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....

 taking up a benefice

Benefice

A benefice is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The term is now almost obsolete.-Church of England:...

 or ecclesiastical position in Great Britain. The Court of First Fruits and Tenths was established in 1540 to collect from clerical benefices certain monies that had previously been sent to Rome. Clergy had to pay a portion of their first year's income (known as annates) and a tenth of their revenue annually thereafter. Originally, the money was paid to the papacy, but Henry VIII

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

's 1534 statute diverted the money to the English Crown as part of his campaign to pressure the Pope into granting him an annulment of his marriage with Catherine of Aragon

Catherine of Aragon

Catherine of Aragon , also known as Katherine or Katharine, was Queen consort of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII of England and Princess of Wales as the wife to Arthur, Prince of Wales...

. The 1534 Act of Conditional Restraint of Annates allowed taxes on first fruits and tenths (of benefice’s income) to be transferred from the Pope to the King. Thomas Cromwell set up a special financial administration for these revenues and they later passed under the control of the Exchequer

Exchequer

The Exchequer is a government department of the United Kingdom responsible for the management and collection of taxation and other government revenues. The historical Exchequer developed judicial roles...

. During the 18th century, these payments formed the basis of Queen Anne's Bounty.

Substance and procedure

First-fruits (annates

Annates

Annates were the whole of the first year's profits of a benefice which were generally given to the papal treasury. They were also known as the "First Fruits" , a concept which dates back to earlier Greek, Roman, and Hebrew religions.-History:This custom was only of gradual growth...

) and tenths (decimae) originally formed part of the revenue paid by the clergy to the papal exchequer. The former consist of the first whole year's profit of all spiritual preferments, the latter of one-tenth of their annual profits after the first year.

The proceedings of the court relate to a variety of aspects of the collection of these dues for the Crown and include, for example, accountings, sheriffs' returns to writs concerning livings and their incumbents and appearances and hearings in cases of first fruits.

The income derived from first-fruits and tenths was annexed to the revenue of the crown in 1534 (26 Hen. VIII. c. 3), and so continued until 1703. The Court of First Fruits and Tenths was subsequently subsumed into the Exchequer Office of First Fruits and Tenths in 1554.

Beginning in 1703, Queen Anne's Bounty

Queen Anne's Bounty

Queen Anne's Bounty was a fund established in 1704 to augment the incomes of the poorer clergy of the Church of England. The bounty was funded by the tax on the incomes of all Church of England clergy, which was paid to the Pope until the Reformation, and thereafter to the Crown.In 1890, the total...

 was the name applied to a perpetual fund of first-fruits and tenths granted by a charter of Queen Anne

Anne of Great Britain

Anne ascended the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702. On 1 May 1707, under the Act of Union, two of her realms, England and Scotland, were united as a single sovereign state, the Kingdom of Great Britain.Anne's Catholic father, James II and VII, was deposed during the...

 and confirmed by statute in 1703 (2 & 3 Anne, c. 11), for the augmentation of the livings of the poorer Anglican clergy. In accordance with the provisions of two acts of 1703 (5 & 6 Anne, c. 24, and 6 Anne, c. 27), about 3900 poor livings under the annual value of £50 were discharged from first-fruits and tenths.