Parish priests and their people in the middle ages in England . e 41 presbyters,in Rochester diocese about 65,* in Sussex 42, ofwhich seven are described as ecclesiolce chapels. Inthe returns for the counties of Cambridge, Middlesex,Lancaster, and Cornwall, neither church nor presbyteroccurs. In the whole there are only 1700 churchesnamed. But there seems no reason why Lincolnshire,Norfolk, and Suffolk should have had a larger pro-portion of churches to population at that time than theother counties; and if the other counties were propor-* , Roch. Dioc. Hist., p 25. DIOCESAN AND PAROCH
Parish priests and their people in the middle ages in England . e 41 presbyters,in Rochester diocese about 65,* in Sussex 42, ofwhich seven are described as ecclesiolce chapels. Inthe returns for the counties of Cambridge, Middlesex,Lancaster, and Cornwall, neither church nor presbyteroccurs. In the whole there are only 1700 churchesnamed. But there seems no reason why Lincolnshire,Norfolk, and Suffolk should have had a larger pro-portion of churches to population at that time than theother counties; and if the other counties were propor-* , Roch. Dioc. Hist., p 25. DIOCESAN AND PAROCHIAL ORGANIZATION. 55 tionately subdivided into parishes and equipped withchurches, we arrive at the conclusion that there werenearly as many churches (including chapels) andclergy before the Norman Conquest, when the popula-tion was about two millions, as there were at thebeginning of the nineteenth century, when thepopulation had increased to nearly nine millions. From the same source we learn that the usualquantity of land assigned to a church was from five. Sixon lowti, Sompliii^ Lliiucli, Sussex to fifty acres ; in some cases the glebe was , in Sussex, was one of the largest ; in the timeof Edward the Confessor it had 112 bides. Barsham, 56 PARISH PRIESTS AND THEIR PEOPLE. in Norfolk, had lOO acres ; Berchingas, in Suffolk, 83;Wellingrove, in Lincolnshire, 129 acres of meadowand 14 of other land. The private origin of ecclesiastical benefices, togetherwith the feudal ideas of the tenure of property,produced in the minds of the owners of advowsonsa certain sense of property in the benefices whichshows itself in various ways: in the bargainingwith the presentee for some advantage to the lord,as a present, or a pension, or the tenancy of part ofthe land. The advowson descended with the manor, and wasoften subdivided among the heirs.* In later timeswe not infrequently find a rectory held in medieties,but in Domesday Book we find a benefice dividedinto any number of
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