The tithe at the beginning of the 19th century was a complex tax on agrarian output, complex both in valuation and payment. It had grown from a system of providing for the religious representative and for the upkeep of the fabric of the church and the poor in primitive agrarian societies. The tenth of the output of the land and of livestock set aside for God is mentioned in the Old Testament and was also used by pagan societies according to Evans (1976).

"In most [English] parishes, tithes had been paid grudgingly but regularly for a very long time, and in a few places the payment may be traced back to the 9th century" (Kain & Prince, 2000, p. XI).

A transcript of the 13th century Leges Edwardis Confessoris by Halsall (1998) describes the paying of tithe:

"From all harvest the tenth must be paid to Holy Church. If one have a herd of horses, let him pay the tenth colt; he who has only one or two horses shall pay a penny for each colt."

The same was true of cows, milk and cheese ["the milk of the tenth day"]. Further tithable products were lambs, sheep's hides, butter, bees, woods, meadows, waters, mills, parks, warrens, fisheries, thickets, gardens, trade and from similar things which were deemed to be given by God, in essence, all sources of income available to 13th century man. Defaulters were to be forced to pay by the justice of the King and the Holy Church. Punishment for non-payment included excommunication, a punishment instituted by the National Synod of the English Church in 944 AD.

The tithe was divided by type and value. Predial tithes were levied on the produce of the earth, agistment (mixed) tithe was payable on animals, i.e. the offspring and animal produce and personal tithes were levied upon the profits of labour and industry. Although theoretically a tithe on all profits from trade, the assessment of these profits became increasingly difficult in an increasingly complex trading environment. A statute in 1549 effectively rationalised the personal tithe, making enforcement of such tithes only possible when evidence could be provided which proved payment for the last forty years. In most cases in the late 18th century it was only still collected from profits of milling and fishing.

The most valuable tithes on grain, hay and wood constituted the great tithes, the rest forming the small tithes. In the Church of England the great tithe was generally collected by the rector or parson of a parish, the small tithe remaining for the vicar or curate of the parish.

The tithe was, however, not always paid to a cleric. As early as the 12th century the right to collect some tithes was in the hands of laymen, leased from monasteries, which owned about a third of the tithe rights in England before the reformation. After the dissolution of the monasteries the tithes were vested in the crown and most of these tithes were sold or granted to laymen, called lay impropriators. In cases where the tithe was owned by a lay impropriator, the great tithe was customarily collected by the impropriator, whilst the small was collected by the local cleric. The exact division of produce into great and small tithes was, however, often subject to parish custom.