by you, and for the defraying of the expenses necessary for the conservation and maintenance of the same,—you should be empowered to exact and levy tithes[1] on the inhabitants of the aforesaid islands and dwellers therein for the time being. On this account we have been humbly petitioned on your behalf to deign through our apostolic graciousness to make in the premises suitable provision for you and your state. Therefore yearning most eagerly for the spread and increase of that same faith particularly in our own days, we commend in the Lord your loving and praiseworthy purpose, and being favorably disposed thereto we hereby through our apostolic power in virtue of these presents do as a special favor grant to you and your successors for the time being that in the aforesaid islands after their capture and recovery (as observed) you may receive a tithe from the inhabitants thereof and the dwellers therein for the time being, and levy the same freely and lawfully, providing after dioceses shall there be established (whereon we charge your consciences as well as your successors'), you first from your own and their estate shall really and effectively devise a sufficient revenue for the establishment of churches in those islands through you and your aforesaid successors, whereby the incumbents of the same and
- ↑ Ordinarily the tithes in each diocese were divided into four equal parts—of which one was set aside for the bishop, and one for the chapter. Then the other two were divided into nine portions (novenii), whereof one and one-half were for the fabrica of the church (the corporate body who administered its temporalities, consisting of the cura and churchwardens), four for the parrocos (parish priests) and lower clergy, one and one-half for the hospitals, and two for the King—all but this last being variable. See Baluffi's America en tempo Spagnuola (Ancona, 1844), ii, p. 41.—Rev. T. C. Middleton, O. S. A.
