ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



resident in his bishopric is afforded by the fact that in 1240 the pope ordered 

 him to certify how many Italians were beneficed in his diocese, and what was 

 the value of their benefices. If the bishop sent in any reply in return it has 

 apparently perished. So far as may be judged from the existing lists of 

 beneficed clergy at this time, they do not bear out the assertion, so often 

 repeated, that the Norwich diocese had any great number of these foreign 

 intruders, whatever may have been the case elsewhere. 



Bishop William obtained the wish of his heart at last, for, little more 

 than four years after his election to the East Anglian see, he was again chosen 

 bishop of Winchester. 



During the seventy years that had passed since the death of Bishop 

 William Turbe, five prelates had borne some sort of rule over the Norwich 

 diocese. Not one of them was better than an able man of the world, or 

 gave indication of being actuated by any lofty idea of the sacredness of his 

 calling. They were one and all mere lawyers or politicians playing the game 

 for preferment, and having won it, bent only on getting all they could out 

 of it. It may safely be affirmed that during quite half of those seventy 

 years the bishops of Norwich were non-resident, and during the other half 

 they were faineants. The city of Norwich itself appears to have been in a 

 condition of chronic anarchy. The Jews in the place were continually 

 subject to every sort of violence and persecution, only (so far can be 

 inferred from the evidence that comes before us) because they were the 

 most prosperous class, and living, in the main, industrious and inoffensive 

 lives. Their occupation as pawnbrokers among the working classes, and 

 as bankers and financiers among the people of consideration lay and clerical, 

 made them the objects of fierce hatred to all the needy, the greedy, and the 

 improvident.* 



As with the bishops, so with the clergy. The researches of John Pits 

 in the sixteenth century enabled him to give some account of just one hundred 

 English writers and scholars who were more or less famous during those 

 seventy years, but not a single Norfolk man appears among them. In the 

 century that followed things were very different indeed. There was a 

 grievous need of some great awakening of religious conviction and sentiment 

 in East Anglia ; when it came ' the fire ran along the ground.' 



The rule of the non-resident bishops of Norwich had lasted more than 

 seventy years when William Raleigh was promoted to the see of Winchester 

 in 1244. There are interesting indications that during all that time the state 

 of the diocese was what might have been expected. Everywhere else in 

 England splendid work in the building of churches and cathedrals was 

 going on. 



At Norwich it seems to have been difficult to keep the great church of 

 the diocese in repair, and specimens of twelfth and early thirteenth century 

 churches in Norfolk are rarer perhaps than in any equal area to be found in 

 England. Moreover, the non-residence of the bishops during these seventy 

 years appears to have told upon the discipline of the clergy in more ways than 

 one. We hear of no such diocesan synods as brought the bishop into close 

 and personal relations with his clergy in the earlier times, and being left to 



' See a remarkable paper on the infamous persecution of the Norwich Jews by Mr. Walter Rye in the 

 first volume of the A'or. Antiq. Misc. 312. 



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