A tax imposed in England and France, in 1188, by l’oj>e innocent 111., to raise a fund for the crusade undertaken by Richard I. of England and Philip Augustus of France, against Saladin, sultan of Egypt, then going to besiege Jerusalem. By this tax every person who did not enter himself a crusader was obliged to pay a tenth of bis yearly revenue and of tbe value of all his movables, except his wearing apparel, books, and arms. The Carthusians, Beriiardines. and some oilier religious per- sons were exempt. Gibbon remarks that when tbe necessity for this tax no longer existed, the church still clung to it as too lucrative to be abandoned, and thus arose the tithing of ecclesiastical benefices for the pope or other sovereigns. Euc. Loml.
Black’s Law Online Dictionary
