A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



in each of the deaneries as follows : Carlisle, i ojs. ^d. ; Cumberland, 

 115-r. ; Allerdale, 88j. lod. ; and Westmorland, 143^. \od. 1 In the 

 matter, however, of the payment of synodals, the mandates of the bishops 

 gave no uncertain sound. Bishop Appleby issued a monition to the 

 dean of Cumberland in 1379 to warn those clergy, with whose names 

 he had supplied him, that they must pay the respective sums at which 

 their benefices were rated within twenty days from the date of the 

 monition.* 



The most interesting document connected with diocesan synods in 

 Carlisle may be found in the second of the ancient registers of the see 

 bound up between the acts of Bishops Welton and Appleby. It has no 

 date and little internal evidence upon which to found a conjecture as 

 to the episcopate in which it was originally drawn up. 3 The compila- 

 tion is made up of an introduction and sixty-two canons or constitutions 

 on subjects of ecclesiastical work and administration. The statutes* 

 embrace a wide range of subjects dealing with diocesan and parochial 

 work. There are directions for the administration of the sacraments 

 and the instruction of the people ; rules for the custody of churches and 

 churchyards ; injunctions about sequestration, wills, tithes, litigation, 

 excommunication and punishment ; regulations for the guidance of 

 archdeacons, rural deans, and executors, for visitations, rural chapters and 

 the recovery of debts. Several of the constitutions were drawn up with 

 special reference to the clergy in all their private, social and public 

 relations, domestic life, association with nuns, taverns, secular business, 

 offices and courts, their ordination, learning, residence, amusements, and 

 goods. Few of these diocesan regulations are without local colour. 

 Though nearly all of them may be found among the institutes of other 

 dioceses, they have been so adapted to the needs of Carlisle that they 



i These facts are taken from the original Compoti of registrars and rural deans now in the Bishop's 

 Registry at Carlisle. 



Carl. Epis. Reg. Appleby MS. f. 312. Lists of the ' denarii synodales ' payable at various periods 

 by the benefices of the diocese, arranged under deaneries, may be found among the diocesan muniments. 

 For the fourteenth century, see ibid. Halton MS. G. 501-2, and ibid. Appleby, MS. f. 340 ; for the 

 seventeenth century, the manuscript Rental of Bp. White ; and for the eighteenth century, the MS. 

 Schedule of Bp. Osbaldiston. The synodals pro utroque termino were 4/. or ^s. for each benefice in the 

 fourteenth century and only half of these sums in the seventeenth, but the custom of the eighteenth 

 century reverted back to the payment of the full quota. Such churches as Stapleton, Eston, Cambok, 

 Carlatton, and others were excused payment in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries owing to the de- 

 struction caused by Scottish invasions. The payment of synodals and procurations was abolished in the 

 diocese of Carlisle by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England by virtue of ' an instrument which 

 has been sealed by the Board and which was published in the London Gazette on the 31 July, 1876.' 



3 The copy of the constitutions entered in the diocesan register of Carlisle (Welton MS. ff. 129- 

 140) must have been made long after they had been enacted in synod and published by the bishop. The 

 scribe, when adding marginal notes, was sometimes in doubt about the true meaning of an article and 

 placed ut patft as a warning to the reader not to take his summary as absolute. The articles of greater 

 importance and more frequent use are scored with index fingers. These constitutions probably belong 

 to the great episcopate of Bishop Halton. 



4 The Carlisle constitutions were framed on the model of the statutes of the councils mentioned 

 in the preamble. The Lateran council was held in 1215 under Pope Innocent III. The canons of the 

 council of Oxford, held for all England under Archbishop Langton in 1222, were published in con- 

 formity with those of the Lateran. The bishop of Carlisle followed closely the canons of Oxford in many 

 particulars. The council of London, celebrated in 1237 under Otto the papal legate, the archbishops 

 of Canterbury and York sitting with him, was also for all England. 



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