Tithing
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
One of the civil divisions of England, being a portion of that greater division called a hundred. It was so called because ten freeholders with their families composed one. It is said that they were all knit together in one society, and bound to the king for the peaceable behavior of each other. In each of these societies there was one chief or principal person, who, from his office, was called teothing-man, now tithing-man. Brown. Tithing-man. During the Saxon times, the officer wlio was appointed to preside over tithings and to examine and determine all causes of small importance between the inhabitants of adjacent tithings was so called. In the present day, however, tithing-men are a kind of constables, elected by parishes, and sworn in their offices in the court-leet, and sometimes by justices of the peace, &c.
Brown.