Canonries, two Deaneries and the Mastership of St. Leonard's, York, before his promotion to the see of Coventry and Lichfield, retaining the last-mentioned benefice, contrary to all precedent, after his promotion to the episcopal bench. According to canon law it was forbidden to hold incompatible benefices; the offenders knew it, and found refuge in dispensations. They were in many instances supported by the King, who, being responsible for the payment of his civil servants, provided their needed wage by means of ecclesiastical preferments.

We might be disposed at first sight to censure the rapacity of these well-endowed clergymen. Some of them, however, such as Langton himself, or William de Wykham (Canon of Auckland) or Simon de Langham (Rector of Wearmouth) were generous benefactors to national and local needs. The country is richer to-day for their well-spent wealth. These were, of course, exceptional men. But the services of many others were required for the transaction of public business, and such persons were naturally sought for in the one and only class which was possessed of any sort of education.

It was well known that society was in the Middle Ages divided into three sections: First the King and his Nobility, whose business it was to defend the realm: next the men whose gift was knowledge and whose work lay in the direction of enlightening the minds and regulating the lives of its Christian population and lastly the Commons of the realm, whose labour provided the necessary supplies of food. Roughly speaking, we may call them (1) the men who fought; (2) the men who thought; (3) the men who wrought. It may be observed that the men who thought would naturally be the men who taught.

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The second of our three classes went by the name of the Clergy. It will be observed by those who turn over the pages of this volume that the north-eastern diocese provided the country with a considerable number of eminent lawyers and statesmen it would have been much more noticeable had our cathedral been left, like those of York and Lincoln, in the hands of secular clergy. The business of these clergymen was to supply the brains needed for the government of the country, and especially of its domestic government. They were the King's and the nation's clerks, dealing with all questions of public administration. They were the judges of the realm; they were the premiers and chancellors; they were the treasurers and auditors of the public funds. And some of them were doctors of repute.

The secular clergy were busy people, and did not all of them neglect their clerical duties. They were often fond of their

country homes and neighbours. So we find John Walwayn, controller of the King's household, desires at death to be buried at his Church of Brancepeth; and this was done at his royal master's expense in 1350. William Dalton, the King's Treasurer who died in 1371, bequeaths fifty pounds to the poor of his parish at Houghton, assigning to each township its peculiar share of his bounty: we conclude that he knew the circumstances of his parishioners. The secular clergy, or some of them, knew how to be affectionate and human. Their homely feeling is hardly what we find amongst the Regulars.

The one great attachment of the monk was towards his convent and its church. A well-known instance of this occurs in the will of Simon de Langham, Rector of Wearmouth, and (previously) Archbishop of Canterbury. His large fortune was left to the Abbey of Westminster, of which he was long a member and in course of time abbot.

We must not, however, suppose that the monks were lacking in charity. They gave alms freely to the poor, they were considerate towards their tenants and hospitable to wayfarers. The passing of their estates into other hands has burdened us with the institution of the poor rate. But the one thing nearest to their hearts was the glory of their conventual church. If a man or community has a passion for building, much and more money is continually required. The common impression is that the monks consumed their wealth in the pleasures of the table. This may be partially true; but after all there is a limit to appetite, and all really sane persons have something better to think of than mere eating and drinking. The monk no doubt appreciated his meals, but he rejoiced much more in the magnificence of his church. This was an expensive matter, and money had to be found for it; and so there arose the mischievous custom of the appropriation of churches.

This could be done with the consent of the patron and the Bishop. The patrons were in many instances the very persons who sought to profit by the transaction, or they might be laymen, nobles or otherwise. The Regulars were themselves men of good position and manners; some of them men of popular gifts, and shrewd in favour of their interests. And so in many parishes there came about the extinction of the Rector and his replacement by the Perpetual Vicar, who was to live on one-third of the income belonging legally to his church. The same process was unfortunately adopted in regard to the great secular establishments-Cathedrals and Collegiate Churches.

The spoilers would no doubt have their own arguments. They would say that single men did not require very large incomes; that there was no need to create new parishes.

And

so all parties seem to have thought. Attempts were once made to divide the parishes of Botnal and Wearmouth, but they were soon suppressed. In other cases, viz., Stanhope, Houghton-le-Spring, Haughton-le-Skerne, Washington, Mitford and Whittingham, there had been a duplication of parsons; Ponteland had tried the experiment of three simultaneous rectors, but these arrangements were not lasting.

There was no demand for more parish churches: there was no sufficient increase of population to justify such a demand. The Bishop had no wish to provide fresh establishments for monks. But there were openings here and there for that class of clergy whose general usefulness to the Church and to the country is testified over and over again in the pages of our book. The secular clergy found common homes in the Collegiate Churches.

There were five of these in the diocese, all of them in the county of Durham; Auckland, Darlington and Norton, Chester and Lanchester. There was also a college at Staindrop, an institution of a less public character, provided by the Nevilles for their own dependents, and in their private patronage. The colleges of Auckland, Darlington and Norton are said to have been manned by secular priests displaced from Durham Cathedral in the year 1085. No provision was made for Deans to preside over these capitular establishments, the result being that at Auckland, where there were twelve Canons, the Parish Priest retained his original pre-eminence, under the style of Rector, Vicar or Dean, a Dean being at last formally appointed in the year 1292; at Norton there was never any such official, but the Vicar of that parish received an income distinctly larger than that of any of the eight Portioners, whilst at Darlington the Church was in the hands of a small body of persons, known as the Four Masters, no Dean being instituted till 1439. A further foundation of Collegiate bodies took place under Bishop Bek, Lanchester being added in 1283, and Chester-le-Street in 1286, each of these churches receiving a Dean and seven Canons, the right of presentation to both Deaneries and Canonries being vested in the Bishop of the diocese.

Numerous references to these dignitaries occur in contemporary documents. It has been possible to collect the names of some four hundred of these Canons for publication in this volume. Not a few of them were in their own day leading personages in the affairs of Church and State. They were probably to a large extent non-resident, but here again must not pronounce any sweeping judgment. In the early part of the thirteenth century Robert Baldock, Rector of Whickham and a future Lord Chancellor, claimed to have

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been a very constant residentiary in the Collegiate Church of Chester, and the fact was not denied.

The large staff of clergy in these churches was maintained by a redistribution of church funds. It was otherwise with the Free Hospitals, so called because they were exempt from the attentions of the Archdeacons. These and a small number of Free Chapels were in the care of clerical masters, subject to the personal control of the Bishop. The best known of these were the Hospitals of Kepier, Sherburn and Gretham; among the smaller hospitals were those of St. Edmund the King and St. Edmund the Bishop, both in Gateshead, and Baithel Hospital at Darlington. Not all of these survived, but the tact and courage of Bishop Tunstall saved Sherburn, and Gretham Hospital was re-endowed by the munificence of King James the First. The Hospitals of St. Mary the Virgin and St. Mary Magdalen in Newcastle are still in existence. There were very few Free Chapels in this diocese. The only one of note was that of St. Mary at Jesmond, which was governed from time to time by some distinguished masters. The Lambton family had a small Free Chapel at East Briggford.

Something by way of explanation is needed in regard to the designations, the duties, and the conditions of some of the mediaeval clergy.

There was probably a succession of suffragan bishops, whose services were necessary, when, as frequently happened, the Bishop of Durham had business at the King's Court. They appear to have been generally bishops of Irish sees who were not wanted in their own dioceses.

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The Bishopric of Durham had and continues to have two Chancellors-the Temporal Chancellor who presides in the Palatinate Court of Chancery, and another dignitary whose correct designation is that of the Spiritual Chancellor. appears to be identical with the Bishop's Official, whose name occurs not infrequently in our pages. The Vicar-General, when you meet with the name, is understood to be a person possessed of larger powers.

The Deans of the Collegiate Churches have been already mentioned. They, of course, are quite distinct from the Deans of Christianity who appear from time to time in the course of our records. These were four or five in number. One of them is to be found at Durham; another at Darlington previously to the constitution of a Deanery in the Collegiate Church: a third occurs at Corbridge; the other two were Deans of Northumberland, on this and on the other side of the Coquet. They are all of them what we should call Rural Deans. From the slender evidence which we have at our disposal we find that their duties were connected with faith and worship. This is

probably the cause of their somewhat infrequent occurrence; there were no serious disputes concerning matters of faith, there were few irregularities in worship till the close of the period with which we deal; the Deans of Christianity had little or no work to do.

The Archdeacons on the other hand, to whom (we know not why) it appertained to correct irregularities of conduct, were busily employed in fining offenders. Hence it follows that there was much competition for the office of Archdeacon. One of the most successful of all candidates must have been Peter de Insula, who held no less than five Archdeaconries. But there is another side to the picture. The Archdeacons, as contemporary literature shows, were far from popular persons.

The Rector of a parish was generally called the Parson, a name never applied to the Perpetual Vicar. The man who occupied the parson's house and did his work was said to be incumbent. All clergy not otherwise designated were called Chaplains.

It was practically a universal custom amongst the clergy to take for their surname the name of the place where each of them had been born (princes and even sovereigns were similarly designated). The well-known case of Bishop Bury will remind us of this. Thomas d'Aungerville was a native of Bury St. Edmunds. But this practice was not very agreeable to men of noble birth-the Cliffords, the Percies, the Nevilles or the Scropes; they were no doubt proud of their parentage, often with good reason. For us this old custom has proved useful; we know whence the clergy came, and find clues to their various connections.

Reference is made occasionally in our pages to the functionary known as Master of the Converts. The converts were Jews, who had become Christians and needed protection. The Jews had their own settlement (or Jewry) in all our principal towns. They were the only class of persons who had money to lend. The King and his nobles were always in want of money, and had many transactions with them. At last Edward I expelled them from the kingdom. He had thus to find his bankers elsewhere; and these, in the first instance, were Italians, whose names will be easily recognized. Then in spite of his proud spirit of independence the King had to ask aid from the Pope, who provided him with information as to the value of each and every English benefice. This is called Pope Nicholas' Taxation. The King had the lists revised, and by a Papal grant exacted aid from the English clergy. In course of time there were no Jewish converts left they had been absorbed into the general population. Their house then passed into the hands of the Master of the Rolls.