The Medieval Archdeaconry and Tudor Bishopric of Chester
In 1541 the new bishopric of Chester was compounded of the archdeaconries of Richmond and Chester, severed respectively from the vast sees of York and Lichfield. The annexing of Chester to Richmond, though not originally intended, seemed reasonable on geographical grounds, since they had a common bo...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1969
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| In: |
The journal of ecclesiastical history
Year: 1969, Volume: 20, Issue: 2, Pages: 243-252 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In 1541 the new bishopric of Chester was compounded of the archdeaconries of Richmond and Chester, severed respectively from the vast sees of York and Lichfield. The annexing of Chester to Richmond, though not originally intended, seemed reasonable on geographical grounds, since they had a common boundary, the Ribble, in Lancashire. It may have been prompted also by the fact that since 1529 Dr. William Knight had held both archdeaconries in plurality, so that their surrender (for which he received the see of Bath and Wells) presented no great difficulties. As for the head of the diocese, Chester was the obvious place, having from 1075 to 1102 housed the cathedra which Lanfranc had moved from Lichfield; this brief elevation of Chester in the eleventh century was tenaciously commemorated long after the bishops had ceased to style themselves by that title in the 1140s, and as late as 1522 a royal minister in an official record could write of ‘the bishop of Chester’, meaning Blythe, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. Furthermore, Chester was the most substantial town in the proposed diocese and in it there was an institution fit to be a cathedral: St. Werburgh's abbey, of great antiquity and wealth, and lately dissolved. In Richmond archdeaconry the claims of Fountains abbey, at first seriously entertained, were jeopardised by its remote and sparsely inhabited location. Another factor, too, may have operated in the separation of Chester archdeaconry from the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, in its union with Richmond, and in its selection for the bishop's seat, for in some ways it had fitted as uncomfortably into that diocese as Richmond had into York. |
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| ISSN: | 1469-7637 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The journal of ecclesiastical history
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0022046900054671 |