thinks ought rather to be read Colonia Camalodunensium, which some take to be Colchester, others Maldon, others Walden in Essex. But a late learned antiquary1 in his Posthumous Observations upon Antonine's Itinerary of Britain, has happily discovered that the true reading should in all probability be Colonia Lindi, which is the old Roman name for Lincoln, as he shows not only out of Antonine and Ptolemy who call it Lindum, but out of the anonymous geographer of Ravenna, who more expressly styles it Lindum Colonia; which with a little variation is the name that is given it also by Bede, who calls it Lindocolina, and the region thereabout Provincia Lindissi, whence I presume comes the name of Lindsey-Coast, which is the name of one part of that province to this day.

4

But to return to the ancient bishops of this nation. Some authors say, there were British bishops in the council of Nice; but that does not so evidently appear from ancient history. It is more certain there were three bishops from Britain in the council of Ariminum, as Sulpicius Severus informs us,3 And Athanasius also takes notice of British bishops in the council of Sardica, Anno 347. And Hilary inscribes his book, De Synodis," to the bishops of the British provinces among many others. Yet none of these authors tell us precisely the number of the whole college, and therefore we can only conjecture from the remains of those British bishops which continued in Wales after the Saxon conquests, and were there at the coming of Austin into England. Bede takes notice of seven of those, who came to the synod of Worcester, or Austin's-Oak, to confer with Austin about the settlement of the Church. And over these was also a metropolitan, to whom they professed subjection in the council, which was the archbishop of Menevia, or St. David's, or, as they term him, the archbishop of CaerLeon upon Uske, because that was the ancient metropolitical see, before it was translated to St. David's. The names of the other suffragans, as some of the British histo

1 Dr. Gale, Not. in. Antonin. Iter. Britan. p. 96. Sulpic. lib. ii. p. 109.

Athan. Apol. 2. p. 720.

Synodis. Provinciarum Britanniarum Episcopis.
Anglor. lib. ii. c. 2.

2 Bede, lib. ii. c. 16. 5 Hilar. de Bede, Hist. Gent,

rians' record them in Latin, were then Herefordensis, Tavensis, Paternensis, Banchorensis, Elviensis, Vicciensis, Morgarensis, that is Hereford, Landaff, Lan-Patern, Bangor, St. Asaph, Worcester, and Morgan. Now if the number of bishops in other provinces were answerable to this, we may conclude, there were more bishops before the invasion of the Saxons than there are at this day. But when Austin came into England, he found none except the forementioned. However Gregory the Great gave him orders to settle twenty-six bishops, twelve bishops suffragans to the bishop of London, and as many subject to the metropolitan of York, and reserve to himself the primacy over the whole nation. Yet this was rather a scheme laid for future

4

ages, when the whole nation should be converted, than any present settlement or constitution of the Church: for above fifty years after this, there were not above seven bishops in all the Heptarchy, or seven Saxon kingdoms, as appears from the account which Bede gives of the council of Herudford, Anno 673, where were present, Theodore, archbishop of Dorovernia or Canterbury; Bisi, bishop of the East-Angles; Wilfrid, bishop of the Northumbrians; Putta, bishop of Rochester; Leutherius, bishop of the West-Saxons; and Winfrid, bishop of the whole province of the Mercians. In which council a canon was made, "that the number of bishops "should be augmented, as the number of converts should increase." But nothing was done for the present, save that Bisi or Bifus, bishop of the East-Angles, being grown old, two others, Ecca and Badwin were consecrated in his room; and from that time to the age in which Bede lived, that province had two bishops, as our author notes in the same place. These were the bishops of Elmham and Dunwich, which were afterwards united, and the see removed to Thetford, and from thence to Norwich, whose bishops succeed to the whole kingdom of the East-Angles. So that in that age a kingdom and a diocese were almost commensurate.

1 Galfrid Monumeth. Hist. lib. viii. c. 4. Vid. Powel. Not. in Girald. Cambrens. Itinerar. Cambriæ. lib. ii. p. 170. 2 Bede, c. 29.

Bede, lib. iv. c. 5. 4 Con. Herudford. c. 9. ap. Bede, ibid. In commune tractatum est, ut plures episcopi, crescente numero fidelium, augerentur, sed de hâc re ad præsens silemus.

In the kingdom of Northumberland there were at first but two bishops, whose sees were York and Lindisfarne. But not long after, Anno 678, Egfrid, king of Northumberland, having expelled Wilfrid, bishop of York, from his see, four or five bishops were ordained in his room, one in the province of Deira; another in the province of Bernicia; a third at Hagulstade or Hexam in Northumberland; a fourth in the province of the Picts, which was then subject to the English; and a fifth in the province of Lindissi, as Bede' calls it, which was lately taken out of the diocese and kingdom of Mercia, and not long after laid to it again. The great kingdom of Mercia, comprehending the counties of Gloucester, Hereford, Worcester, Warwick, Leicester, Cambridge, Rutland, Northampton, Lincoln, Nottingham, Bedford, Buckingham, Oxford, Derby, Stafford, Shropshire, Cheshire, and part of Hertfordshire, was at first but the diocese of one bishop, whom Bede commonly calls the bishop of the Angli Mediterranei, or Mercians, whose see was Litchfield, the royal-seat and metropolis of the kingdom of Mercia; till about the year 678, a new see was erected at Sidnacester in Lincolnshire, and sometime after another at Dorchester in Oxfordshire, which were afterwards united and removed to Lincoln. Out of this large diocese also the sees of Worcester and Hereford were taken, as Ely was out of that part which fell to Lincoln: not to mention the dioceses of Chester, Peterborough, Oxford, and Gloucester, which had their rise out of the same at the Reformation. The diocese of Winchester was also very large at first, containing all the kingdoms of the west-Saxons, till it was divided by King Ina between Winchester and Sherborn, Anno 705. The latter of which was afterwards subdivided into the dioceses of Cornwall, Devonshire, Somersetshire, Wiltshire and Dorsetshire, some of which being united again made up the dioceses of Exeter, Wells, Salisbury, and Bristol, as they now stand in the present frame and constitution of the Church. I think it needless to carry this inquiry any further, since what has been already suggested sufficiently shows, that the dioceses in England were anciently much larger

1 Bede, lib. iv. c. 12.

than they are now, and that it has ever been the wisdom of the Church to multiply and contract them. Though many of them still remain so large, that if they be compared with some of the ancient Italian dioceses, one of them will be found to be equal to ten or twenty of those which lay round about Rome,

SECT. 21. The whole Account confirmed from some ancient Canons of the Church.

I shall conclude this Chapter with a few ancient canons, which confirm the account that has been given of episcopal dioceses throughout the world, as supposing them generally to have country-regions and country-parishes belonging to them. The council of Neocæsarea, which was held some years before the council of Nice, makes express mention1 of " Πρεσβύτεροι Επιχώριοι, country presbyters,” who are forbidden to officiate in the city-church, save only in the absence of the bishop or city-presbyters. The council of Antioch has two canons of the same import: the one describes a bishop's diocese to be "a city and all the region that was subject to it, wherein he might ordain presbyters and deacons, and order all things according to his own judgment without consulting his metropolitan:" the other is a provision concerning the chorepiscopi, who were seated in the villages and regions about the city," that they should govern the churches committed to them, and content themselves with that care, ordaining readers, subdeacons and exorcists; but not presbyters or deacons, unless commissioned to it by the city-bishop, to whom both they and their region were subject." A like provision is made by the council of Nice, in case a Novatian bishop should return to the unity of the Catholic Church, that then the Catholic bishop might provide him the place of a chorepiscopus in some part of his diocese, that there might not be two bishops in one city. And indeed all the canons that mention the chorepiscopi, are full proof that a diocese was not only a city, but a country-region, over which those

Con. Neocæsar. c. 13.

2 Con. Antioch. c. 9. Con. Nic. c. 8.

3 Ibid. c. 10.

chorepiscopi presided, under the inspection of the citybishop, to whom they were accountable. The canons of Sardica,' and Laodicea, do plainly suppose the same thing when they prohibit bishops to be ordained in small cities or villages, because a presbyter or itinerant visitor might be sufficient to take care of them. So in the African canons, one orders the same as the council of Toledo, “ that every presbyter throughout the diocese, who has the care of a church, shall have recourse to his own bishop for chrism to be used at Easter:" and another says, "No bishop shall leave his principal church, to go to reside upon any other church in the diocese.' Which canons speak plain nonsense, unless it be supposed that there were then other churches in the diocese beside the mother-church.

SECT. 22. And from the Bishop's Obligation to visit his Diocese once a Year, and Confirm.

The bishop's obligation to visit his diocese, is a further proof of the same thing; for this was a necessary consequent of having several churches at a distance under his jurisdiction: such as he could not personally attend himself, he was obliged to visit, and see that they were provided of a proper incumbent, and that every thing was performed in due order. St. Austin and St. Basil, who had pretty large dioceses, speak often upon this account of their being employed in their visitations. And the rule in some places was to visit ordinarily once a year, as appears from the council of Tarraco in Spain, which lays this injunction on bishops, because it was found by experience, that many churches in their dioceses were left destitute and neglected, therefore they were obliged to visit them once a year.' And if a diocese was so large, that a bishop could not perform this duty annually, that was thought a reasonable cause to divide the diocese, and lay some part of the burden upon a new bishop; which was the reason assigned in the

8 Con. Carth. iv. 6 Con.

1 Con. Sardic. c. 6. 2 Con. Laodic. c. 56. c. 36. 4 Con. Carth. v. c. 5. 5 Basil. Ep.264. Tarracon. c. 8. Reperimus nonnullas diœcesanas ecclesias esse destitutas. Ob quam rem hâc constitutione decrevimus, ut annuis vicibus episcopo diœceses visitentur, &c.