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DISTRICTS ASSIGNED TO ARCHDEACONS.
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civitaiis. He also appointed a Chantor, or Precentor.
Provision was further made for endowing
any future canons wlio might be added to the number
then constituted. Thomas of Bayeux was peculiarly
circumspect in the selection of his canons, and not less
so as regarded the clergy of his diocese. " His speciall
care " (to quote Bishop Godwin's quaint words) "was
to replenish the church and the rest of his dioces with
learned and honest men, with whom he was wont
continually to conferre and reason (sometimes with
one and sometimes with another), partly for his owne
exercise, and partly to see what was in them, and to
raise them uppe to a diligence in increasing their
knowledge." ^
The dispersion of the canons of the Minster at the
time when the Conqueror carried out his ruthless
devastation of so large a tract of country, would, no
doubt, be accompanied or followed by the wholesale
scattering of the parochial clergy. The parochial
system had unquestionably become a recognised
mode of working, long anterior to the Norman conquest.
The Domesday Survey in very many instances
mentions churches in connection with the vills and
towns which it records, and we can scarcely doubt
that they had been the work of the Saxon lords, with
the exception, possibly, of a few which might have
arisen under the energetic rule of Archbishop Thomas,
in the short interval between his accession to the see
and the compilation of that great record. To assist
him in the supervision of the parochial clergy, Thomas
assigned certain districts to archdeacons. This was
'
Bishop Godwin's " Catal.,'' p. 576.
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