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1.1 Historical Developments Leading up to the Present Financial Situation
In the early years of the sixteenth century, the Reformation in England taking form round the person of King Henry VIII led to the establishment of what is now known as the Church of England and to the appropriation by the Crown both of the various payments ('tithes' and 'annuates') which formerly went to Rome, and of various assets formerly held by religious beneficiaries. Whilst some of the proceeds therefrom were used for ecclesiastical purposes, the greater bulk were applied to Henry's more pressing regal needs and the effect on the clergy was traumatic. So much so that in 1704 Henry's descendant Queen Anne restored to the Church a substantial proportion of the capital value formerly expropriated with the injunction that the proceeds therefrom were to be applied "for the benefit of the poorer clergy"(B25). Thus was founded a fund that was to become popularly known as 'Queen Anne's Bounty' and to continue in existence for over two and a half centuries. During the course of these centuries the Church of England evolved an administrative structure based on the existing small local units ('parishes') and larger regional units ('dioceses'), thus tending away from the concentration of religious life and thought in monastic and cathedral units. The parish evolved as, and remains, the principal legal unit of the whole Church organisation, partly because in many cases a parish church was established and maintained by a local patron (C1) who
by so doing was able both to satisfy the religious needs of his own community and to provide a channel for the exercise in that community of his own influence. Many such patrons supported their parish church materially not only during their own lifetime but also by making testamentary bequests. These bequests took many forms (B4) but for
the purposes of this study we can conveniently regard them as each |
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