ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



city the churches of Northamptonshire were ruled for five centuries. 

 Remigius placed seven archdeacons over seven provinces which he ruled. 

 One Nigel he appointed archdeacon of Northampton.^ 



Without again traversing the ground already covered in the article on 

 the Northamptonshire Domesday Survey, it is necessary to touch upon the 

 survey very briefly from the ecclesiastical point of view. The abbey of 

 Peterborough, at the time of the Conquest, was the only old Northampton- 

 shire ecclesiastical foundation that held land in the county. Its rights, as 

 well as those of smaller ecclesiastical bodies not in Northamptonshire, but 

 holding endowments within that county, seem to have been thoroughly 

 respected by the Conqueror. Only four churches are mentioned in the 

 survey, namely, those of Brackley and Pateshull (Pattishall), and two more. 

 All Saints' and St. Peter's, the locality of which is not given, but which are 

 possibly Stamford churches. Although only four churches are named, men- 

 tion is made of fifty-three priests associated with as many manors. It has 

 long been recognized that the absence of any mention of a church from a 

 given passage of the survey does not in any way imply that a church did not 

 exist. So far as Northamptonshire is concerned, archaeology abundantly 

 proves the pre-Norman existence of a considerable series of churches unnamed 

 in Domesday, and history supports that conclusion. For example, the Con- 

 queror confirmed to the abbey of St. Ebrulf (Evroul) in 1081 the North- 

 amptonshire churches of Byfield and Newton St. Lawrence,^ neither of 

 which finds a place in the survey. 



As to priests, Sir Henry Ellis thought that their mention generally 

 implied a church.' Though probably this is so in the majority of instances, 

 it is not necessarily so in all cases ; for, as has been pointed out by later writers, 

 the priest may sometimes be named in his personal and not in his official 

 character.* 



Under the Conqueror's successor, the see of Lincoln, like many others, 

 was for a time kept vacant, doubtless because the revenues of vacant 

 bishoprics went to the crown ; and thus, as happened only too frequently in 

 succeeding reigns also, Northamptonshire was left without episcopal super- 

 vision. 



Bishop Remigius fled in 1092, and it was not till 1094 that Robert 

 Bloet, the king's chancellor, was consecrated to fill his place.* In the time of 

 Rufus this county begins to figure very prominently in English ecclesiastical 

 history, indeed it is not a little remarkable that so many important events 

 connected with the policy and development of the church in the Middle 

 Ages should have taken place within its limits. This probably arose from 

 two causes, its central position, which made it generally convenient for the 

 gathering of the council, and the fact that the castles of Northampton and 

 Rockingham were favourite residences as hunting head quarters of the Norman 

 and early Plantagenet kings. The Red King's dispute with Anselm, and that 

 of Henry II with Thomas a Becket, were the two most important crises of the 

 Church of England in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The central point 



' Hen. of Hunt. (Rolls Ser.), 302. ' Province' here does not mean 'county,' for there are nine counties 

 mentioned. Rutland is omitted. 



' The charter is cited in Dugdale, Mon.v'i, 1078. 



' Ellis, General Introduction to Domesday, i, 289. ' Domesday Studies, ii, 339-.).46. 



' Will, of Malm. Gesta Pontif. (Rolls Ser.), 313; Stubbs, op. cit. 24. 



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