ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 

 APPENDIX II 



ECCLESUSTICJL DIVISIONS OF THE COUNTr 



Until the tenth century the churches of the present county were under the jurisdiction of the 

 bishops and archbishops of York; from that date down to the Reformation those south of the Ribble 

 were mcluded in the diocese of Lichfield and province of Canterbury ; those north of that river 

 remaining in the diocese and province of York. On the creation of archdeaconries they were 

 respectively assigned to the jurisdiction of the archdeacons of Chester and Richmond. Henry VIII 

 united them in 1541, with the rest of the two archdeaconries, in the new diocese of Chester, which 

 was assigned at first to the province of Canterbury, but transferred almost immediately to that of 

 York. 



The original number and limits of the rural deaneries are uncertain. In the diocese of 

 Lichfield one Jordan occurs as dean of Manchester during the years 1178-96 ; ^ there is a record 

 of proceedings in the chapter of Warrington early in the thirteenth century,^ and about the same 

 time or earlier a decision professing to be given by the chapter of Blackburn.^ The fact that the 

 proceedings in the former case related to the chapel of Samlesbury, which was afterwards in the 

 deanery of Blackburn, and that the decision in the latter was reported to the archdeacon by ' W. 

 clericus de Wygan,' suggests the possibility that Blackburn may be a misreading here, and that that 

 parish was then included in the deanery of Warrington.* The later deanery of Blackburn con- 

 tained only two parishes, Blackburn and WhalJey ; if Blackburn was originally in Warrington 

 deanery some light is perhaps thrown upon the title of dean borne by the hereditary rectors of 

 Whalley down to the second quarter of the thirteenth century.* 



It may have been on the suppression of the hereditary deanery of Whalley that the two 

 parishes were annexed to the deanery of Manchester, as they are found when the Taxation of 

 Pope Nicholas was made in 129 1.* In that year the three deaneries in Coventry and Lichfield 

 diocese were within the archdeaconry of Chester, and were as follows : — 



Manchester and Blackburn, containing the twelve parishes of Ashton-under-Lyne, Black- 

 burn, Bolton (not taxed), Bury, Eccles, Flixton, Manchester, Middleton, Prestwich, 

 Radcliffe (not taxed), Rochdale, Whalley. 



Warrington, containing the thirteen parishes of Childwall, Huyton, Halsall, Leigh, 

 Ormskirk, Prescot, Sefton, Walton-on-the-Hill, Warrington, Wigan, Winwick, Aughton 

 and North Meols, the last two not taxed. 



Leyland, containing the five parishes of Croston, Eccleston, Leyland, Penwortham, Standish. 



By 1535, the date of the Fa/or Ecchsiasticus, a separate deanery of Blackburn, containing the 

 parishes of Blackburn, Eccles, Rochdale, Whalley, had come into existence, and a sixth parish 

 (Brindle) had been formed in the deanery of Leyland, but there was no other change. 



In the parts of the county which lay in the diocese of York the original arrangements seem 

 to have been subjected to a still more drastic alteration in the thirteenth century. In 1178 mention 

 is found of an Adam, dean of Amounderness,' and from about that date to 1205 of an Adam, dean 

 of Kirkham (or ' Adam of Kirkham then dean '), and of an Adam dean of Lancaster, and a ruri- 

 decanal chapter of Lancaster.* It seems not improbable that the three Adams are but one person, 

 who was rector of Kirkham in Amounderness and dean of Lancaster.' Adam may have been an 

 hereditary dean, but during the first half of the thirteenth century the deanery of Lancaster was 

 held at various times by the rectors of Garstang,^" Kirkby Ireleth," Thornton,^^ Tatham,^' and 

 (c 1250) Halton." The names of the rectors present at recorded chapters and the locality of the 

 matters brought before them suggest that the area of the deanery was at first even wider than the 



* Lanes. Pipe R. 38, 97. ' Coucher Book of Whalley, 89. ' Ibid. 91. 



* Geoffrey de Buclcley's resignation of the tithes of Rochdale to Stanlaw Abbey between 1224 and 1235 

 was also made in the Warrington Chapter (ibid. 143). ' \h\d.. passim. 



* Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 249. It might, however, be held that the joint title implies the pre- 

 vious existence of an independent deanery of Blackburn. 



' Lanes. Pipe R. 38. ' Ibid. passim. 



' The dean of Lancaster must necessarily have held some benefice other than Lancaster, for that was 

 appropriated to the priory. 



'" Cockersand Chart. (Chet. Soc), 1039. 



" Lanes. Pipe R. 365. If R. de Kirkby here is the Roger parson of Kirkby Ireleth who flourished at 

 this date. 



" Coueher of Furness, 435. " Chureh of Lancaster (Chet. Soc), 362, 392. Ibid. 43 1. 



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