Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester / A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See

by G. H. Palmer

THE DIOCESE AND BISHOPS.

According to a curious legend,[15] widely circulated in the Middle Ages, the men of Rochester did not accord a patient hearing to St. Augustine when he first came thither to preach the Gospel. They, instead, used him rudely, and in mockery threw at him and hung on his dress a lot of fish-tails. In anger the saint prayed to God to avenge him on his persecutors and “the Lord smote them in posteriora to their everlasting ignominy, so that not only on their own but on their successors’ persons similar tails grew ever after.” A way of escape was, however, according to the fourteenth century prose version of the “Brut,” soon provided, for “whenne the kyng herde and wiste of this vengeance that was falle thurghe saynt Austines powere he lette make one howse in honour of God ... at the brugges end,” children born in which would not be afflicted with the dreaded appendage. Other versions of the story give Dorchester as the place where the saint was thus ill-used and his assailants were thus punished, but both Kent and Dorset have been zealous to repudiate any concern with it, and Lambarde in his “Perambulation” has written an indignant diatribe in defence of the former county.

Later, in the legends concerning St. Thomas à Becket, another form of the same fable appears. The men of Strood are said to have docked the tail of his horse and to have been punished in the same way as St. Augustine’s persecutors. In the story Rochester sometimes appears instead of Strood, and this is our excuse for alluding to the variation here. It seems to be due to a confusion of the old story with a new fact, as we have a contemporary statement that St. Thomas, on the Christmas Day before his death, excommunicated a certain Robert de Broc, because the latter had, to insult and shame him, cut off the tail of a mare in his service.

In the Middle Ages the matter was of national concern, for the disgrace said to have befallen the inhabitants of one or other of the small towns mentioned became “a scandal to their unoffending country.” When the story spread, as it did, nearly all over Europe, foreigners did not particularize, but offensively alluded to all Englishmen as caudati, or tailed. Such allusions often occur in narratives of the Crusades, and the French and Scotch were especially keen to hurl the epithet at their hereditary foes. Even in the sixteenth century John Bale says, “that an Englyshman now can not travayle in an other land by waye of merchandyce or any other honest occupyenge, but yt ys most contumelyouslye throwne in his tethe that all Englishmen have tayles.” The name “Kentish Longtails” seems to have been early current, and in Drayton’s “Polyolbion” we find “Longtails and Liberty” given almost as a motto for the county.

We are not told whether it was due to this miracle of the “tails,” but it is certain that the conversion of the townspeople of Rochester must have been rapid, for we know that a see was founded here as early as 604. The diocese placed under its bishop’s care was a small one, including no more than the western part of the ancient kingdom of Kent, the dividing line being roughly the course of the Medway, or, more precisely, that of its tributary, the Teise. The whole diocese formed only a single archdeaconry, which was divided into four deaneries, and of this small number one was subject, as a peculiar, to the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, “who holdeth his prerogative wheresoever his lands do lye.”

Not only “hath the See at Rochester well holden her owne: for during the whole succession of ... Bishops, which in right line have followed Justus, she hath continually mainteined her Chaire at this one place, whereas in most partes of the Realme besides, the Sees of the Bishops have suffred sundry translations,” but it was long also before the ancient limits of the diocese were changed. In 1845 it was enlarged so as to include Essex and Hertfordshire, and was then divided into the four archdeaconries of Rochester, Colchester, Essex and St. Alban’s. The old palace at Bromley, which had been since Cardinal Fisher’s time the chief home of the bishops, was at the same time quitted for Danbury in Essex. In 1863 the archdeaconries of Rochester and St. Albans were joined into one, and in 1867 the total number of archdeaconries was reduced to two: Rochester and St. Albans forming one, and Essex the other. The extent and composition of the diocese was again entirely changed in 1877, when the new diocese of St. Albans was formed. Since that time the diocese of Rochester has included West Kent and part of Surrey, and has comprised three archdeaconries: Rochester, Kingston, and Southwark. In 1877 Danbury Palace had to be given up and Selsdon in Surrey became for a time the episcopal home. Quite recently a new palace has been completed at Kennington, in the most populous and needy part of the diocese.

In mediæval times the bishops of Rochester had a town house at Southwark. This was afterwards changed for the one at Lambeth Marsh, where the attempt to poison Bishop Fisher occurred. They had also other country homes at Halling and Trottescliffe. Our space will not, however, allow us to deal at length with these palaces outside the cathedral precincts.

The poverty of the Church at the time of the Conquest has been already mentioned, and even later we find that the episcopal revenue continued to be very small. One diocese only, we are told, paid a lower “Rome-scot,” and only two English bishoprics appear as inferior in value in the King’s books. Some old sources of episcopal and monastic income seem to us curious. The bulk was, of course, derived from manors or estates, but we find also that the bishop was entitled to a share of the whales killed on the shores of his diocese and that the monks of the priory of St. Andrew owned oyster fisheries. Out of the estates assigned to them the monks had to make an annual contribution, in kind, called the Xenium, to the bishop’s income, and this, due on St. Andrew’s Day, was on several occasions a subject of dispute. In Henry VIII.’s time we find the bishopric valued at £358 4s. 9½d., and later, in 1595, it is stated that the clear annual profits did not exceed £220. To supplement this paltry revenue the bishops often held other appointments in commendam. During the latter part of the seventeenth century and the greater part of the eighteenth, the deanery of Westminster was, in this way, almost continuously attached to the bishopric of Rochester. Such pluralities are, of course, no longer allowed, the estates of this, as of other sees, being administered by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, through whom the bishop receives the regular and more adequate income that he now enjoys. Poor though the see has been, we find many distinguished men among those who have held it. A great number of such passed on soon to richer bishoprics, and some even attained the archiepiscopal dignity, but one or two of the greatest consistently refused to be thus advanced.