RATE, an assessment levied upon property. Rates are of various kinds, and are denominated with reference to the objects to which they are applied.
Church-rates are payable by the parishioners and occupiers of the land within a parish, for the purpose of repairing, maintaining, and restoring the body of the church and the belfry, the churchyard fence, the bells, seats, and ornaments, and of defraying the expenses attend ing the service of the church. The duty of repairing and rebuilding the chancel devolves on the rector, or vicar, or both together, in pro portion to their benefice, where there are both in the same church. But by custom the parishioners may be liable to repair the chancel ; and in London there is a general custom to that effect. Church-rate exists in England by virtue of the common law ; nothing is known as to its commencement or introduction.
In the early church there appears to have been a division of the tithes—either tripartite, one portion to the clergy, one to repairs of the church, and one to the poor ; or quadripartite, one to the bishop, the other threo to the clergy, the church, and the poor. At that time the bishop resided at the cathedral church, together with his clergy, and on lum devolved the duty of repairing the church, caring for the poor, and supplying ecclesiastical ministry. It was then the duty of every Christian man to pay to the bishop not only tho decimie, or tithes, but also the eeelesite census, church-scot, and the nummus eleemesynarius (alms money). The object to which church-scot was devoted is not known; but church-rates, or something equivalent, certainly appear to have been in existence as a payment by the laity, independent of tithes, in the time of Canute, whose 63rd law, "de fano reficlendo," states that all persons ought of right to contribute to the repair of churches.
Church-rates are imposed by the parishioners themselves at a meet ing summoned by the churchwardens for that purpose, and a man damus is grantable to compel such meeting to be held. If the parts!' fail to meet, the churchwardens may impose a rate, but if the meeting should assemble, it rests with the parishioners themselves to determine • the amount of the rate ; and they have authority to negative the imposition of a rate altogether ; the only mode of compelling them to impose a rate being by ecclesiastical censures and laying the parish under interdict. The existing poor•rate of the parish is generally
taken as the criterion for the imposition of the church-rate. All pro perty in the parish is liable except the glebe•land of that parish and the possession of the crown. The ecclesiastical courts have the exclu sive authority of deciding on the validity of a rate, and the liability of a party to pay it ; but a rate-payer cannot by an original proceeding in those courts raise objections to a rate for the purpose of quashing it altogether. If ho wishes to dispute it, be ought to attend at the vestry, and there state his objections ; if they are not removed, ho may enter a caveat against the confirmation of the rate, or refuse to pay his assessment. In the latter case, if proceeded against in the ecclesiastical court, he may in his defence show either that the rate is generally invalid, or that he is unfairly assessed. The consequence of entering a caveat is an appeal to the ecclesiastical judge, who will see that right is done. Previously to 53 Geo. I II., c. 127, the only mode of recover ing church-rates from parties refusing to pay was by suit in the eccle siastical court for subtraction of rate. By that statute, where the sum to be recovered is under.10/.,and there is no question as to the validity ' of the rate, or the liability of the party assessed, any justice of the county where the church is situated may, on complaint of the church warden, inquire into the merits of the case, and order the payment. Against his decision there is an appeal to tho quarter-sessions. As to •other rates, see SEWERS; SHIRE ; ; John do Athon: Selden'a History of Tithes ; Gibson's Codex ; Burn's Ecclesiastical Law ; Rogers's Ecclesiastical Law, 1840.)