Assimilation of other Rates 105 
this matter was not ratified by statute after the 
Restoration, and the civilians seem to have retained 
rather antiquated ideas as to the liability to church- 
rates, if we are to judge by a series of propositions 
given in a bookseller’s appendix to the second edition 
of Godolphin’s Repertorium Canonicum in 1680, and 
attributed to the joint wisdom of thirteen doctors of 
civil law sitting at Doctors’ Commons to consider a 
question as to the church-rate of Wrotham, in Kent. 
According to these propositions, every inhabitant 
dwelling within the parish is to be charged according 
to his ability, and his ability may be estimated either 
by his goods or by the value of the holding he occu- 
pies. No exemption is accorded to resident landlords : 
“Every owner of lands, tenements, copyholds, and 
other hereditaments inhabiting within the parish is 
to be taxed according to his wealth in regard of a 
parishioner, although he occupy none of them him- 
self, and his farmer or farmers also are to be taxed for 
occupying only.” However, Prideaux, Dean of Nor- 
wich, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, 
after quoting these propositions and Lyndwood,! says, 
“But the general usage now is to make a rate accord- 
ing to the value of the lands.” It is, he then adds, a 
personal, not a real charge—not on the lands, but on 
persons in respect of the lands, “and for this reason 
the farmer or occupier, not the landlord, is to pay the 
same.”? We may take his evidence as to the usage 
without accepting as sufficient his explanation of 
its origin3 It is difficult to suppose. however, that 
1 See above, p. 15. 
3 Directions to Churchwardens for the Faithful Discharge of their 
Office, 3rd ed., 1713, p. 51. 
8 See above, pp. 84. 85.