A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



time.''* The explanation lies in the fact that Fox, soon after he came to Dur- 

 ham, visited the college, and discovering the disrepair of the buildings and the 

 general meagreness of divine service, gave orders for the better regulation of 

 the institution, by the diversion of part of the prebendaries' stipends/'^ At 

 Norton in 1496 he sequestered the prebends to reconstruct the chancel. ''* 

 The bishop of Rochester took ordinations for Fox, and the bishop of Dromore 

 acted under commission for him."^ 



During the vacancy w^hich followed the bishop's translation in 1501, 

 Thomas Savage, just promoted to be archbishop of York, undertook a 

 visitation of the city and diocese of Durham. This somewhat intrusive 

 visitation seems to have been endured without protest, and the acts survive. 

 They reveal no special features calling for comment. Omnia bene is a note 

 which sums up a large number of parishes. The questions, which have not 

 been preserved separately, concerned, as the answers suggest, the church fabric 

 and furniture, the character of the clergyman, and offences against morality. 



In the interval between the translation of Fox and the appointment of 

 his successor the progress of Princess Margaret to the Scottish capital took 

 place, and was long remembered in the north country. At Darlington and at 

 Durham, on her passage through the bishopric, she stopped and was enter- 

 tained. Fox returned to Durham for the occasion, and for three days the 

 princess was royally treated in the castle. This was in July, 1503, and in the 

 October of the same year the new bishop was appointed in the person of 

 William Sever (otherwise Senhouse), a bishopric man who had probably been 

 educated at Durham College, and was now bishop of Carlisle. He had been 

 an old fellow-commissioner of Fox in 1496, and was perhaps chosen as being 

 acquainted with the district. He died in the spring of 1505, after a perfectly 

 uneventful episcopate so far as our very negative evidence goes. The penu- 

 rious king kept the see vacant for eighteen months, and just at the conclusion 

 of this period a synod was held in the Galilee. A fragment concerning it has 

 been preserved, with a list of those present, a useful document in regard to the 

 clerical personnel of the diocese. There is nothing which throws light 

 upon the authority or exact scope of the so-called ' synod,' but its like- 

 ness in circumstance to the visitation of 1501, mentioned above, leads to 

 the conclusion that Archbishop Savage of York directed a visitation as papal 

 legate and guardian of the spiritualities of city and diocese. 



The vacant see was filled in November, 1 507, by the appointment of 

 Christopher Bainbridge, who was removed after a few months to York. A 

 letter of Henry VII has been preserved, in which the bishop's restoration of 

 temporalities was made conditional on the repudiation of all that was preju- 

 dicial in the papal bulls to the king's rights. No ecclesiastical act of Bain- 

 bridge's brief Durham episcopate survives, but his gift to prior and convent 

 of the Banks at Durham has been preserved. '^^ 



Ruthall (1509-23) spent the greater part of his episcopate in political em- 

 ployment away from Durham, but appeared in the north from time to time 

 with considerable effect. He was remembered in later days for his princely in- 



"' Register, fol. l6 d. "' Ibid. fol. 6, Nov. 1495. "' Ibid. fo1. 8, June, 1496. 



'" On the evidence of his register (which is not quite perfect) Fox ordained, or had ordained for him, 



47 sub-deacons, 41 deacons, 35 priests. The annual average is I7'57 for the three orders. Ofthe 123, 



79 were regulars, leaving an annual average of 6-|- seculars. "* Ties Scriptores. 



28 



