ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



receive ' the third penny ' as the perquisites of chapters and synods. 1 The gravamen of the 

 indictment was not so much that he held two benefices with cures of souls, but, as the bishop 

 told the Archbishop of York, that he wished to find out by what right the archdeacon usurped 

 and meddled with his episcopal jurisdiction contrary to universal custom. 2 The suit lasted 

 over three years and ended disastrously for the archdeacon, for he was deprived in 1340 for 

 persistent contumacy in the bishop's court and diocesan synod. 3 The right of the archdeacon 

 to the church of Salkeld could not have been seriously questioned, but his claim to exercise 

 a concurrent jurisdiction within the archdeaconry, which was conterminous with the 

 diocese, provoked the bishop to action. 



When the ecclesiastical atmosphere had cleared after the storm raised by the contentions 

 of William de Kendale, the bishop adopted a more conciliatory attitude towards his arch- 

 deacon and drew up an agreement which marked a new era in the history of the office. By 

 this scheme the tenure of the archdeaconry was made more agreeable to its occupant, and all 

 occasion of friction was for ever done away. As the terms of the deed, which is dated z May 

 1360, while William de Rothbury was archdeacon, are in many respects remarkable, its chief 

 provisions may be noticed. In the first place the bishop conceded to his subordinate the right 

 to have a proctor in the chapters, celebrated by the official, to help him in making corrections, 

 and to keep a counter-roll of the corrections so made ; also to summon by his letters the clergy 

 to his visitation and to proceed by ecclesiastical censure against those who did not appear. 

 Moreover power was given him to distrain for his procurations. And, lastly, it was allowed 

 that when the rural deans rendered their accounts, the archdeacon was to receive the third 

 penny of all corrections and synodals, or he may proceed against the said deans to recover his 

 dues. 4 It should be borne in mind that no concessions were made of a judicial or coercive 

 jurisdiction, and no power was delegated in contravention of the bishop's ordinary right of 

 visitation. The archdeacon resided at his country rectory situated almost in the centre of the 

 diocese, from which he made periodical circuits of diocesan inspection. As the procurations 

 were understood to be a reward for his exertions they were not paid when the visitation was 

 omitted. The third penny continued to be advanced by the rural deans out of the capitular 

 fees. In the bishops' accounts, which are still extant for several years between 1402 and 1509, 

 it is invariably noted by the deans in the schedule of receipts that the tercia -pars of corrections 

 and synodals, always of course a varying sum, belonged of right and had been paid to the 

 archdeacon. 6 



The history of the archdeaconry from the Reformation to the extension of the diocese in 

 1856 possesses few incidents of ecclesiastical interest. The archdeacons had fallen to the level 

 of country parsons, and exercised no special functions except the induction of clergymen to 

 benefices after they had been instituted by the bishop, the presentation of candidates for 

 ordination, which they were bound to do by the rubric of the Ordinal, and the personal visita- 

 tion of churches which they frequently omitted. During the religious unsettlement of the 

 Tudor period, the office came to be looked upon as a sinecure. The archdeacon of 

 Carlisle was usually non-resident. If not employed elsewhere, the cure of the parish of Great 

 Salkeld claimed his attention. The importance of the office of diocesan chancellor, which is 

 but a modified form of the offices of official principal and vicar general, rose out of the ashes 

 of the archidiaconate. Owing to the lethargy of archdeacons, the chancellors pushed them on 



i Carl. Epis. Reg. Kirkby, ff. 358-9. Kendale claimed the third penny of synods and chapters 

 by right of his institution to the archdeaconry as his predecessors had received it before him by ancient 

 custom (ibid. f. 362). 



Ibid. f. 367. " Ibid. MS. ff. 407-8. 



* Ibid. Welton, ff. 67, 74. 



* For the history of archidiaconal jurisdiction and the archidiaconal court see the excellent account 

 by Bishop Stubbs in Eccl. Courts Com. Rep. (1883), i. pp. xviii. xix. 21-51. In the diocese of Carlisle 

 the archdeacon's court seems to have been suppressed about 1270, except for the adjudication of trifling 

 causes, and his vested interests in the issues were compounded. By this composition the tercius denarius 

 was allowed out of all fines and impositions levied in the diocesan courts. When Bishop Halton collated 

 Peter de Insula in 1302, he made it clear that the new archdeacon should not meddle with matters 

 requiring judicial investigation contrary to the custom observed in that diocese for thirty years or more 

 (Carl. Epis. Reg. Halton, f. 62). By a constitution of the diocesan synod, the archdeacon or his official 

 was forbidden to exercise coercive power (ibid. Welton, ff. 129-40). From the date of the composition, 

 above referred to, the archdeacon of Carlisle lost all title to a disciplinary jurisdiction, and as long as 

 the office was reckoned a constitutional department of diocesan administration, the bishops never relin- 

 quished control of the courts to which their clergy owed allegiance. 



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