What is a Tithing?

What is a Tithing?

• A. A group of ten households
• B. A group of one hundred households
• C. A tax on property
• D. A type of weapon

Answer: (A)

A tithing is a small social-legal unit: ten households bound together to keep the peace and help enforce the law. In Anglo-Saxon England, members of a tithing would hold each other accountable, and if someone in the group was accused of a crime, the whole tithing could be required to answer and help bring the offender to the local court. The leader, a tithing-man, organized the group and reported to the larger hundred structure, which oversaw affairs across several tithings. This setup is about local community responsibility, not a tax or a weapon, and it isn’t as large as the hundred itself. So the correct understanding is that a tithing is ten households.

A tithing is a small social-legal unit: ten households bound together to keep the peace and help enforce the law. In Anglo-Saxon England, members of a tithing would hold each other accountable, and if someone in the group was accused of a crime, the whole tithing could be required to answer and help bring the offender to the local court. The leader, a tithing-man, organized the group and reported to the larger hundred structure, which oversaw affairs across several tithings. This setup is about local community responsibility, not a tax or a weapon, and it isn’t as large as the hundred itself. So the correct understanding is that a tithing is ten households.