Annates

Annates (/ˈæneɪts/ or /ˈænəts/; Latin: annatae, from annus, "year") were a payment from the recipient of an ecclesiastical benefice to the collating authorities. Eventually, they consisted of half or the whole of the first year's profits of a benefice; after the appropriation of the right of collation by the Roman see, they were paid to the papal treasury, ostensibly as a proffered contribution to the church. They were also known as the "first fruits" (primitiae), a religious offering which dates back to earlier Greek, Roman, and Hebrew religions.

History

This custom was of only gradual growth. At a very early period, bishops who received episcopal consecration in Rome were wont to present gifts to the various ecclesiastical authorities concerned. Out of this custom, there grew up a prescriptive right to such gifts.

The jus deportuum, annalia or annatae, was originally the right of the bishop to claim the first year's profits of the living from a newly inducted incumbent, of which the first mention is found under Pope Honorius III (d. 1227), but which had its origin in a custom, dating from the 6th century, by which those ordained to ecclesiastical offices paid a fee or tax to the ordaining bishop. Originally, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, annatæ or annalia, signified only the first-fruits of those lesser benefices of which the pope had reserved the patronage to himself, and granted outside of the consistory. It was from these claims that the papal annates, in the strict sense, in course of time developed. These accrued to the Apostolic Camera (Papal treasury).

The earliest records show the annata to have been, sometimes a privilege conceded to the bishop for a term of years, sometimes a right based on immemorial precedent. In course of time the popes, under stress of financial crises, claimed the privilege for themselves, though at first only temporarily. Thus, in 1305, Pope Clement V claimed the first-fruits of all vacant benefices in England, and in 1319 Pope John XXII those of all Christendom vacated within the next two years. In those cases the rights of the bishops were frankly usurped by the Holy See, now regarded as the ultimate source of the episcopal jurisdiction.

Classification

These annates may be divided broadly into four classes, though the chief features are common to all:

1. the servitia communia or servitia Camerae Papae: a payment by an abbot, bishop, or archbishop, due upon his induction, of the anticipated revenue of the next year in his new benefice. This payment is traceable to the oblatio paid to the pope when consecrating bishops as metropolitans or patriarchs. When, in the middle of the 13th century, the consecration of bishops became established as the sole right of the pope, the oblations of all bishops of the West were received by him; by the close of the 14th century, these became fixed at one year's revenue.
2. the jus deportuum, fructus medii temporis, or annalia: the annates due to the bishop or archbishop for benefices under his control but "reserved" by the church for the maintenance of the Papacy.
3. the quindennia: the annates of benefices attached to communities or corporations, which—under a 1469 bull of Paul II—were not paid at every presentation but instead offered every fifteen years.
4. the servitia minuta: a small additional payment eventually added to other annates as a kind of notarial fee.

National variation

It must not be supposed that this system ever was worked with absolute uniformity and completeness throughout the various parts of Catholic Christendom. There were continual disagreements and disputes: the central authorities endeavouring to maintain and extend this most important of their financial schemes, and the subordinate ecclesiastics doing their best to get rid of the impost altogether or to transmute it into some less objectionable form. The easy expedient of rewarding the officials of the Curia and increasing the papal revenue by "reserving" more and more benefices was met by repeated protests, such as that of the bishops and barons of England (the chief sufferers), headed by Robert Grosseteste of Lincoln, at the council of Lyons in 1245. The subject frequently became one of national interest, on account of the alarming amount of specie which was thus drained away, and hence numerous enactments exist in regard to it by the various national governments.

Britain

In the Kingdom of England, which included Wales after the English conquest of 1277 to 1283, the annates were originally paid for the most part to the archbishop of Canterbury, but were claimed for three years by John XXII in the early 14th century and permanently usurped by his successors. The payments were originally governed by a valuation made by Walter Suffield, the bishop of Norwich, for Innocent IV in 1254; this was emended by Nicholas III in 1292. In 1531 or 1532, the total payments comprised around £3,000 a year and Henry VIII prohibited their collection. In 1534, Thomas Cromwell obtained from parliament the Act in Restraint of Annates, which restored the annates as a payment owed to the Crown. A new valuation was established by the commissioners who wrote the King's Books (Liber Regis) in 1535. In February 1704, they were granted by Queen Anne to the assistance of the poorer clergy, a scheme since known as "Queen Anne's Bounty". The 1535 valuations were still in use in 1704, and their continued use was inherent in the Queen Anne's Bounty Act 1703 (2 & 3 Ann. c 20), the act of Parliament setting up Queen Anne's Bounty; consequently the 'first fruits' payments did not increase to reflect the true value of livings; by 1837, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners reported first fruits to bring in £4,000–5,000 a year whereas church income was around £3m a year and the true value of first fruits would therefore have been over £150,000 a year.

Ann Act 1672
Act of Parliament
Parliament of Scotland
Long title	Act for the Ann due to the Executors of Bishopes and Ministers.
Citation	1672 c. 24 [12mo ed: c. 13]
Dates
Royal assent	23 August 1672
Other legislation
Repealed by	Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000
Status: Repealed
Text of the Ann Act 1672 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk.

In Scotland, the annat or ann is defined by the Ann Act 1672 (c. 24) as half a year's stipend allowed to the executors of a minister of the Church of Scotland above what was due to him at the time of his death. This is neither assignable by the clergyman during his life nor can it be seized by his creditors.

France

In France, in spite of royal edicts and even denunciations of the Sorbonne, at least the custom of paying the servitia communia held its ground until the infamous decree of August 4 during the French Revolution in 1789.

Germany

In Germany, it was decided by the concordat of Constance, in 1418, that bishoprics and abbacies should pay the servitia according to the valuation of the Roman chancery in two half-yearly instalments. Those reserved benefices only were to pay the annalia which were rated above twenty-four gold florins; and as none were so rated, whatever their annual value may have been, the annalia fell into disuse. A similar convenient fiction also led to their practical abrogation in France, Spain and Belgium. The council of Basel (1431–1443) wished to abolish the servitia, but the concordat of Vienna (1448) confirmed the Constance decision. Politically, the collection was opposed by Martin Luther his 1520 To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, in which he wrote:

Every prince, nobleman and city should boldly forbid their subjects to pay the annates to Rome and should abolish them entirely; for the pope has broken the compact, and made the annates a robbery, to the injury and shame of the whole German nation. He gives them to his friends, sells them for large amounts of money, and uses them to endow offices. He has thus lost his right to them, and deserves punishment.

The practice of collecting servitia continued through the Reformation, in spite of the efforts of the congress of Ems (1786) to alter it, still remains nominally in force. As a matter of fact, however, the revolution caused by the secularization of the ecclesiastical states in 1803 practically put an end to the system, and the servitia have either been commuted via gratiae to a moderate fixed sum under particular concordats, or are the subject of separate negotiation with each bishop on his appointment. In Prussia, where the bishops received salaries as state officials, the payment was made by the government.

Poland

Annates were abolished in 1865 by Alexander II.

See also

• Index of Vatican City-related articles
• Kickback
• Papal States
• Secretariat for the Economy

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

The first fruits, or first year's revenue of an ecclesiastical benefice paid to the Papal Curia (in medieval times to bishops also). One result of the centralizing of ecclesiastical administration in the Roman Curia during the course of the thirteenth century was that ecclesiastical benefices became more and more generally "collated," i.e. granted, directly by the Pope. This was so, not only in the case of bishoprics and monasteries, vacancies which were filled by Rome either by direct appointment or by papal confirmation, but also in the case of smaller church livings (canonicates, parishes, etc.). On such occasions the papal treasury received from the new incumbent a certain tax derived from the income of the living. Since the fifteenth century this tax has been generally known as Annates, a term comprehending all money taxes paid into the Apostolic Camera (papal treasury) on the occasion of the collation of any ecclesiastical benefice by the Pope. Under this term were included four classes of payments: (1) the servitia communia, payable on the granting of bishoprics or monasteries, appointments made in a consistory; these payments were divided between the cardinals and the papal treasury; (2) the servitia minuta, due on like occasions to various subordinate officials of the Curia; (3) the real annatæ in the narrower sense of the term, which were paid on the granting of a minor ecclesiastical benefice by the Pope outside of the consistory; all these payments reverted to the Apostolic Camera; (4) the so-called quindennia, payable every fifteen years by livings permanently united with some other benefice. Originally, however, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, annatæ or annalia, signified only the third class, the taxes derived from lesser benefices. In their origin, therefore, as well as in actual character, annates are distinct from other money tributes received by the papal treasury, or Camera, from ecclesiastical persons and institutions-from the census paid by individual churches and monasteries in recognition of their direct dependence on the Chair of St. Peter, the pallium moneys contributed by an archbishop on receiving the pallium, the visitation tributes given by an individual bishop and archbishop on his regular visitatio ad limina. Still more are annates to be distinguished from the Peter's Pence accruing to the Papal Curia chiefly from the kingdoms of Northern Europe (England, Denmark, Poland, etc.) in token of a certain protection accorded by the Roman Church, and from the feudal tribute due from such territories as stood in real feudal relationship to Rome (e.g. Naples). Among the payments made to the Roman Curia in the fifteenth century under the general term of annates, the oldest are the servitia communia and the servitia minuta. At a very early period bishops who received episcopal consecration in Rome were wont to present gifts to the various ecclesiastical authorities concerned. Out of this custom there grew up a prescriptive right to such gifts; in the first half of the thirteenth century a regular scale of payment was prescribed for all the dioceses and abbeys liable to this tax upon appointment or confirmation of their prelates. During the thirteenth century there likewise arose in many cathedrals and collegiate churches the custom of appropriating for the bishops or other ecclesiastical officials a year's income from vacant benefices. In exceptional cases some bishops received from the Pope authority to levy this annate on all benefices in their dioceses falling vacant within a specified period. In 1306 Clement V reserved for the papal treasury a year's revenues from all benefices throughout England and Scotland at that time vacant or falling vacant within a period of three years. John XXII, in 1316, made a similar reservation of annates for three years on all ecclesiastical livings, with a few exceptions. From this time on the popes of the fourteenth century were very frequently forced to adopt these measures to obtain relief in financial straits. Moreover, after the thirteenth century the annate was required from benefices that had been for any reason whatever collated directly by the Pope. This tribute was fixed by John XXII (1316-34) at half the annual revenue. At the Council of Constance (1414-18) and later, many complaints were made concerning these assessments; and in concordats made by the popes with separate countries the annates were regulated anew. In particular it was decided that annates on reserved benefices could be paid to the Curia only when the annual income exceeded twenty-four gold gulden. With the gradual transformation of the system of benefices, the annates, strictly so called, disappeared.

To-day they are levied only on the occasion of new appointments to dioceses not subject to Propaganda, and after the manner fixed by the latest concordats or by the papal documents (Bulls of Circumscription) that legally establish a diocese.

FERRARIS, Prompta Bibliotheca, s. v. Annatæ (ed. 1884, 247 sqq.); THOMASSINUS, Vetus et nova eccles. disciplina, Part. II, I, xliv; PHILIPPS, Kirchenrecht, V, 540 sqq.; BERTHIER, Histoire de l'église gallicane, XIX, 1 sqq. (4th ed. Paris, 1827); KÖNIG, Die päpstliche Kammer unter Klemens V u. Johann XXII (Vienna, 1894); KIRSCH, Die päpstlichen Annaten in Deutschland während des 14 Jahrh. (Paderborn, 1903), I; ID., Die Finanzverwaltung des Kardinalkollegiums in Kirchengeschichtl. Studien (Münster, 1895), II, 4; HALLER, Papsttum und Kirchenreform (Berlin, 1903), I; GOTTLOB, Die Servitientaxe im 13. Jahrh., (Stuttgart, 1903); GÖLLER, Mitteilungen und Untersuchungen über das päpstliche Register- und Kanzleiwesen im 14. Jahrh., in Quellen und Forschungen aus ital. Archiven (Rome, 1904); SAMARAN ET MOLLAY, La fiscalité pontificale en France au XIV^e siecle (Paris, 1905.

Bibliography

• Baynes, T. S., ed. (1878), "Annates", Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 2 (9th ed.), New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, pp. 61–62

Attribution

External links

• Texts on Wikisource:
  • "Annates". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
  • "Annates". Catholic Encyclopedia. 1913.