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for specific services. The west and south Germans brought this custom with the system of private temples into the Church, and now the latter had to encounter as a system what before appeared only as more or less scattered abuses. The Church was a private enterprise of the landlord, who was not content with voluntary offerings and gifts, but demanded a fixed price for every important service by the priest, who was his private official. Naturally, this was extended to include baptism, marriage, penance, and unction; and, in combination with the other Germanic principle recognizing not free services but only those recompensed as efficacious, the system soon extended to the churches in the hands of the bishops and became universal. The stole fees were regarded as legal appurtenances of the churches, and were included in sales and investitures. In spite of earnest protest by legislation and through its representatives, the Church was not able to restrict this barter of religious offices, entrenched as it was behind the power and self-interest of the landlord and the legal order. In the end, when the danger of lay domination was, in principle at least, removed by the substitution of the right of Patronage (q.v.), the Church was not unwilling to assume this system of fees as resting upon custom, not without, inside of certain limits, a commending acquiescence in its origin. This took place in connection with the act on Simony (q.v.) of the Fourth Lateran Council under Innocent III. in 1215. Extortion for spiritual official services was forbidden, but where the payment of fees was according to established custom it was commended and sustained. To make this consistent with the prohibition of simony, such payments were not to be understood as specific recompense for the services, but simply as a tribute rendered in view of the obligation of clerical support and the recognition of parochial jurisdiction. It was also understood that the clergy were not to regard such fees as per contract nor to direct their ministry accordingly; and for the poor the necessary services were to be gratis. In following times the acceptance of such contributions was made legitimate and it was only a step to sanctioning the right of the clerical to demand compensation, and also the legal obligation on his part to render the service. To this day the right to stole fees within " laudable custom " has retained the sanction of the Roman Catholic Church.

In the Evangelical church, some of the older regulations either wholly or partly abolished the stolefees; as, for instance, for baptism and the communion. Generally, they have been permitted and remained customary in the Evangel-

History in ical church. Where, as in electoral the Evan- Saxony, demand of them was forbidgelical den until the seventeenth century, the

autonomy of the Roman Catholic Church in 1848. In fact, the right .of the respective churches to fix and regulate fees for ecclesiastical transactions is inalienable; yet obligations involved are imposed upon the subjects of the State for the enforcement of whieh the State must lend its. arm. Hence, the matter may not be wholly left in the hands of the Church, and the State is also entitled to the privilege of a normative cooperation. This rule prevails, for example, in Prussia; in Austria, on the other hand, .alterations in the regulations are reserved by the State after the concurrence of the bishops. A state concurrence takes place where the Evangelical church possesses organized government and by the adaptation of presbyterial and synodal elements maintains a certain independence, and where the regulation of stole fees therefore devolves on the church boards in common with the parish organs. In principle, the obligation of paying stole fees pertains only to the members of the church of the officiating clergyman, which members alone are in a position to require the services. This is the present conception. But formerly, before the parity of the churches was established, the members of the merely tolerated bodies were forced to pay the fees to the pastor of the prevailing church, even where they were performed by pastors of their own confession.

Voices have been raised in the Roman Catholic Church for the abolition of stole fees, namely, in the Council of Trent, and spontaneously in the

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Efforts at though in vain against the practical Abolition. difficulties involved. More earnestly

was the practise felt to be improper in the Evangelical church (beginning with Spener) and its abolition was demanded. Until the last quarter of the last century this demand was met only in isolated instances. In 1818 Nassau, 1849 Oldenburg, and 1871 Brunswick abolished the fees in lieu of recompense from church funds or other sources. The introduction of the civil register and civil marriage by imperial statute (1875) provided for an indemnification of the clergy, and occasioned in a number of states the abolition of stole fees for baptisms, wedding ceremonies, and publishing of the bans, either in all churches or the Evangelical alone. Universal abolition was consummated in Prussia in 1890-1900. In Baden the redemption of the stole fees is assigned to the churches; elsewhere it is effected by state provisions. In Prussia the churches are reenforced, if the redemption taxes make an increase in the total expenses, by a statechurch fund.

While the Old Catholics did not adopt the system at all, it is in full sway in the Eastern Church,

as well as in the Roman Catholic Modern Church. Those entitled to stole fees

clerical whose position is materially the same, or an assistant, either on formal assignment by the parish priest or through special title. Stole fees must be authorized by church statute or recognized custom. They usually occur in connection with baptisms, publishing of bans, marriages, the blessing and attendance upon the deceased, and the churching of women. It is excluded in respect