Their holding attend these chapters, and to bring information of all irrerural chapters. gularities committed in their respective parishes. If the deans were, by sickness or urgent business, detained from their appearing and presiding in such conventions, they had power to constitute their sub-deans or vicegerents. The place of holding these chapters was at first in any one church within the district, where the minister of the place was to procure for, that is, to entertain the dean and his immediate officers. But because in parishes that were small and unfrequented, there was no fit accommodation to be had for so great a concourse of people; therefore in a council at London, under Archbishop Stratford, in the year 1342, it was ordained that such chapters should not be held in any obscure village, but in the larger or more eminent parishes (q). And one special reason why they seemed to have been formed in this realm after the manner of the courts baron is, because we find nothing of rural chapters in the ancient canon law (r). In pursuance of which institution of holding rural chapters and of the office of rural deans in inspecting the manners of clergy and people, and executing the bishop's processes for the reformation thereof, we find a constitution of Archbishop Peccham, by which it is required, that the priests, on every Sunday immediately following the holding of the rural chapter, shall expound to the people the sentence of excommunication (s). (9) Ken. 639, 640. Gibs. 973. Quia incontinentiæ vitium et infra. Constitutionem Domini Othoboni, contra Concubinarios editam Præcipimus inviolabiliter observari. Omnibusque et singulis coepiscopis suffraganeis nostris in virtute obedientiæ, et • Decanos rurales. On these words Lyndwood glosses as follows: De quibus loquitur decretalis ad hæc extra. de offi. Archi. Et sunt hi decani temporales ad aliquid ministerium sub episcopo vel archiepiscopo exercendum constituti, ut no. in eod. c. super ver., ab omnibus. per Inno. & Hostien. concor. in eod. c. & hos vocat Jo. An. in addi. testes synodales, de quibus sit mentio extra sub pœna suspensionis ab officio et beneficio quam in ipsos serimus, si sponte circa hoc fuerint negligentes, firmiter injungendo mandamus, quatenus constitutione prædicta faciant in quatuor anni principalibus capitulis ruralibus, per se vel eorum officiales, vel saltem per decanos rurales,* de testi. cogen. c. præterea. nec habent institutionem canonicam tanquam in beneficio, secundùm doctores prædictos: et de hujusmodi decanis etiam habetur de cens. c. cum Apostolis. in constitutione Othonis, Quod in quodam, et in constitutione, Quoniam tabellionum. Et dicuntur decani, eð quòd decem clericis sive parochiis præsint, secundùm Papiam et no. l. di. in capite post prin And in these chapters continually presided the rural deans, until that Otho, the pope's legate, required the archdeacons to be frequently present at them, who being superior to the rural deans did in effect take the presidency out of their hands; insomuch that in Edward the First's reign, John of Athon gives this account of it: "Rural chapters," says he, " at this day are holden by the archdeacon's officials, and sometimes by the rural deans." From which constitution of Otho we may date the decay of rural chapters; not only as it was a discouragement to the rural dean, whose peculiar care the holding of them had been, but also, as it was natural for the archdeacon and his official to draw the business that had been usually transacted there, to their own visitation, or, as it is styled in a constitution of Archbishop Langton, to their own chapter (u). And this office of inspecting and reporting the manners Their attendof the clergy and people rendered the rural deans neces- ance at the sary attendants on the episcopal synod or general visitation, tion. bishop's visitawhich was held for the same end of inspecting, in order to reformation. In which synods (or general visitation of the whole diocese by the bishop) the rural deans were the standing representatives of the rest of the clergy, and were there to deliver information of abuses committed within their knowledge, and to propose and consult the best methods of reformation. For the ancient episcopal synods (which were commonly held once a year) were composed of the bishop as president, and the deans cathedral or archipresbyters in the name of their collegiate body of presbyters or priests, and the archdeacons or deputies of the inferior order of deacons, and the urban and rural deans in the name of the parish ministers within their division, who vel gerentes eorum vices distinctè et apertè coram toto capitulo exclusis laicis recitari, quam recitationem pro monitione haberi volumus, ut liberè contra omnes vitiosos hujusmodi procedi valeat, ne causari possint, cùm ad executionem privationis in eos latæ sententialiter in constitutione prædictâ processum fuerit, se monitos non fuisse. Siqui autem prædictæ constitu cipium. per Arch. in Rosario, et facit ad item C. de Deca. lib. 12, ubi de hoc super rubr. (Lyndwood, tionis recitationem malitiosè im- Provinciale, lib. 1, tit. 2, pp. 10, Their attend ance at the bishop's visita tion. Their judicial were to have their expenses allowed to them according to the time of their attendance, by those whom they represented, as the practice obtained for the representatives of the people in the civil synods or parliament. But this part of their duty, which related to the information of scandals and offences, in progress of time devolved upon the churchwardens, and their other office of being convened to sit members of provincial and episcopal synods, was transferred to two proctors or representatives of the parochial clergy in every diocese to assemble in convocation, where the cathedral deans and archdeacons still kept their ancient right, whilst the rural deans have given place to an election of two only for every diocese, instead of one by standing place for every deanry (x). And albeit their office at first might be merely inspecand other tion, yet by degrees they became possessed of a power to authority, ordinary and judge and determine in smaller matters; and the rest they extraordinary. were to report to their ecclesiastical superiors (y). Their conti And by special delegation they had occasionally committed to them the probate of wills, and granting administration of the goods of persons intestate; the custody of vacant benefices, and granting institutions and inductions; and sometimes the decisions of testamentary causes, and of matrimonial causes, and matters of divorce. Of which there appear some footsteps in one of the legatine constitutions of Otho: by which it is enjoined, that the dean rural shall not thereafter intermeddle with the cognizance of matrimonial causes: and by another constitution of the same legate, he is commanded to have an authentic seal: all which shows, that anciently there was somewhat of jurisdiction intrusted with them (z). It is said that before their declining state, they were sometimes made a sort of chorepiscopi, or rural bishops: being commissioned by the diocesan to exercise episcopal jurisdiction, for the profits whereof they paid an annual rent: but as the primitive chorepiscopi had their authority restrained by some councils, and their very office by degrees abolished; so this delegation of the like privileges to rural deans, as a burden and scandal to the church, was inhibited by Pope Alexander III. and the Council of Tours (a). This office has been always of a temporary nature; and nuance in their is expressly declared so to be both by Lindwood and John de Athon. And this was the reason why the seals which office. (x) Ken. 648, 649. (y) Gibs. 972. (*) Ken. 641-644, 647; Gibs. 972; God. Append. 7. (a) Ken. 639. they had for the due return of citations, and for the dispatch of such business as they should be employed about, had only the name of the office (and not, as other seals of jurisdiction, the name of the person also) engraved in it (b). But in the diocese of Norwich, the admission of rural deans seems to have been more solemn than elsewhere, and their continuance perpetual: for whilst that see was vacant, in the time of Archbishop Whitlesey, several rural deans there were collated, whereas in other places they are only said to be admitted; and in an ancient metropolitical visitation of the same diocese, the first in every deanry is such a one perpetual dean (c). And perhaps several of the deans of peculiars may have sprung originally from rural deans. Finally, By the prescription and power of the arch- Their disuse. deacons and their officials, it happened, that in the next age before the reformation of our church, the jurisdiction of rural dean in this island declined almost to nothing. And at the Reformation, in the public acts of our reformers, no order was taken for the restoration of this part of the government of the church. In the Reformatio Legum this was provided for, but fell to the ground for want of confirmation by the legislative power. So that these rural officers in some deanries have become extinct, in others have only a name and shadow left. Nor do we find any express care further taken for the support of this office, but only in the provincial synod of convocation held at London, April 3, 1571, by which it was ordained, that "the archdeacon, when he hath finished his visitation, shall signify to the bishop what clergymen he hath found in every deanry so well endowed with learning and judgment, as to be worthy to instruct the people in sermons, and to rule and preside over others: out of these the bishop may chuse such as he will have to be rural deans." But this is rather a permission, than a positive command, for the continuance of that office: however it proves that rural deans were thought fit ministers to assist in dispensing the laws and discipline of our reformed church; and it does imply, that when they are deputed by the bishop they may exert all that power which by canon and custom resided in the said office before the Reformation. The little remains of this dignity and jurisdiction depend now on the custom of places and the pleasure of diocesans (d). (b) Gibs. 972. (c) Ibid. P. VOL. I. (d) Ken. 652, 653; God. Appendix, 7. S Modern position of rural deans. This office-pronounced by the high authority of Sir L. Jenkins (e) to be of great usefulness to the church-has lately been resuscitated. As the duties of the rural dean are now clearly those of inspection and report only, they are ancillary to and not conflicting with those of the archdeacon. It was recommended by 6 & 7 Will. 4, c. 77 (f), that every parish be within a rural deanry, and every deanry within an archdeaconry. And by 3 & 4 Vict. c. 113, s. 32, it is provided that, on the representation of the bishop, any rural deanry may be divided, and each portion constituted a separate rural deanry. And by 3 & 4 Vict. c. 86, s. 3 (the Clergy Discipline Act), it is provided that a rural dean within the diocese may be one of the five commissioners appointed by the bishop to institute a preliminary inquiry into charges against a clerk in holy orders. For the powers of rural deans under the Ecclesiastical Dilapidations Act, 1871 (34 & 35 Vict. c. 43, ss. 8, 12), see above (g). Under the Incumbents' Resignation Act, 1871 (34 & 35 Vict. c. 44), any rural dean in the diocese may be one of the commissioners (s. 5). |