"The word 'alterage' can be given no very hard and fast meaning, although possibly local usages were quite fixed." In 1371, testimony was taken indicating that at
Sudbury, the chaplain who served the chapel at Salcote was maintained by the rector out of the alterage. The rectors generally took the profits from the
glebe and a tithe of corn and hay, leaving the small tithes to the officiating priest. Small tithes were often paid in beans or hops. As the alterage was intended for the support of the priest conducting the service, often instead of or on behalf of a rector or prebendary, it sometimes became the practice to assign to the officiating priest a portion of land and the profits derived therefrom. The lack of clarity in failing to distinguish between "alterage", "small tithes", and "altar dues" and which rightfully belonged to the vicar and which to the rector and for what use caused a number of legal cases to be brought before the Exchequer in the reign of
Elizabeth I. The courts came to rely on documents which defined the respective rights of the parties. Around 1517, Cardinal Otho found members of the clergy abusing the custom to the extent of requiring a donation before they would take a confession. He issued a decree that any priest found guilty of such conduct should be removed from and deprived of all benefices, be barred from any further appointments and have their priestly faculties forever suspended. On another occasion, he was recorded as once saying, "The mass has devoured infinite sums of money". The Italian priest
Pino Puglisi refused money from Mafia members when offered it for the traditional feast day celebrations and also resisted the Mafia in other ways for which he was martyred in 1993. ==Present day==