ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



to the bishop. One feature of these schedules is always present, that is, the salary of the dean. 

 The bishop employed him to collect the spiritualities arising within his deanery from synodals, 

 corrections and testamentary causes, and awarded him his annual allowance for the service 

 rendered. 



There are two questions, not without interest at the present day, about the ancient 

 position of rural deans in the scheme of diocesan administration, that deserve a passing notice, 

 namely, their relation to the archdeacon and to the rural chapter. It does not appear that the 

 archdeacon had any power over them at the date when the diocesan registers begin to give 

 us guidance. They were the officers of the bishop alone. When the archdeacon ' disposed 

 himself ' to make his visitation in 1356, it was the bishop who sent out instructions to the rural 

 deans for the citation of abbots, priors, rectors, vicars and others to appear on the days and at 

 the places appointed. It was not the duty of the deans to drudge for the archdeacon. When 

 the clergy were slack in their payment of archidiaconal dues, some of the bishops used the deans 

 to urge the clergy into an early discharge of their liability. Bishop Welton had an arrange- 

 ment with his archdeacon whereby the rural deans collected them for him. 1 In the rural 

 chapters we might have expected the deans to have had pre-eminence, but that was not the 

 case. The holding of chapters in the diocese of Carlisle was regulated by a constitution of 

 the diocesan synod. By this enactment it was the archdeacon or the official who was required 

 to celebrate rural chapters at places most convenient to the clergy, and not oftener than once 

 a month. 3 When arduous business was brought before this consultative body, the official 

 or the dean was commissioned to summon the clergy by mandate of the bishop. The presi- 

 dency of rural chapters was not vested in the dean. It was coram officiali that the business 

 was transacted. 



During the progress of the Reformation the usefulness of rural deans declined in this 

 diocese. Bishop Best found the old order in existence when he succeeded to the charge in 

 1561. The diocese, as he reported to the privy council in 1563, was divided into five ' regi- 

 ments,' one deanery of the cathedral church, and the four rural deaneries of Carlisle, Allerdale, 

 Cumberland, and Westmorland. He also supplied the names of the deans, the parishes within 

 each deanery, and the number of households within each parish. 3 This is the last mention of 

 rural deans that has been met with in the diocese. Though they ceased apparently to be 

 nominated, the ecclesiastical divisions were continued for various purposes up to the close 

 of the eighteenth century. In 1618 the diocese was assessed according to the above-named 

 deaneries ' for horse and armour ' by Bishop Snowden, 4 on the strength of ' letters from the 

 lords of his Majesty's most honourable privy council to him directed.' It was by the same 

 divisions that Bishop Rainbow made inquiries in 1668-9 about the condition of church plate 

 and church furniture after ' the long discontinuance of church government in those late times 

 of war and rebellion.' 5 The same bishop held his visitation in 1682 at the four principal 

 towns in these deaneries, at the cathedral for the deanery of Carlisle, at Wigton for Allerdale, 

 at Penrith for Cumberland, and at Appleby for Westmorland. 6 In 1752 Bishop Osbaldiston 

 collected his procurations and synodals by the same ecclesiastical divisions. 7 In later years 

 these rural deaneries came to be known by the names of their four principal towns, Carlisle, 

 Wigton, Penrith, and Appleby. 8 The tradition of the former existence of rural deaneries had 

 died out in the diocese in the time of Bishop Percy. That prelate was unable to trace them 

 in his diocesan registers ; writing on 28 September 1843 he said definitely that ' there are no 

 rural deans in the diocese of Carlisle ' ' It may be taken that for almost three centuries the 

 office was extinct in the northern diocese. 



It is to the credit of Bishop Villiers that it was he who revived the institution in our own 

 time. On i January 1858, by the stroke of his pen, he subdivided the diocese into eighteen 

 rural districts and nominated a beneficed clergyman in each district to be his dean. The 



i Carl. Epis. Reg. Welton, ff. 25, 28, 67. 

 Ibid. Appleby, f. 136 

 > Harl. MS. 594, f. 9. 

 4 Carl. Epis. Reg. Snowden, f. 249. 

 8 Ibid. Rainbow, ff. 460-1. 



Browne Willis gives the names of the deaneries as Allerdale, Carlisle, Penrith, and Westmorland 

 (A Survey of Cathedrals, i. 284). 



7 Manuscript schedule in Diocesan Registry. 



8 Nicolson and Burn, Hist, of Cumberland, ii. 6. 

 Dansey, Harts Decan. Rurales, ii. 371. 



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