ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY do know that they suffered considerably, and that the almost immediate effect of the Danish revolution was that the East Anglian Episcopate was very seriously impoverished. Possibly during the time when our record fails to give us even the names of any bishops, episcopal functions may have been discharged by some bishop of another see, as in the cases of Deodred, who held the see of Elmham with the bishopric of London in the tenth century, or of Stigand, who held it with the archbishopric of Canterbury, and of Grimketel, who again held it with the bishopric of Selsey in the nth. In any case, though, we hear of no great cathedral or important bishop's house in East Anglia, nor till quite the end of this period, or of anybody, whether of monks or canons associated with the bishop as an organized council of assessors, helping him in the discipline and administration of the diocese ; ^ it is nevertheless manifest that in the nth century the bishop of Elmham was a prelate with a large revenue and considerable patronage at his disposal, and occupy- ing a position eagerly coveted by unscrupulous ecclesiastics, not too nice in the means which they resorted to for securing to themselves so important a piece of preferment. APPENDIX NO. Ill ECCLESIASTICAL DIVISIONS OF THE COUNTY Felix was the first bishop of East Anglia, and Bede in his ecclesiastical history says that in 630 or 636 he established a cathedral and palace at Seham or Soham in Cambridgeshire.^ His diocese would then consist of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire. The see was almost imme- diately removed to Dunmoc (Dunwich) in Suffolk by Felix. After the resignation of Bishop Bisi, the fourth bishop, about 673, the diocese was divided under two bishops, one bishop having his see at Dunwich, and the other at Elmham. Bartholomew Cotton, in giving a list of the bishops of Elmham and bishops of Dunwich from 673 to 785, calls them the two bishops of the East Angles.' In the time of Egbert the bishops had been so much impoverished by the incursions of Ludecanus, king of the Mercians, that the division of the bishopric of East Anglia into halves, or a northern and a southern bishopric, ceased, and one bishopric was made out of the two, having its seat at Elmham,^ and consisting of the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, and part of Cambridgeshire. Herfast, bishop of the East Angles, translated the see to Thetford,' about 1075 ; and Herbert de Losinga removed it to Norwich in 1093, in consequence of the determination of a council held by Archbishop Lanfranc that all bishops' sees should be placed in the most eminent towns of their diocese.^ Under the year 1 121 Bartholomew Cotton states that the bishopric of Norwich consisted of four archdeaconries and forty-five deaneries ; the archdeaconry of Norwich with twelve deaneries ; of Norfolk with twelve deaneries ; of Suffolk with thirteen deaneries ; and of Sudbury with eight deaneries. He gives the deaneries in Norfolk as : In the Archdeaconry of Norwich — Norwycum vel Taverham Holt Brekles Blafeud Walsingham ' Lenniam Ingwrthe Toftes Teford Sparham Brisele Fleg In the Archdeaconry of Norfolk — Reppes Brok Fincham Humilierd Redenhale Hecham Depwade Rokelund Dunham Waxtonesham Kenewiche Hengham ' The will of Bishop ^Ifric, however, proves that there was a body of priests at Elmham, who must have stood to the bishops in the relation of a chapter, probably oi secular canons, and concerning whom in the Synod of Celchyth, it was advised or enacted ' ut Episcopi diligent! cura provideant quo omnes canonici ui canonice vivants' (see Hadden & Stubbs, vol. iii, p. 450, s. 4). Mr. Hunt has some Taluable remarks on this subject in his Hist, of the Engl. Ch. to the Norm. Conq. 239. ' Hist. Eccl. ii, 15. ' De Episcopis Norviicensibus (Rolls Ser.), 387. * Ibid. 388. ' Ibid. 389.
- Taylor, InJex Monasticus, xxix.
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