ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



It has been supposed that the country lay in ruins after the inroad 

 of the Danes, and that no remnant of church organization was allowed 

 to exist for two centuries from that date. The ecclesiastical history of 

 the period from the Scandinavian invasion till the conquest of the district 

 in 1092 is confused and uncertain. Florence of Worcester tells us that 

 the city of Carlisle which Rufus conquered in 1092, like some other 

 cities in these parts, had been destroyed by the pagan Danes two hundred 

 years before, and had remained deserted up to the time of its recovery ; 

 but we cannot think that the Christian faith was totally obliterated from 

 a district in which it had once taken so deep root, as we know it had 

 done in the neighbourhood of Carlisle while the Northumbrian kings 

 ruled from sea to sea. Whatever may have been the vicissitudes through 

 which it passed, no history exists. 1 The state of the church of Cumbria 

 south of the Solway between the invasion of the Dane and the conquest 

 of the Norman is one of the great puzzles of our early history. 2 



When the district of Carlisle was added to English dominion by 

 William Rufus in 1092, as a matter of course it would fall under the 

 jurisdiction of the metropolitan to whose province it was adjacent. 

 Twenty years before the annexation, a compact was made between the 

 two archbishops at the council of Windsor in 1072, whereby the primacy 

 over Scotland was assigned to York. 3 In these circumstances, whatever 

 pleas were put forward by way of claim to the ecclesiastical oversight of 

 the new province, the metropolitan had the determining voice in its 

 ultimate bestowal. As a matter of fact the land of Carlisle became an 

 integral part of the metropolitan diocese from the date of its conquest 4 

 till the time arrived for the creation of a new see in the northern pro- 

 vince. It will be seen that subsequent events assume this to have been 

 the case. No certain information has been preserved to tell us the 

 nature of the plans employed for the ecclesiastical organization of the 

 district during the remaining years of William's reign. It is perhaps 

 too much to expect. 



The first act for the supply of ecclesiastical institutions in the 

 district has been ascribed to one of the followers of the Conqueror, 

 who is said to have been placed in Carlisle by William Rufus shortly 

 after the annexation. A story of the origin of diocesan institutions, 

 which has been handed down by tradition from a remote period, is 

 worth consideration, though we may not be able to accept it. It is 



1 It would be a mere romance to build up a narrative from the remains of Christian 

 monuments with which the modern county abounds. From these lapidary evidences only one 

 conclusion can be drawn. The Church had embraced the seaboard and penetrated the plains. 

 Beyond this nothing more definite can be said. For these monumental remains, see V .CM. 

 Cumb. i. 253-84. 



2 Freeman, William Rufus, i. 315. 



3 Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Eccles. Doc. ii. 12, 159. By this agreement the jurisdiction of 

 York extended from the boundaries of the diocese of Lichfield over the whole region northwards ' usque 

 ad extremes Scotiae fines,' including the bishopric of Durham or Lindisfarne. 



4 Rival claims to the spiritual sovereignty of the new district were put forward by the bishops of 

 Durham and Glasgow, but they were disallowed. For a discussion of these matters, see Haddan and 

 Stubbs, Councils and Eccles, Doc. ii. 10-27. 



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