Was the diocese of Lichfield and Coventry a ‘Northern diocese ’?
Paper delivered by ARTHUR BURNS and STEPHEN TAYLOR Commentator: Kenneth Fincham Stephen focused on the geographical and jurisdictional structure of the diocese, ie location. The diocese had characteristics found in both ‘northern’ and ‘southern’ dioceses as outlined by Mather. Databases like order, rationality and hierarchy, but the Anglican Church was irrational, non-bureaucratic and non-hierarchical. It was basically still a medieval institution, so therefore it has been difficult to construct a coherent structure. Coventry and Lichfield had many peculiars, and many large parishes, especially in Derbyshire, like much of northern England, where many townships were included in one parish. Work has had to be undertaken on the nature and history of chapelries, to make sense of the locations that have appeared in the records. This has shown that different structures and different clerical communites existed in parishes such as Bakewell. We have found a large number of schoolmasters licens
