ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY resident in his bishopric is afforded by the fact that in 1240 the pope ordered him to certify how many Italians were beneficed in his diocese, and what was the value of their benefices. If the bishop sent in any reply in return it has apparently perished. So far as may be judged from the existing lists of beneficed clergy at this time, they do not bear out the assertion, so often repeated, that the Norwich diocese had any great number of these foreign intruders, whatever may have been the case elsewhere. Bishop William obtained the wish of his heart at last, for, little more than four years after his election to the East Anglian see, he was again chosen bishop of Winchester. During the seventy years that had passed since the death of Bishop William Turbe, five prelates had borne some sort of rule over the Norwich diocese. Not one of them was better than an able man of the world, or gave indication of being actuated by any lofty idea of the sacredness of his calling. They were one and all mere lawyers or politicians playing the game for preferment, and having won it, bent only on getting all they could out of it. It may safely be affirmed that during quite half of those seventy years the bishops of Norwich were non-resident, and during the other half they were faineants. The city of Norwich itself appears to have been in a condition of chronic anarchy. The Jews in the place were continually subject to every sort of violence and persecution, only (so far can be inferred from the evidence that comes before us) because they were the most prosperous class, and living, in the main, industrious and inoffensive lives. Their occupation as pawnbrokers among the working classes, and as bankers and financiers among the people of consideration lay and clerical, made them the objects of fierce hatred to all the needy, the greedy, and the improvident.* As with the bishops, so with the clergy. The researches of John Pits in the sixteenth century enabled him to give some account of just one hundred English writers and scholars who were more or less famous during those seventy years, but not a single Norfolk man appears among them. In the century that followed things were very different indeed. There was a grievous need of some great awakening of religious conviction and sentiment in East Anglia ; when it came ' the fire ran along the ground.' The rule of the non-resident bishops of Norwich had lasted more than seventy years when William Raleigh was promoted to the see of Winchester in 1244. There are interesting indications that during all that time the state of the diocese was what might have been expected. Everywhere else in England splendid work in the building of churches and cathedrals was going on. At Norwich it seems to have been difficult to keep the great church of the diocese in repair, and specimens of twelfth and early thirteenth century churches in Norfolk are rarer perhaps than in any equal area to be found in England. Moreover, the non-residence of the bishops during these seventy years appears to have told upon the discipline of the clergy in more ways than one. We hear of no such diocesan synods as brought the bishop into close and personal relations with his clergy in the earlier times, and being left to ' See a remarkable paper on the infamous persecution of the Norwich Jews by Mr. Walter Rye in the first volume of the A'or. Antiq. Misc. 312. 229
