Page:VCH Norfolk 2.djvu/341

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY in their parishes but not in their parsonages, there being 326 benefices without parsonage houses, and 162 with parsonages not fit fior residence. Out of 237 licences for non-residence, 202 were on account of no houses or unfit houses, 29 on account of ill-health, 6 only for causes unspecified. By the seventh year of his episcopate, 100 additional parsonage houses had been erected, and by the twelfth year 173. In 1842 another change^ was made, by the revival of the office of rural dean, two rural deans being generally appointed to each deanery. Dean Stanley says that non-residence, pluralities, carelessness in admis- sion to holy orders, and imperfect administration of the rites of baptism and burial, had made the diocese a by-word for laxity, but that the abundance and contiguity of churches peculiar to East Anglia, rendered some of the omissions of service less hurtful in reality than by statistics they appeared to be ; and similarly the non-residence and pluralities, which resulted from the same causes as well as from the extreme smallness of many stipends,^ in many cases were an evil more apparent than real. At the time of his entrance upon office party feeling in the county of Norfolk and city of Norwich is described as having been as strong as anywhere in the kingdom ; and Bishop Stanley has been much criticized for having proposed for the vacant archdeaconry of Norfolk in 1846 a canon of Norwich who in 1840 had set on foot a petition to the House of Lords praying ' that the letter of the Prayer Book and the subscription to the Articles and liturgy might be rendered consistent with the practice of the clergy, and the acknow- ledged meaning of the Church of England.' The clergy petitioned the bishop not to make the appointment, but he refused to take the memorial unless the memorialists explained in what sense each understood the passages in the liturgy to which the archdeacon-elect had objected ; and as they declined to do so he persevered in his intention till the discovery of a legal obstacle prevented him from carrying it into effect. In 1843 he co-operated heartily with Father Matthew in a campaign he was conducting in Norwich, not only appearing on his platform, but enter- taining him as his guest. The zeal and earnestness which made the twelve years of his episcopacy an epoch in the history of the see were accompanied by a sympathy for the efforts then being made in every direction, which was not always understood by his contemporaries ; and his great dislike of high church views did not prevent him from being accused of belonging to that section, while his ready co-operation with dissenters led to his being said to prefer dissent. But any ill-feeling that may at first have been roused against ' William Dansey, Horae Decanicae Rurales, 446. Rural deans had ceased to exist in 1 540, when according to Blomefield, they all came into the bishop's hands, and their jurisdiction into the archdeacon's. But they seem to have been re-instituted on Bishop Freake's suggestion, for we are told by Dr. Prideaux (Directions to Churchwardens, 9th ed. 179) that they continued here, and made their annual presentations. Bishop Wren denied that the office existed in his answer to his impeachment. On the restoration the keeping of synods and appointing of rural deans were both ' let down ' by Bishop Reynolds, a Presbyterian in principle. Bishop Lloyd at his primary visitation went so far as to name rural deans, but found such opposition that he desisted. ' A table of the incomes of benefices in the diocese given at p. 72 shows that in 1837 they stood as follows ; 33 below j^50 ; 99 between ^^50 and ;^loo ; 108 between ;^loo and ^^150 ; 99 between /150 and ^^zoo; 163 between ^^zoo and ^^300 ; lii between ^3°° ^nd /4°° 5 9° between X+°° ^^^ £S'^° ! 7^ between j^500 and j^6oo ; 32 between ;^6oo and ^^700; 24 between /700 and ;^8oo ; 14 between /800 and jf90O ; 6 between £900 and ^^1,000 ; 6 between j^i,ooo and ^^1,200 ; 5 between /l,200 and ^^1,500 ; and I above ^{^2,000.