york00orns

114 YORK.
not a new office, for they are mentioned in the Laws
of the Northumbrian priests, but they probably now
Imd more definite duties imposed upon them. During
Archbishop Thomas' episcopate there were possibly
not more than two archdeaconries, York and Richmond.
The latter was the richest in the kingdom,
and its district of very wide extent. It included
eight deaneries, Boroughbridge, Catterick, Richmond,
Lonsdale, Kendal, Amounderness, Furness, and Copeland.
If the archdeacon of York was the only other
oculus episcopi his duties would be yet more onerous.
In the succeeding century we find a record of the
names of those who filled the office of archdeacon in
the several districts of the East Riding, of Cleveland,
and of Nottingham.
The canons of York were seculars, as has already
been noticed {aiite, p. 89.) Beverley and Ripon were
under the same system, as was also Southwell. The
canons of Ripon are mentioned in Domesday.
When Thomas came to the see the monastic system
in Northumbria had absolutely disappeared. The
Benedictine rule had no longer any existence. Its
restoration had a very humble beginning. The prior
of the monastery of AVinchcombe, Aldwin by name,
had learned from the pages of Bede that the Northumbrian
province had, in days gone by, been famous
for many holy places, inhabited by saintly men whose
sole object was to live a life of prayei- and to be as
lights amid the darkness around. He ardently longed
to visit the places which were associated with the
memories of these servants of God, and, if it might
be, to repair their desolation. He went to the monas-