ARCHDEACON. In contemplating the character and office of the bishop in the early ages of the church, we are not to regard him as a solitary person acting alone and without advice. He had a species of clerical council around him, persons who lived a kind of collegiate life in buildings attached to the great cathedral church, each of whom, or at least several of whom, possessed distinct offices, such as those of chancellor, trea surer, precentor, and the like. These persons are now often called canons; but the most general name by which they are known, as the institution existed in re mote times, is that of deacon, a term of which dean is a contraction. Deacon appears to come from the Greek term didconos (Suisovos), the name of that officer in the church of whose appoint ment we have an account in Acts, vi. To one of these deacons precedence was given, and no doubt some species of superintendence or control, and to him the title of archdeacon was assigned.
In the name there is no indication of any peculiar emplo • ent. What now belongs to the was anciently performed by the officer in the bishop's court called the chorepiscopus. The chorepiscopus (Xceprr(cncoros) was the bishop's deputy or vicar in small towns and country places, in which he dis charged the minor episcopal functions. He might be of episcopal rank or not (Ducange, Glossarium). The chorepis copus is mentioned in a Constitution of Justinian. ( Cod. i. tit. 3, s. 41 (42).) The manner in which the archdeacon usurped upon this obsolete officer and attracted to himself the functions which belonged to him, is supposed to have been this :---being near the bishop and much trusted by him, the archdeacon was often employed by the bishop to visit distant parts of the diocese, especially when the bishop required particular and authentic information, and to report to the bishop the actual state of things. Hence deacons were spoken of by very early Christian writers as being the bishop's eye; and from this power of inspection and report the transition was easy to the delegation, to one of the dea cons, of a portion of episcopal authority, and empowering him to proceed to reform and redress, as well as to observe and report.
If this is a just account of the origin of the archdeacon's power, it is manifest that originally the power would be ex tended over the whole of a diocese ; but at present it is confined within certain limits. In England, according to the
Valor Ecclesiasticus of King Henry VIII., there are fifty-four archdeaconries, or districts through which the visitorial and corrective power of an archdeacon extends. Godolphin and Blackstone state that there were sixty archdeaconries : the number has since been increased, and there are now above sixty in England and Wales. Seven new archdeaconries were erected by 6 & 7 Will. IV. c. 97. These are the archdeaconries of Bristol, Maidstone, Monmouth, Westmoreland, Manchester, Lancaster, and Craven ; and archidia conal power was given by the same act to the dean of Rochester in that part of Kent which is in the diocese of Rochester. The constitution of some of these new arch deaconries is contingent; that of Man chester, for instance, will not take place until the creation of Manchester into a bishop's see, which will not occur until the next vacancy in the see of St. Asaph and Bangor.
This distribution of the dioceses into archdeaconries cannot be assigned to any certain period, but the common opinion is that it was made some time after the Con quest. It is said that Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury, was the first English bishop who established an arch deacon in his diocese, about A.D. 1075. The office of archdeacon is mentioned in a charter of William the Conqueror. (Phil limore.) The bishops had baronies, and were tied by the constitutions of Cla rendon to a strict attendance upon the king in his great council, and they were consequently obliged to delegate their episcopal powers. F..ach archidiaconal dis trict was assigned to its own archdeacon, with the same precision as other and larger districts are assigned to the bishops and archbishops ; and the archdeacons were entitled to certain annual payments, under the name of procuration, from the benefices within their archdeaconries. The act already cited (6 & 7 Will. IV. c. 97) directed a new arrangement of all existing deaneries and archdeaconries, so that every parish and extra-parochial place shall be within a rural deanery, and every deanery within an archdea conry, and that no archdeaconry extend out of the diocese.