Deans had also a place in the judicial system of the Lombard kings in the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries. But the office indicated by that term, so used, seems to have been a very subordinate one; and the name was in all probability adopted with immediate reference to the etymological meaning of the word,—a person having authority over ten (in this case apparently) families. L. A. Muratori, in his Italian Antiquities, speaks of the resemblance between the saltarii or sylvani and the decani, and shows that the former had authority in the rural districts, and the latter in towns, or at least in places where the population was sufficiently close for them to have authority over ten families. Nevertheless, a document cited by Muratori from the archives of the canons of Modena, and dated in the year 813, recites the names of several “deaneries” (decania), and thus shows that the authority of the dean extended over a certain circumscription of territory.
In the case of the “dean of the sacred college,” the connexion between the application of the term and the etymology of it is not so evident as in the foregoing instances of its use; nor is it by any means clear how and when the idea of seniority was first attached to the word. This office is held by the oldest cardinal—i.e. he who has been longest in the enjoyment of the purple, not he who is oldest in years,—who is usually, but not necessarily or always, the bishop of Ostia and Velletri. Perhaps the use of the word “dean,” as signifying simply the eldest member of any corporation or body of men, may have been first adopted from its application to that high dignitary. The dean of the sacred college is in the ecclesiastical hierarchy second to the pope alone. His privileges and special functions are very many; a compendious account of the principal of them may be found in the work of G. Moroni, vol. xix. p. 168.
There are four sorts of deans of whom the law of England takes notice. (1) The dean and chapter are a council subordinate to the bishop, assistant to him in matters spiritual relating to religion, and in matters temporal relating to the temporalities of the bishopric. The dean and chapter are a corporation, and the dean himself is a corporation sole. Deans are said to be either of the old or of the new foundation—the latter being those created and regulated after the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. The deans of the old foundation before the Ecclesiastical Commissioners Act 1841 were elected by the chapter on the king’s congé d’élire; and the deans of the new foundation (and, since the act, of the old foundation also) are appointed by the king’s letters patent. It was at one time held that a layman might be dean; but since 1662 priest’s orders are a necessary qualification. Deaneries are sinecures in the old sense, i.e. they are without cure of souls. The chapter formerly consisted of canons and prebendaries, the dean being the head and an integral part of the corporation. By the Ecclesiastical Commissioners Act 1841, it is enacted that “all the members of the chapter except the dean, in every collegiate and cathedral church in England, and in the cathedral churches of St David and Llandaff, shall be styled canons.” By the same act the dean is required to be in residence eight months, and the canons three months, in every year. The bishop is visitor of the dean and chapter. (2) A dean of peculiars is the chief of certain peculiar churches or chapels. He “hath no chapter, yet is presentative, and hath cure of souls; he hath a peculiar, and is not subject to the visitation of the bishop of the diocese.” The only instances of such deaneries are Battle (Sussex), Bocking (Essex) and Stamford (Rutland). The deans of Jersey and Guernsey have similar status. (3) The third dean “hath no cure of souls, but hath a court and a peculiar, in which he holdeth plea and jurisdiction of all such ecclesiastical matters as come within his peculiar. Such is the dean of the arches, who is the judge of the court of the arches, the chief court and consistory of the archbishop of Canterbury, so called of Bow Church, where this court was ever wont to be held.” (See [Arches, Court of].) The parish of Bow and twelve others were within the peculiar jurisdiction of the archbishop in spiritual causes, and exempted out of the bishop of London’s jurisdiction. They were in 1845 made part of the diocese of London. (4) Rural deans are clergymen whose duty is described as being “to execute the bishop’s processes and to inspect the lives and manners of the clergy and people within their jurisdiction.” (See Phillimore’s Ecclesiastical Law.)
In the colleges of the English universities one of the fellows usually holds the office of “dean,” and is specially charged with the discipline, as distinguished from the teaching functions of the tutors. In some universities the head of a faculty is called “dean,” and in each of these cases the word is used in a non-ecclesiastical and purely titular sense.
DEAN, FOREST OF, a district in the west of Gloucestershire, England, between the Severn and the Wye. It extends northward in an oval form from the junction of these rivers, for a distance of 20 m., with an extreme breadth of 10 m., and still retains its true forest character. The surface is agreeably undulating, its elevation ranging from 120 to nearly 1000 ft., and its sandy peat soil renders it most suitable for the growth of timber, which is the cause of its having been a royal forest from time immemorial. It is recorded that the commanders of the Armada had orders not to leave in it a tree standing. In the reign of Charles I. the forest contained 105,537 trees, and, straitened for money, the king granted it to Sir John Wyntour for £10,000, and a fee farm rent of £2000. The grant was cancelled by Cromwell; but at the Restoration only 30,000 trees were left, and Wyntour, the Royalist commander, having got another grant, destroyed all but 200 trees fit for navy timber. In 1680 an act was passed to enclose 11,000 acres and plant with oak and beech for supply of the dockyards; and the present forest, though not containing very many gigantic oaks, has six “walks” covered with timber in various stages of growth.
The forest is locally governed by two crown-appointed deputy gavellers to superintend the woods and mines, and four verderers elected by the freeholders, whose office, since the extermination of the deer in 1850, is almost purely honorary. From time immemorial all persons born in the hundred of St Briavel’s, who have worked a year and a day in a coal mine, become “free miners,” and may work coal in any part of the forest not previously occupied. The forest laws were administered at the Speech-House, a building of the 17th century in the heart of the forest, where the verderers’ court is still held. The district contains coal and iron mines, and quarries of building-stone, which fortunately hardly minimize its natural beauty. Near Coleford and Westbury pit workings of the Roman period have been discovered, and the Romans drew large supplies of iron from this district. The scenery is especially fine in the high ground bordering the Wye (q.v.), opposite to Symond’s Yat above Monmouth, and Tintern above Chepstow. St Briavel’s Castle, above Tintern, was the headquarters of the forest officials from an early date and was frequented by King John. It is a moated castle, of which the north-west front remains, standing in a magnificent position high above the Wye.
See H. G. Nicholls, Forest of Dean (London, 1858).
DEANE, RICHARD (1610-1653), British general-at-sea, major-general and regicide, was a younger son of Edward Deane of Temple Guiting or Guyting in Gloucestershire, where he was born, his baptism taking place on the 8th of July 1610. His family seems to have been strongly Puritan and was related to many of those Buckinghamshire families who were prominent in the parliamentary party. His uncle or great-uncle was Sir Richard Deane, lord mayor of London, 1628-1629. Of Deane’s early life nothing is accurately known, but he seems to have had some sea training, possibly on a ship-of-war. At the outbreak of the Civil War he joined the parliamentary army as a volunteer in the artillery, a branch of the service with which he was constantly and honourably associated. In 1644 he held a command in the artillery under Essex in Cornwall and took part in the surrender after Lostwithiel. Essex (Letter to Sir Philip Stapleton, Rushworth Collection) calls him “an honest, judicious and stout man,” an estimate of Deane borne out by Clarendon’s “bold and excellent officer” (book xiv. cap. 27), and he was one of the few officers concerned in the surrender who were retained at the remodelling of the army. Appointed comptroller of the ordnance, he commanded the artillery at Naseby and during Fairfax’s campaign in the west of England in 1645. In 1647 he was promoted colonel and given a regiment. In May of that year Cromwell was made lord-general of the forces in Ireland by the parliament, and Deane, as a supporter of Cromwell who had to be reckoned with, was appointed his lieutenant of artillery. Cromwell refused to be thus put out of the way, and Deane followed his example. When the war broke out afresh in 1648 Deane went with Cromwell to Wales. As brigadier-general his leading of the right wing at Preston contributed greatly to the victory. On the entry of the army into London in 1648, Deane superintended the seizure of treasure at the Guildhall and Weavers’ Hall the day after Pride “purged” the House of Commons, and accompanied Cromwell to the consultations as to the “settlement of the Kingdom” with Lenthall and Sir Thomas Widdrington, the keeper of the great seal. He is rightly called by Sir J. K. Laughton (in the Dict. of Nat. Biog.) Cromwell’s “trusted partisan,” a character which he maintained in the active and responsible part taken by him in the events which led up to the trial and execution of the king. He was one of the commissioners for the trial, and a member of the committee which examined the witnesses. He signed the death warrant.