Æthelstan, Wulfstan and a revised history of tithes in England

The law‐text known as I Æthelstan is commonly accepted as the earliest evidence of a legal obligation to pay tithes in England. As it turns out, it might not be. The extant Old English version of I Æthelstan does indeed legislate for tithe payments. However, this version is an eleventh‐century revision of the original text, probably penned by Archbishop Wulfstan of York (d. 1023). As I will argue in this article, the original version, which survives only as contained in a twelfth‐century translation into Latin, appears to be a call for a one‐off charitable alms payment.

long been acknowledged that the language of the Old English I AEthelstan does not date entirely from AEthelstan's reign.
As we shall see, the changes made to I AEthelstan are more extensive than this and have significant implications for our reading of the law. 6 In fact, the revisions and interpolations changed the legal substance of the text: the original version (as reflected by the Quadripartitus Latin) calls for a one-off charitable alms payment, while the rewritten version (the extant Old English) imposes a general legal obligation to pay tithes. This observation is important, because the extant Old English text has long been seen as the first secure evidence that tithes were a fixed and ongoing legal obligation in England as early as AEthelstan's reign. 7 That is a natural conclusion to draw based on the Old English text itself: it contains a command to pay tithes (I As prol., 1), biblical and patristic quotations on the topic (I As 2-3), a command to pay other church dues (I As 4), a reminder of why tithes and other taxes are to be paid (I As 5) and a penalty clause fining those who fail to pay (I As 5). However, as we shall see in this article, the Latin version differs in multiple ways throughout the text, including in being devoid of penalties, in its biblical and patristic framing, and in some of its legal details. All in all, the original as contained in the Latin translation seems to call for a one-off charitable donation of a tenth of everyone's produce, not legally mandated tithes. While it is worth bearing in mind that AEthelstan could have issued two separate versions, and that the Quadripartitus translator (henceforth 'Q') was working from one and that the other later made its way into Wulfstan's manuscripts, the case set out below might convince readers that this scenario is not likely.
The current scholarly impression that I AEthelstan imposed a general obligation to pay tithes could be due to the fact that both extant versions use the term 'tithes' (teoðunga/decimae). However, as I will shortly demonstrate, this term does not have to refer to the mandatory tax of 10 per cent of produce and earnings payable to the church by all Christians and enforced by secular authorities. Nevertheless, for the 6 Despite observing several of the differences discussed in this article, Wormald's ultimate conclusion was that the extant Old English text could be taken 'at near its face value': Wormald, MEL, p. 302. As the following footnote shows, Wormald maintained the view that I AEthelstan represented the earliest English royal legislation to impose tithes, which can only mean that he trusted the content of the extant Old English version. sake of clarity, I will use two different terms in this discussion, namely 'tithes' and 'alms'. I use tithe(s) to refer to the payment reflected in the extant Old English text, that is a payment which is part of the system of enforceable taxation just described. 8 I argue that the Quadripartitus version calls for an eleemosynary tithe, but I will refer to this as alms. While a word denoting alms does not appear in either text, the choice is justified by the fact that the payment in the original seems unlikely to be annual or ongoing; that there are no provisions for its enforcement nor penalties for non-fulfilment; and that, as we shall see, the biblical and exegetical framing of this payment draws on a late antique and early medieval tradition associated with charity and almsgiving. None of this is to say that payments conceived of as eleemosynary could not become fixed and regularizedsuch as was the case with Peter's Pence in the tenth centurybut this choice of terms allows me to distinguish between a one-off donation and an ongoing legal obligation. 9

Early medieval tithes
To understand how a call for alms could be transformed into an obligation to pay tithes, we first need to look at the development of tithe payments. In fact, decimae ('tithes') and elemosinae ('alms') started their early medieval lives together. There is Old Testament precedent for a payment of a tenth of first-fruits and animals, but these prescriptions were in various ways set aside in late antique and early medieval Christian practice and writings. 10 Yet, the Old Testament terminology was partly kept. Augustine and others used the term decimae with reference to the Old Testament as a suggested minimum amount for voluntary alms. 11 Several other writers used the Old Testament verses on tithes as a way to promote almsgiving. 12 Yet the payments called for by these authors were not the fixed tithes known from later centuries. Authors emphasized that alms should be given out of love for God and one's neighbour and that this love should guide the amount donated. 13 The obligation to pay a fixed tariff as decimae ('tithes') appeared in the sixth century. This development took place in Gaul, where Bishop Caesarius of Arles seems to have been the first to draw an explicit distinction between decimae and elemosina. 14 Caesarius presented tithes as a fixed tariff and maintained that alms were to be given out of a sense of charity and love from the possessions remaining after tithes had been paid. 15 This view seems to have become established on the Continent in the following centuries. It is found in the regulations of the church councils of Tours (567) and Macon (585), while Charlemagne's Capitulary of Herstal (779) was the first piece of secular legislation to prescribe Caesarian tithing. 16 Later centuries saw writers and churchmen such as Hincmar of Rheims and Ghaerbald of Liège embrace the legally mandated tithe. 17 The situation across the Channel is less clear. A small handful of eighth-century texts mention tithes, some of which might indicate systematic payments. However, these are by no means straightforward evidence, as Wormald showed. 18 Among these texts are the acts of a 786 church council held in Mercia and Northumbria, which call for tithes, but this text is notoriously problematic as evidence for English practices. 19 That is partly because these decrees were the result of a papal envoy attempting to bring the English church into line with Roman practices. 20 Its tithing impositions may thus reflect these aspirations rather than reality. 21 Both Wormald and John Blair have taken the silence about tithes in sources dating to the two and a half centuries after 786 to mean that these decrees were, in Blair's word, 'a dead letter in England' on this point. 22 The earliest evidence for a royal call for tithes in Englandif we put I AEthelstan to the side for the momentis in a decree of King Edmund's from the 940s, which states that 'Teoðunge we bebeodað aelcum Cristene men be his Cristendome' ('Tithes we command for all Christians according to his Christianity'); non-payment was penalized with excommunication. 23 A fuller treatment of tithes in royal legislation appears in II-III Edgar, issued in the 960s or 970s. This decree contains a command to pay tithes, the dates on which the payment is due and the earliest provisions for a secular penalty (a fine); it also contains detailed instructions for how law enforcement should go about exacting this fine. 24 The documentary record seems to support the impression created by Edmund's and Edgar's laws, namely that tithes had become a legal obligation around the middle of the tenth century: the first mention of the payment of tithes in a document can be dated to 955. 25 As Wormald's study of taxation showed, this is in contrast to other church payments, for instance cyricsceatt ('church-scot'), which appears frequently in the charters of earlier centuries after its first mention in Ine's laws in the seventh century. 26 This situation is reflected in the literary evidence too. For instance, Bede's Historia ecclesiastica contains a mention of decimae, but only as an illustration of a bishop's exceptional piety, and a tenth-century homily from the 21 The Englishman Alcuin may be the author of the decrees, possibly strengthening the case in favour of seeing the text as reflecting English realities. Blickling collectionwhich we shall come across again laterrefers to tithes and alms interchangeably. 27 This history tells us two things. One is that the use of decima(e) or teoðung(a) does not necessarily refer to something like the later medieval system of legally imposed tithes. It was also used within the context of voluntary and charitable payments, both in England and on the Continent. Secondly, the system of legally fixed tithes was a relatively late development, whichdespite its Old Testament precedentgrew out of the practice of almsgiving. Based on surviving evidence, it could seem that the regularization of tithe payments may have happened in fits and starts in England, with the eighth century representing a start, false or otherwise. As we shall see in the conclusion, several other English church dues were being paid in the centuries when continental churches relied on tithes for their income; the English church may not have felt the same need for this new imposition. By the mid-tenth century, it nevertheless seems that there was a (royal) effort to exact tithes in England.
The upshot is that there are two possible scenarios in which we could place the suggested original version of I AEthelstan. One is that the system of annual and enforced tithe payments was not yet in place in England and that I AEthelstan represents an early stage in the development of the regular payment through a call for a one-off payment of 'tithes' of produce. The other is that the system of annual and enforced tithe payments was in place, and that I AEthelstan was calling for an additional charitable payment. I will return to these possibilities in the conclusion, but in either case, as we shall now see, I AEthelstan itself cannot be taken as evidence for the existence of a system of mandatory tithes in England in the early tenth century.

The two extant versions
We must distinguish between three different versions of I AEthelstan: the tenth-century original issued by AEthelstan, the eleventh-century Old English text, and the twelfth-century Latin translation. Only the later two are still extant. 28 Their texts are set out in Table 1 below, which also shows their most significant divergences (marked in bold). The differences between the two extant texts can be divided into three groups: some are indications that Wulfstan was involved in making revisions (I As 2, 4); some may suggest that the Quadripartitus version reflects the original tenth-century text (I As 3); and some point in the direction that this original text concerned alms, not legally mandated tithes (I As 1, 2, 4, 5). I will start with the first group, revisiting the evidence set out by Wormald and others concerning the passages which show signs of Wulfstan interpolation. From there, I move on to remaining differences and their implications for our reading of the content of I AEthelstan.
Wulfstan's tampering is suggested also by other occurrences of typical Wulfstan language in the extant Old English text of I AEthelstan. This includes what Wormald identified as a possible Wulfstan interpolation in the phrase 'þolige þare are oððe eft to rihte gecirre' (I As 4), as the relevant senses of ar (namely 'benefice, endowment') and gecirran (namely 'turn to (what is right)') are only otherwise attested in Wulfstan's laws. 34 As we shall soon see, this entire penalty clause is absent from the Quadripartitus version. 35 Another trace of eleventh-century language -first pointed out by Whitelockis found in the phrase on Godes lage (I As 2), a phrase missing from Quadripartitus. 36 The Scandinavian loanword lagu ('law') eventually came to replace English equivalents, but it is widely recognized that its use to refer to 'God's law' in I AEthelstan is suspiciously early. 37 Other early attestations of the word are in reference to the laws of the Danes, and it is not until the reign of AEthelred that it is used more generally to refer to 'law'. 38 Moreover, lagu is overwhelmingly Wulfstan's preference for expressing 'law' and he appears to be the first writer to use lagu to refer to God's law as well as secular law. 39 In fact, as Malcolm Godden and others have pointed out, we know that Wulfstan changed other words for 'law' (such as ae) into lagu when he revised one of AElfric's pastoral letters, and the copy of this letter is actually contained in the same manuscript as one of the revised versions of I 34 Wormald, MEL, p. 302. The whole phrase can be translated as 'He who is not willing [to attend to his church] shall either forfeit his benefice or revert to a proper discharge of his duties.' Translation from Attenborough, The Laws, p. 125. 35 Wormald also noted the phrase's absence from the Latin (MEL, p. 302 n. 173). However, he did not note the fact that the entire penalty clauseof which this phrase is partis lacking and the implications of that. This is discussed further below. 36  AEthelstan. 40 These words lend circumstantial support to Wulfstan's proposed involvement, as does an addedand superfluoustriplet in the Old English text, which fits with Wulfstan's known predilection for unnecessary repetition. 41

Q's use of the original text
Thus, the extant Old English prose does not seem to date entirely from AEthelstan's reign. Yet, that does not preclude the possibility that most of the extant Old English represents the original text, which is perhaps why these known interpolations have not already led to a reassessment of the content of I AEthelstan. However, remaining divergences should sow serious doubts about the authenticity of the essence of the Old English version, i.e. its legal imposition of tithes. That will become clear in the following sections, but first, let us look at the reasons why the Quadripartitus version is more likely to reflect the original and why the textual differences between the two versions were probably not introduced by Q.
After the command to collect 'tithes', both surviving versions contain an exhortative message about the consequences of non-payment, stating that failure to pay tithes will result in the loss of nine parts (I As 3). This idea stems from a sermon by Caesarius of Arles, 'De reddendis decimis' (Sermo 33), which warns those who withhold tithes that they will be 'reverted to a tenth' and that nine parts will be taken away. 42 This sermon circulated widelyindeed, parts of it were translated in the Blickling homily mentioned above 43and the exhortation about the loss of nine parts was extracted and included in a number of texts (sometimes with attribution to Augustine), including in the 786 church council decrees, the Collectio Canonum Hibernensis and homilies. Both surviving versions of I AEthelstan state that they are quoting something 'written in books' (I As 3), which is usually taken to be a reference to Caesarius or a version of his work. However, neither Caesarius' sermon nor derived texts contain anything textually similar to the second half of the sentence as it appears in I AEthelstan in Old English. The full passage reads: Us is to ðencanne hu ondrislic hit on bocum gecweden is: Gif we þa teoðunga Gode gelaestan nellað, þaet he us benimað þara nigon daela þonne we laest wenað 7 eac we habbað þa synne to eacan. (I As 3) We should consider how terribly it is said in books: if we refuse to render the tithes to God, that he will take away the nine parts when we least expect it and we will also have increased our sin.
I have been unable to identify the part starting 'when we least' in any other surviving text. Wormald suggested that it was taken from the chapter on tithes found in some recensions of the Collectio Canonum Hibernensis, 45 in particular the version found in the manuscript Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 42. 46 There is indeed a passage on the loss of nine parts in this manuscript, but it is not particularly close in wording to the Old English I AEthelstan and nothing else implies that it is a likely source. 47 However, as we shall see in the conclusion, Hatton 42 and the Hibernensis may have influenced the revision of the text in the eleventh century.
It is not necessarily significant that there is no direct source for this passage in the Old English version; it could have come from memory or a source now lost. That said, it surely is significant that Quadripartitus gives a different version of the sentence and that this version might be traceable to an extant text. We also ought to bear in mind how terribly it is put in these books: if we do not wish to give a tithe, that nine parts are taken away from us and only a tenth is left behind.
The first part bears some resemblance to Caesarius' 'novem tibi partes retractae sunt, quia decimam dare noluisti'. 48 The second part does not follow Caesarius, but it is close to another text, known as 'De supremo iudicio' attributed to St Eligius of Noyon. It reads: 'Nolite fraudare decimam, ne vobis novem partes auferantur et sola decima remaneat.' 49 Admittedly, there are differences between the passage in Quadripartitus and the Eligius sermon, though this might be a consequence of the passage having been translated first from Latin into Old English (in the tenth century) and then from Old English into Latin (by Q).
This seventh-century text is an instruction in Christian laws and customs in the form of a sermon. 50 It is to a large degree based on other sources, with its tithing chapter being mostly drawn from Caesarius' 'De reddendis'. 51 While no copy is known from AEthelstan's day, it is possible that parts existed in florilegia or canonical compilations. That is indicated by its first known appearance in an English manuscript in the twelfth century: a few of its chapters appear in Cambridge the notion that chapters of such texts circulated independently. 53 Perhaps 'De Supremo' (or a text like it) circulated more widely in parts, which may still exist among unidentified Latin canonical writings. Indeed, the chapters in the St John's manuscript were only identified in the 1990s and are not listed with the correct attribution in the manuscript catalogue nor among the witnesses to the text in its edition. 54 While it is near impossible to prove that Eligius' sermon was used, it is entirely possible that extracts from such a texteither now lost or still tucked away in some manuscriptwere known to the writers of I AEthelstan.
These two observationsnamely that the Old English version of the quotation is otherwise unknown, while the Quadripartitus version closely resembles a Caesarius-based textallow us to speculate about which version came first. This is possible based on what we know about Quadripartitus, namely that all translations appear to be the work of one individual and that this individual rarely strayed far from his sources. 55 Occasionally, Q made mistakes, perhaps because English was not his native language, and, as several studies have shown, he grappled with vernacular (legal) terms. 56 However, in general, he did not add or remove material to any significant extent, nor change its substance. 57 It seems unlikely, therefore, that the surviving Old English version of the quotation about the loss of nine-tenths is the original, because then we would have to suggest that Q departed from his usual adherence to the source text (for reasons that are difficult to explain), and that he, by chance, brought the quotation closer to an extant Caesarius-based text. A more plausible scenario could be that the original Old English version of I AEthelstan contained a quotation similar to the one in the Eligius sermon. As was his habit, Q translated this as he found it. Between the text's composition in the tenth century and Q working in the twelfth, our eleventh-century rewriter made alterations to the quotation as part of his revision of the whole text. If we accept that the revisions were Wulfstan's work, these alterations would make perfect sense given the archbishop's known habit of tweaking, changing and revising his own and others' texts. 58

Penalties
This far we have seen that Wulfstan is likely to have been the rewriter and that the extant Latin version is likely to reflect the original. We can then make more sense of remaining differences. As will be clear from this section and the next, the Old English version deviates from the Latin in two legal detailspenalties and payment dateboth of which suggest that the original did not impose tithes as an ongoing legal obligation.
Beyond the divine anger implied by Caesarius' admonition, there are no penalty clauses in the Quadripartitus version. In contrast, the Old English version of I AEthelstan contains two: it penalizes failure to collect the additional church payments (I As 4) and it penalizes non-payment of tithes (I As 5). The passage concerning tithes states that non-payment is punished by oferhyrness, literally 'disobedience'. The roughly twenty occurrences of oferhyrness in the corpus of surviving Old Englishall in legal textsindicate that the primary use of this term is to denote 'the fine incurred by disobedience'. 59 This is also the case in its first occurrence in the Old English I AEthelstan, which reads: 'Nu ge gehirað, cwaeð se cyngc, hwaes ic Gode ann 7 hwaet ge gelaestan sculon be mynre oferhyrnesse' ('Now you hear, says the king, what I want for God and what you should render on pain of [the fine for] my disobedience', I As 5). The preposition be here expresses the sense 'on pain of ', so the Old English is clearly stating that failure to pay will incur the heavy fine of 120 shillings payable to the king. 60 This is not the case in the Quadripartitus version, which God and what you ought to fulfil', I As 5) and makes no mention of disobedience, a fine or any other penalty for non-payment. Oferhyrness is mentioned again at the end of the same passage in the Old English, though not with a punitive sense. 61 The second punishment clause is for failure to collect the other church payments (cyricsceatta, sulhaelmessa and sawlsceatta). The Old English reads 'Se þe þonne nelle, þolige þare are oððe eft to rihte gecirre' ('He who is not willing [to attend to his church] shall either forfeit his benefice or revert to a proper discharge of his duties', I As 4), 62 and as mentioned above, contains Wulfstanesque words. Nothing comparable is found in Quadripartitus.

Payment date
In Quadripartitus, 'tithes' are to be paid 'ad terminum . . . quem eis ponimus, id est Decollatio sancti lohannis baptiste' ('at the date . . . which we have set for them, that is the Beheading of St John the Baptist', I As prol.). The feast of the beheading (29 August) is nowhere mentioned in the Old English, which only specifies payment 'to ðam rihtan andagan' ('on the appointed day'). Late August is indeed a strange time for tithe payments. It is too late for tithes of animals and too early for tithes of most crops, and would only be a reasonable time for some fruits. I have found no indication that 29 August had any association with tithe payments elsewhere. In later centuries in England, tithes of animals were due by Pentecost and tithes of crops by the autumn equinox or by the Feast of All Saints (1 November). 63 However, if the original version of I AEthelstan was not legislating for an ongoing annual payment of tithes, this date is unproblematic, as it 61 The punitive sense of oferhyrness is usually conveyed through verb collocation. In occurrences with a clear punitive sense, oferhyrness occurs with betan ('to compensate, pay'), gesellan ('to give, pay'), gyldan ('to pay') and beon scyldig ('be liable for'), as well as with be ('on pain of ').
There is no such indication that oferhyrness is referring to a fine in its second occurrence in I As 5, where the sense seems to be more general 'disobedience'. This is also the case in one other occurrence of oferhyrness in the legal corpus (IV Eg 1). In fact, this is supported by Q's translation of oferhyrness in its second occurrence in I would refer to anything that had been produced up to that date in a specific year. 64

Biblical and patristic framing
Both versions of I AEthelstan back up the message to pay 'tithes' with two biblical quotations (I As 2). Both Quadripartitus and the Old English start with the same quotation, namely an altered and abbreviated version of Genesis XXVIII.22, where Jacob says 'Decimas et hostias pacificas offeram tibi'. Hostias pacificas is an addition to the Vulgate, and this version of the verse is rare before AEthelstan's time. 65 In fact, the verse is rarely cited in general, including in literature on tithes and alms. 66 In contrast, the next verse cited by the Old English version is standard in writings on tithes. This passage quotes Moses on Godes lage: 'Decimas et primitias tuas non tardabis offerre Domino' (I As 2). This is the first part of Exodus XXII.29, which is one of the handful of direct commands for tithe payments in the Old Testament. In early medieval texts, the quotation is found in the context of tithes, for example in the Hibernensis version discussed above, the 786 council report, the Council of Arles (813) and Pirmin's Scarapsus. 67 In fact, Exodus XXII.29 is also found at the head of the chapter on tithes in Wulfstan's own collection of canon law. 68 What is more, the variant reading of Exodus XXII.29 given in the Old English I AEthelstan is rare, but it does appear in the first line of the tithing chapter in the Hibernensis version contained in one of the manuscripts owned, used, cited and annotated by Wulfstan, Hatton 42. 69 Thus, this verse was both standard within literature on tithing and familiar to Wulfstan.
In the Quadripartitus, the Genesis quotation is followed by Matthew XXV.29: 'Omni habenti dabitur et abundabit' ('To everyone who has, shall be given and he shall abound'). This chapter of Matthew contains the story of the virgins and the lamps and the parable of the talents, after which this verse appears. Unlike Exodus XXII.29, this verse is not to my knowledge used elsewhere in the context of tithes; Matthew was usually only drawn on for its implicit criticism of Old Testament tithing (Matt. XXIII.23). Matthew XXV.29 is, however, used in the context of charity, for instance by Defensor, Paschatius Radbertus, Hrabanus Maurus and Gregory the Great 70 in works which appear to have been known in Anglo-Saxon England. 71 Indeed, Matthew XXV.29 is used to emphasize the king's charitable generosity in a charteralbeit possibly spuriouswhich records a grant of land from AEthelstan to an abbot. 72 In fact, the whole of Chapter 25 of Matthew was widely used to admonish charity and the giving of alms in the early Middle Ages, 73 and in particular, it was associated with charity that led to heavenly reward. 74 This theme appears in I AEthelstan too. The idea is expressed in a sentence in Quadripartitus which is completely lacking from the Old English: 'Hortatur nos sermo divinus eterna cum terrenis celestia cum caducis promereri' ('Divine teaching urges us to earn eternal things with earthly, heavenly with transitory'; I As 4.1). As Wormald and others have pointed out, this closely resembles the proems of several of AEthelstan's royal diplomas, and, in fact, variations of the idea appear in charters from the entire Anglo-Saxon period. 75 The basic idea and phrasing stems from the earliest Christian period, and at some point it migrated to the context of Matthew's gospel. 76 For example, a Caesarius sermon on almsgiving used the parable of the virgins and lamps to state that 'enim accipit terrena, ut reddat caelestia, accipit caduca, repensaturus aeterna' ('for he accepts earthly things to give heavenly, he accepts transitory things, and he will give eternal in return'). 77 The theme appears with crystal clear connection to Matthew in the Liber questionum evangeliis, an eighth-century Irish commentary on that gospel. Its comment on Matthew XIX.21 reads: 'Uendidisti terrena et caduca; possidebis caelestia et aeterna' ('You have sold earthly and transitory things; you will possess heavenly and eternal things'). 78 The Liber questionum was known and used in Anglo-Saxon England, and its potential influence on Anglo-Saxon thought might be indicated by two charters, which place Matthew XIX.21 next to the theme of eternal rewards. 79 It might not be a coincidence that I AEthelstan put this reminder of heavenly rewards near a quotation from Matthew, whether through inspiration from a written source like the Liber questionum or because the connection had more widespread circulation.
The idea that generosity and charity led to redemption has clear relevance for royal grants: kings could dispose of their dangerous worldly wealth to gain salvation. A few royal diplomas even refer to such land grants as elemosina ('alms'). 80 Other Anglo-Saxon sources, including homilies, testify to a belief that almsgiving led to heavenly rewards. 81 There are no surviving textual expressions of a belief in the redemptive powers of tithes. Thus, that I AEthelstan uses this language to talk about a donation of 'tithes' is another indication that the original text was calling for an eleemosynary payment of 'tenths' of produce, rather than tithes as we know them from later times.

Conclusion
As Wormald and others noted, changes were clearly made to the text of I AEthelstan after it was issued in the early tenth century. But we can only see how substantial this transformation was if we consider not just Wulfstan's additions but also the wider implications of the changes made to the biblical framing and legal details. By removing the Matthew verse, the idea of a heavenly reward and the payment date, and inserting the standard tithing verse from Exodus XXII.29 and penalties, the eleventh-century reviser shifted the focus from voluntary charity to legal obligation.
There is circumstantial support for this theory too. The reason Q did not incorporate any of the eleventh-century rewritten material can be explained by the fact that he did not have access to (or, at any rate, did not use) any of Wulfstan's manuscripts. 82 Furthermore, given that there is a handful of laws which have only survived in their Quadripartitus versions, it is not unreasonable to think that the original underlying Q's translation could be lost. 83 In fact, one of the texts only surviving in Quadripartitus is I AEthelstan's companion piece. 84 Finally, as we saw above, Q did not have a habit of making substantive changes when he translated the laws. All in all, it is thus plausible that Q never knew the revised version, that Q did not introduce the differences into his text, and that the original is now lost.
The payment in the now-lost original could have been a precursor to regular mandatory tithe payments or a call for a separate payment in addition to regular tithes. On the whole, the first alternative seems more likely, given that the texts call for a payment of crops and animals. It would be strange if the king should demand an extra payment of a tenth of produce on top of a regular payment of a tenth of produce. If the payment in the original I AEthelstan represents an early stage of the later system, it would form a parallel to the development of the Peter's Pence, which also started out as an irregular voluntary payment before becoming regularized as an ongoing obligation. 85 This scenario makes sense in the context of the early English church. As Eric Shuler argued, the active promotion of mandatory tithes in Gaul and thus the theological and practical separation from almswas due to the church's need for regular income. 86 This need may not have been felt as strongly in early Anglo-Saxon England, given that there were other mandatory annual payments to the church, such as the church-scot, seemingly collected from the seventh century onwards. 87 Indeed, as Blair has argued, when tithes were introduced in England they would have come in addition to an existing 'web of custom' encompassing several payments due to the church, not least the church-scot, whichin Blair's viewformed an English parallel to continental tithes in the eighth and ninth centuries. 88  context could also account for a potentially gradual introduction of tithes: the imposition may have been difficult to exact given that tithes would have been an additionaland heavierburden. 89 The original version of I AEthelstan may then represent a stand-alone act of piety, and these have precedent in Anglo-Saxon England. In the mid-ninth century, King AEthelwulf of Wessex made a grant of a tenth of all land. 90 Some of the charters attesting to this grant, the so-called decimation charters, state that the king's motivation was to earn eternal blessings and ensure the prosperity of his kingdom. 91 Some extant sources connect the grant to AEthelwulf 's pilgrimage to Rome in 855, which could be further indication of his spiritual motivation. 92 The choice of a tenth of land may not have been a coincidence for such an act of pious charity. The same could go for AEthelstan.
Another context is suggested by a later event. In the early eleventh century, a viking attack drove King AEthelred to issue a decree (penned by Wulfstan) instituting a three-day programme of penance, which included almsgiving, fasting and more. 93 No equivalent to such an attack is known from AEthelstan's reign, though there were periods of turmoil. 94 Another decree of AEthelstan's (V AEthelstan) reveals that the king was displeased with the state of justice and peace in the kingdom. This text implements extraordinary measures such as a temporary amnesty for thieves, forcible removal of wrongdoers from their districts, and the singing of psalms for the king. 95 This suggests that AEthelstan was inclined to issue (in writing) time-limited injunctions as remedies for general unrest. This is supported by charter evidence. Some of AEthelstan's charters from the winter of 932-3 call for the singing of psalms for the king, and in the same period the king demanded that alms be given to the poor as a condition for two land grants. 96 Simon Keynes suggested that there was a particular effort to gain divine favour at this time, and such a period of propitiation could be where AEthelstan's call for a 'tithe' belongs. 97 The practicalities of the payment are obscure. Only the Quadripartitus specifies the recipient, namely God. 98 The actual collection may have taken place at church, where people could be expected to be on a feast day such as the Decollatio. 99 In fact, there is some indication that this call was heeded. The text known as III AEthelstan, which survives only in Quadripartitus, is a decree issued by the bishops, thanes, nobles and commoners of Kent in response to several of AEthelstan's acts of legislation. Its first clause reads: Et hoc incepimus . . . primum est de decima nostra, ad quod multum cupidi sumus et voluntarii, et tibi suppliciter gratias reddimus admonitionis tue. (III As 1-1.1) And this we have undertaken, . . . firstly concerning our tithes, which we are very eager and willing [to give] and we thank you humbly for your admonition.
It is tempting to connect the use of voluntarius ('willing') and admonitio ('admonition') to the theory set out above, though it is perhaps a temptation best resisted given that the original wording is unknown. 100 In any case, there is nothing in this description that would go against the idea that AEthelstan had requested an isolated payment.
as a replacement ofother dues. 102 This lends further support to the idea that regular tithes were not a long-established practice in Wulfstan's day.
Wulfstan's interest in tithes extended to tithing provisions in royal law of the past. While the manuscripts associated with Wulfstan are full of ecclesiastical texts and laws, they contain only four pieces of Anglo-Saxon royal legislation not written by Wulfstan himselfthe only four in the corpus that mention tithes. 103 One of these is the decree IV Edgar, which Wulfstan not only copied, but also, rather unusually, translated into Latin. 104 This text offers one of the longest musings on tithes in Anglo-Saxon law, and it states that it was issued to remedy a faercwealm ('a sudden plague'), caused by people withholding nedegafol ('necessary taxes') owed to God. 105 This must have resonated with Wulfstan who, as we just saw, considered church payments as vital to peace and prosperity.
Wulfstan's belief in the efficacy of church taxation might thus explain his interest in I AEthelstan, but it does not fully account for his changes. The manuscript context may offer some clues, especially that of British Library, Cotton Nero A.i(B). I AEthelstan is found in the first section of this manuscript, where it is followed by I Edmund, II-III Edgar and some of Wulfstan's own laws for AEthelred. 106 Preceding I AEthelstan are Wulfstan's writing on the duties of different ranks of society and two homilies on Christian living. 107 There is a focus on biblical law, which the minster should go to him and take without his consent the tenth part to the minster to which it belongs and take the ninth part for him and divide the eight parts in two and the landlord gets half and the bishop half, be it the king's man or a thegn's. (II Eg 3.1) Originally, Caesarius' warning referred to loss of nine parts through bad harvests and foul weather, a punishment from God. Edgar's more quotidian version of this sanction was repeated by Wulfstan in the laws he wrote for AEthelred and Cnut. To Wulfstan, then, I AEthelstan may have provided both the theological explanation and legal precedent for his own laws on tithes. The only problem was that the text as he found it needed some slight adjustments to look more like a proper law.
Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge