III. ITEM, All non-resydents to be called home and constrayned to resydence upon their charge, so far as the lawe will warrant. And all those who be lawfullie absent from their benefyces, to maintain and keepe a godly preacher there duringe the tyme of their absence, at the discretion of their Ordinarie, yf the lyvinge be able to bear it.

IV. ITEM, Every preacher or expounder of the word in any church or congregation to be present at Common Prayer in the saide churche or congregation, and to receive the communion there four times in the yeare at the least.

V. ITEM, If any minister be known not to observe the orders of the book of Common Prayer, in saying the service and administering the sacraments and other rytes and ceremonies therein conteyned, that he be sent for presently and injoyned to reform his disorder, and to certifye his saide reformation; which if he do not, then ordinary proceedinge to be used against him, according to lawe.

VI. ITEM, All recusants and specialie those of the best sorte, to be proceeded against effectuallie, and speedilie, so farre as the law will yeelde power.

VII. ITEM, Those that do not communicate, to be dealt withal by the Ordinarie in such wyse and godlie manner, as shall seem best unto him for their reformation.

VIII. ITEM, Noe permutation of any penaunce to be made by any officer whatsoever without special lycense from the Ordinarie under his hand.

This letter arises out of the Canons of 1604, which were valid for both provinces.

XIV.

A LETTER TO DR. ABBOT FROM KING JAMES I ABOUT THE PROCEEDINGS OF CONVOCATION.

[Welwood's Memoirs, p. 32].

Good doctor Abbot,

I cannot abstain to give you my judgement of your proceedings in your convocation, as you call it; and both as "rex in solio," and "unus gregis in ecclesia," I am doubly concerned. My title to the crown no body calls in question, but they that neither love you nor me; and you guess whom I mean. All that you and your brethren have said of a King in possession (for that word, I tell you, is no worse than that you make use of in your canon) concerns me not at all; I am the next heir, and the crown is mine by all rights you can name, but that of conquest; and Mr. Solicitor has sufficiently expressed my own thoughts concerning the nature of Kingship in general, and concerning the nature of it "ut in mea persona "; and I believe you were all of his opinion; at least none of you said ought contrary to it, at the time he spake to you from me. But you know all of you, as I think, that my reason of calling you together was to give your judgements how far a christian and a protestant King may concur to assist his neighbours to shake off their obedience to their once sovereign, upon the account of oppression, tyranny, or what else you like to name it. In the late Queen's time this Kingdom was very free in assisting the Hollanders both with arms and advice. And none of your coat ever told me that any scrupled about it in her reign. Upon my coming to England you may know that it came from some of yourselves to raise scruples about this matter. And albeit I have often told my mind concerning "jus regium in subditos," as in May last in the Starchamber, upon the occasion of Hales his pamphlet, yet I never took any notice of these scruples, till the affairs of Spain and Holland forc'd me

to it. All my neighbours call on me to concur in the treaty between Holland and Spain; and the honour of the nations will not suffer the Hollanders to be abandoned, especially after so much mony and men spent in their quarrel. Therefore I was of the mind to call my clergy together, to satisfy not so much me as the world, about us, of the justness of my owning the Hollanders at this time. This I needed not have done, and you have forced me to say, I wish I had not. You have dipped too deep into what all kings reserve among the "arcana imperii.” And whatever aversion you may profess against God's being the author of sin, you have stumbled upon the threshold of that opinion, in saying upon the matter, that even tyranny is God's authority, and should be reverenced as such. If the King of Spain should return to claim his old pontifical right to my kingdom, you leave me to seek for others to fight for it; for you tell us upon the matter before hand, his authority is God's authority, if he prevail. [Thus far the secretary's hand, as I take it; the rest follows in the King's own hand].

Mr. Doctor. I have no time to express my mind further in this thorny business, I shall give my orders about it by Mr. Solicitor, and until then meddle no more in it, for they are edge tools, or rather, like that weapon, that's said to cut with one edge and cure with the other. I commit you to God's protection, good Doctor Abbot

and rest

Your good friend,

James R.

XV.

NOTE ON THE POSITION OF DECANI.

The Deans were usually summoned with other dignitaries to Convocations; and for the most part they were doubtless the persons at the head of the Cathedral clergy, though this sometimes would not suit the case. In many cathedrals no such officer appears till the time

of the Reformation; he then, fulfilling the old statement that the Prior and the Dean were really the same person, came into public notice, as the head of the newly created capitular body. On the other hand, when "Decani " are summoned, there is no indication whether they were the two main sets of Deans (or one of them) with which we are now familiar, i.e., the Deans of Cathedrals and the Rural Deans, or whether the name meant only those deans of capitular or conventual churches, of whom some few, such as the Dean of Bocking in Essex and the Dean of Battle in Sussex still remain. There is, unfortunately, no proof that any Deans responded to the summons save those of the Cathedral cities. The lists of names (with the exception of the Provinciale Concilium of 1310) do not begin till the Reformation time. The title may come from the "head man of ten," and there seems some ground for the assertion that an attempt was made to organize the Benedictine Houses into groups of Decuries of ten, the first of each of these being the Dean.

The use of the plural word, "decanos," placed sometimes before, sometimes after Archidiaconos in a document addressed to the Bishop of Durham, proves that it must refer to deans other than the Deans of Cathedrals. In the Palatinate Diocese there were Deans of Darlington, and of Lanchester. We know that the "Cathedral and Collegiate Churches" were summoned to send their representatives. This may account for the plural form.

XVI.

THE DECANUS CHRISTIANITATIS.

The Dean of Christianity, whose name appears in the Commission issued by Archbishop Grenefeld in 1310, was an officer charged with grave duties. We learn that he had to look into cases of misconduct among the clergy, to hear confessions, impose penances, and, as in this special case, to act as jailor, keeping religious persons, such as the Templars, under lock and key in the Castle

at York. He was responsible for them, and had to produce them, when so ordered by the Concilium Provinciale. I have found a most interesting paper in the Treasury at Durham: a mandate addressed to the Dean of Christianity of the Diocese of Durham by the official of Bishop Skirlaw in 1396. This Dean of Christianity, William of Esshe (near Durham), is bidden to cite the Prior and Convent of Durham, the Archdeacon, all Deans of Collegiate Churches, rectors, vicars, and masters of Hospitals to appear in St. Nicholas' Church in the market-place of Durham city to elect a proctor for the Archdeaconry of Durham. He undoubtedly was a Rural Dean, and fulfilled these and other duties.

When Dr. Burn, in his Ecclesiastical Law, 1763, treats of Deans and Chapters, he tells us that there are four kinds of Deans, but he does not name this special officer. It cannot be doubted that the special officer styled the Decanus Christianitatis was really the Rural Dean of the district round the Cathedral. Mr. Dansey, in his exhaustive work, the Horae decanicae rurales (2 vols., 1836), collects a mass of documentary information respecting Rural Deans generally, as well as about the corresponding offices of the Periodetae, the Archipresbyteri, the Protopappae, and the often-discussed Chorepiscopi. In his researches he often meets with this special title of Decanus Christianitatis, in England and abroad, and he seems to show that he was a kind of chief or central Rural Dean. His duties were the same, though enlarged, as those of other Rural Deans. He appears chiefly to have had a broad charge of the moralities and conduct of the clergy.

We find the office named in 1254. under that Bishop Walter of Norwich, who was the originator of the Taxatio Norvicensis.. Walter Suffield was then acting as the Pope's agent for the collection of money towards a Crusade (Dansey, II, 419). "Negotii Crucis executor a sede apostolica delegatus Decano Christianitatis