Legal Definitions - non decimando

Non decimando refers to a historical legal claim or privilege asserting an exemption from the obligation to pay tithes. Historically, tithes were a tenth part of agricultural produce or income, paid to support a religious institution or its clergy. A successful claim of non decimando meant that a particular person, land, or entity was legally recognized as not being required to pay these customary tithes.

Here are some examples illustrating this concept:

• Ancient Monastery Lands: Imagine a large medieval monastery that, upon its founding centuries ago, received a royal charter. This charter explicitly granted the monastery and all its extensive farmlands a perpetual exemption from paying tithes to the local bishopric. If the bishop later attempted to demand tithes from the monastery's tenants, the monastery could assert a claim of non decimando, demonstrating its long-standing legal right not to pay.

  This example illustrates non decimando because the monastery's lands were legally exempt from the customary obligation to pay a tenth of their produce or income as tithes, based on a specific historical grant.

• Crown Lands Exemption: In many historical kingdoms, lands directly owned by the monarch (known as royal demesne) were traditionally considered exempt from ecclesiastical tithes. If a local parish church attempted to collect tithes from a farm that was part of the king's personal estate, the Crown could invoke the privilege of non decimando, asserting that royal lands were not subject to such payments.

  This demonstrates non decimando as a specific class of land (royal property) was legally recognized as not being subject to the payment of tithes due to its sovereign status.

• Newly Reclaimed Agricultural Land: Consider a wealthy landowner in the 17th century who invested significant resources into draining a vast area of marshland, transforming it into fertile agricultural ground. To encourage such costly improvements, local custom or specific parliamentary acts sometimes granted a temporary or even permanent exemption from tithes for these newly reclaimed lands. If the local church tried to levy tithes on the first harvests from this new farmland, the landowner could claim non decimando based on the land's status as newly improved and previously unproductive.

  Here, non decimando applies to the newly productive land, which was legally exempt from tithe payments, illustrating an exemption based on the land's specific status or the public policy encouraging its development.