NOVALI. — From the Middle Ages onward, this name was given to parcels of land that were being brought under cultivation for the first time. Consequently, the name itself was also applied—or rather, chiefly applied—to the tithes that had to be paid on newly cultivated lands; hence the so-called decimae novales.
Under common law, these had to be paid to the parish churches in whose territory the lands were located. Alexander III, however, in 1170, confirmed an ancient privilege granted by Hadrian IV, by which certain religious Orders had been exempted from paying tithes to others on any land that they worked directly or had worked at their own expense, and all religious persons had been exempted from paying the tithes of newly cultivated lands, provided that they worked them personally or paid for their cultivation (10, X, III, 30). The privilege was confirmed anew by Gregory IX (33, X, V, 33). Nevertheless, Innocent III, considering that lands and woods left in their natural state and without particular cultivation also brought the parishes in which they were located revenues that were sometimes quite substantial, and wishing to prevent these sources of income from disappearing once the land was brought under cultivation, established that exemption from payment of the tithes of newly cultivated lands should be limited to cases in which the parishes were already sufficiently wealthy or, in any event, such as would not suffer serious detriment from the exemption (21, X, V, 40).
Subsequent interventions by the Holy See more precisely determined the rights and obligations of pious places and religious persons with regard to newly cultivated lands: for example, Alexander IV in 1258 (5, III, 13 in 6°) and Clement V in 1306 (1, III, 8 in Clem.).
In the centuries that followed, exemption of all regular religious from every kind of tithe on newly cultivated lands was gradually achieved, both through direct concessions and through the communication of privileges. With the decline of the law of tithes, every distinction between these and newly cultivated lands also disappeared (v. DECIMA).
BIBLI.: L. Ferraris, Bibliotheca..., III, Roma 1886, V. Decimae, art. II, nn. 47-48, 30, 52, pp. 22-23; G. Minella, Le Decime e le altre prestazioni cogenieri, Padova 1888. Lorenzo Simeone