What Was Glebe Land And What Was It Used For?

Glebe is from a Latin word meaning soil and it was used describe land that was set aside for the parish priest. He farmed this area of land and also took the income from tithe land. This was farmed by the local farmers, but the profit from the livestock and produce that it supported was given to the priest for his living. This could be money, but his payment was usually in the form of meat and vegetables and bread.

Some priests had extensive glebe lands that he could sub-let and that brought in large profits but most priests spent lots of their time tending to their own glebe lands to scratch out enough to live on. The position of the glebe lands is shown in maps of the location and these portions of land were rarely sold or exchanged, so they remained the same for centuries.