It seems most probable that the creation of parishes in England was not a simultaneous act„but was the gradual result of circumstances, and was not fully effected till near the time of the Conquest. (11allam's Middle Ages,' vol. ii.,e. 7, pt. 1.) As Christianity became the universal religion, and as population increased, the means of divine worship supplied by the bishoprics and monasteries became inadequate to the wants of society, and lords of manors began to build upon their own demesnes churches and oratories for the religious purposes of their families and tenants. Each, founder assigned a definite district, within which the functions of the minister officiating at his church were to be exercised, and expressly limited the burden as well as the advantages of his ininietry to the inhabitants of that district. As these acts of piety tended to the advancement of religion, and weru in aid of the common treasury of the diocese, they were encouraged by the bishops, who readily consecrated the places of worship so established, and con sented that the minister or incumbent should be resident at his church, and receive for his maintenance, and for the use of that particular church, the tithes and offerings of the inhabitants, as well as any endowment or salary which the founder annexed to it. This endow ment or salary usually consisted of a glebe, or a portion of laud appro priated to that purpose, which was indeed the only means of providing for the maintenance of the incumbent at a time when almost all the wants of life were supplied from the immediate produce of the earth, and, together with the right of receiving the other ecclesiastical profits which arose within the territory limited by the founder, became the settled revenue of the church, and annexed to it in perpetuity. The last concession made to the lay founder was probably the patronage or right of presenting the clerk to the church, which by the primitive constitution, belonged exclusively to the bishop ; and when this was obtained, these limited territories differed in no material respect from our modern parishes. Indeed it can scarcely admit of doubt that our parochial divisions arose chiefly from these lay-foundations, the differ ences in extent being accounted for by the varying limits appointed for them at their origin. Their names were derived from some favourite saint, from the site, or the lordship to which they belonged, . or from the mere fancy of the respective fouuders. Such appears to have been the origin of the lay parishes ; and it is reasonable to con clude that as soon as this practice was established, the bishops and religious houses, in the districts or parishes in which they had reserved to themselves the right of presentation, followed the same course by limiting the ecclesiastical profits of each church to the particular in cumbent, and restricting the devotions as well as the offerings of the inhabitants to that church only.
The earliest notice of these lay foundations of parishes is by Bede, about the year 700 (' Hist. Eecl.' lib. v., c. 4 and 5). By the end of the 8th century they had become frequent, as clearly appears from the charters of confirmation made to Croyland Abbey, by I3ertulph, king of Mercia, in which several churches of lay-foundation are compre hended. In the laws of king Edgar (am. 970) there is an express provision that every man shall pay his tithes to the most ancient church ur monastery where he hears Ood'a service ; " Which I under stand not otherwise," says Selden, " than any church or monastery whither usually, in respect of his commurancy or his parish, he re paired : that is, his parish church or monastery." (' History of Tithes,' chap. ix., 1-4.) Although the origin of parishes generally in England is pretty clearly ascertained, the history of the formation of particular parishes is almost wholly unknown. As theme divisions originated in an un lettered period, and were too local and obscure to be recorded in the chronicles or general histories of the times, and for the most part too ancient to be preserved in any episcopal registers now existing, it would be unreasonable to expect any satisfactory evidence of their particular origin ; and as a matter of fact, no evidence whatever can be produced on the subject.
However satisfactory this account of the origin of parishes may be with reference to country parishes, it furnishes no explanation of the origin of parishes in towns—a subject which is involved in great ob scurity; and indeed the changes which the latter may be shown to have undergone within time of memory seem to point to a different principle of formation.
The country parishes appear to be nearly the same in name and number at the prudent time as they were at the time of Pope Nicholas's Taxation,' compiled in the reign of Edward I. (A.D. 1288); but in some of the Large towns the number of parishes has very cunsidersbly decreased. Thus, in the city of London there are at present 109 parishes, though at the time of the 'Taxation' the number was 140; in like manner in Norwich the number has been reduced from 70 in the time of Edward I., to 37 at the present day. In other sucient towns, such as Bristol, York, and Exeter, the number does net appear to have materially changed, but the IL/11101i have been often altered.
The particular causes of these variations it would be difficult to truce ; but greater changes might reasonably be expected in towns than in the country parishes, in consequence of more frequent fluctuations of wealth and population in the former. Where a decrease has taken Place in the number of town parishes in the three last centuries, it is probably to be accounted for by the great reductiun since the Reforma tion in the amount of oblations and what are called personal tithes, which in cities were almost the only provision for the parochial clergy.
The size of English parishes vanes much in different districts. In the northern counties they are extremely large, forty square miles being no unusual area for a parish ; and, generally spealung, parishes in the north are said to average seven or eight times the area of those in the southern counties. The boundaries of parishes in former times appear to have been often ill-defined and uncertain; but since the establish ment of a compulsory provision for the poor by means of assessments of the inhabitants of parishes, the limits have in general been ascer tained with sufficient precision.
It is not easy to ascertain the exact number of parishes in England and Wales ; for although they have been enumerated on several occa sions, the number ascertained has usually depended upon the object and purpose of the particular enumeration. Thus in the returns under the Pour Law Conimiaaion, a parish is generally considered as a place or district supporting its own poor, and from these returns, in 1854, it appears that the total number of such places is 14,603, and the num ber is constantly increasing with the increase of population. But In this number are included many subdivisions of parishes, such as the town ships in the northern counties, which by suit 13 & 14 Car. IL, c. 12, L 21, are permitted to maintain their own poor, and also other places which by act of pm liament, though not parishes, have the same privilege.
Another difficulty, which has probably affected all the enumerations which have hitherto been made, is the large number of doubtful parishes. It is aomewhdt uncertain at the present day what circum stances constitute a parish church. In the Saxon times, and for some centuries after the Conquest, the characteristics which distinguished a parish church from what were called field churches, oratories, and chapels, were the rights of baptism and sepulture. (Selden, ' History of Tithes,' chap. ix., 4; Degge's Parsons' Counsellor,' part i., chap. xii.) But in modern times this line of distinction would include as parish churches almost all chapels-of-ease, and also the churches and parochial chapels erected under the stet. 58 Cleo. 111., c. 45, " for building addi tional churches in populous places." The various views entertained of the constituents of a parish will in a great measure account for the different results of the several enumerations which have been made ; and this is in fact one of the reasons assigned by Camden for the difference betweeu the number of the parish churches in England and Wales stated to Henry VIII. in 1520, by Cardinal Wolsey, aud that stated about a century after to James I., the former being 9407, and the latter 9291. (Camden's ' Britannia; 161-2.) The number of the parishes mentioned in Pope Nicholas's Taxation' above referred to, as nearly as eau be ascertained, appears to be between these two accouuts. Blackstone says, that the number of parishes in England and Wales had been computed at 10,000. Perhaps the number of parishes in England and Wales (meaning by the term simply a district annexed to a church whose incumbent is by law entitled to tithes in that district) may be taken to be about 11,000.
(See Holland's ' Observations on the Origin of Parishes,' in Ilearne's DiSCOUTSCS, VOL i. p. 194; and Whitaker'a ffistw y of ll haiku, book ii, chap. 1.)