from £30 to £200 per annum; twelve from £200 to £250; eight from £250 to £300; seven from £300 to £350; eight from £350 to £400; four from £400 to £450; six from £450 to £500; nine from £500 to £550; four from £550 to £600; two from £600 to £650; four from £650 to £700; three from £700 to £750; four from £750 to £1000; two from £1100 to £1200; and one from £1300 to £1350 per annum. The gross income of those 114 benefices being calculated as £24,363 18s. 6d., exclusive of the values of thirty-eight other benefices not returned in the estimate. The patronage of the whole may be thus classified.-The Crown presents to fourteen; the Lord Chancellor, the Master of the Rolls, and the three Chief Judges, in conjunction with his Grace the Archbishop, to two; the chapter of Christ Church, or its members separately, to ten; lay patrons to eighteen, and the Archbishop to the remainder. The union of the bishoprics, alluded to, took place in the year 1214, and still subsists; both having been thereupon divided into ten deaneries, severally styled; -1. Decanatus Christianitatis, Dublin; 2. Taney; 3. Swords; 4. Ballymore; 5. Bray; 6. Wicklow; 7. Arklow; 8. Castledermot; 9. Athy; and 10. De Saltû Salmonis. The number has been since increased to twelve, the names of which stand thus in the Consistorial Registry of this diocese, viz. 1. Decanatus Christianitatis, Dublin; 2. Swords; 3. Lusk; 4. Finglas; 5. Newcastle; 6. Taney; 7. De Saltû Salmonis, alias Leixlip; 8. Bray; 9. Wicklow; 10. Arklow; 11. Ballymore; and 12. Omurthy; which last denomination includes the two more ancient deaneries of Castledermot and Athy. The dignitary, who presided over this most important province of Ireland, was not only anciently honoured with a seat in the King's Privy Council in England, where he used to attend his Majesty in many weighty consultations, as shewn hereafter, but had also within his liberties of the Cross,* or his own church-lands, the rights of a prince palatine, with the power of even condemning to death criminals offending therein, for whose execution a gallows was erected at Harold's Cross. It is, perhaps, needless to remark, that this extremity of jurisdiction is now altogether disused; his seneschal, however, still holds a court for other purposes of the archiepiscopal authority, in a handsome structure erected in Upper Bride-street, adjoining to which is the gaol for confining debtors within his liberties. This officer is usually a barrister, selected by the prelate's appointment, as confirmed by the respective deans and chapters of Christ Church and St. Patrick's, and the individual so named chooses his own register, who is always an attorney of the superior courts. The Archbishop also holds a Consistorial Court at the King's Inns, and, besides his other extensive franchises, the regulation of the police in the manor or liberty of St. Sepulchre was, until modern enactments, vested in his officers, as fully as it existed in the city magistrates for the liberty * See "History of the County of Dublin," at "Swords" in 1465. of the city; he has, likewise, the right of a market in Patrick-street. There are in the diocese of Dublin two cathedrals, a peculiarity in which Saragossa alone participates. Both of those are situated within the city and liberties of Dublin, viz. Christ Church and St. Patrick's, of which it is only necessary here to remark, that the former was built about the year 1038, and that its chapter consists of the dean, precentor, chancellor, treasurer, the archdeacon of Dublin, and three prebendaries, besides two clerical and seven lay vicarschoral; while the latter was built about the year 1190, on the site of an old parochial church which was said to have been erected by St. Patrick. Its chapter is constituted of a dean, precentor, chancellor, treasurer, the archdeacons of Dublin and Glendalough, and twenty prebendaries, the prebend of Cullen being united to the archbishopric. There are also in this establishment four minor canons, four clerical and seven lay vicars-choral. The present dignitaries and prebendaries of both cathedrals are as follow: Rev. M. Toole. Rev. Edan Redmond. Rev. W. Stafford. Rev. P. Woods. Rev. John Grant. Rev. M. Doyle. Rev. James Monks. Rev. Aug. Costigan. Rev. J. Laphen, and Rev. P. Cooper. It has been alleged by some, in order to account for the singular occurrence of two cathedrals in one city, that St. Patrick's was the cathedral of Glendalough, and Christ Church of Dublin. Mr. Mason, however, in his invaluable history of the former edifice, successfully combats this opinion, and proves that both belonged to Dublin ;* in accordance with which conclusion, it is to be observed, that, before St. Patrick's cathedral was built, or the union of the sees contemplated, the church, on whose site it was erected, was (in 1179) in Pope Alexander's Bull described as one of the parishes and within the diocese of Dublin; while a contemporaneous Bull of the same Pope mentions the cathedral of Glendalough as being in the little city of that name, where its ruins are still identified. In 1214, as before mentioned, the two sees were united, for the reasons explicitly declared in the Testimonial of Felix O'Ruadan, Archbishop of Tuam, and of his suffragans to whom the Pope had occasion to refer the subject. The original of this curious ecclesiastical instrument is still extant in the archives of Christ Church, and has the archbishop's seal pendant to it, but those of his suffragans have crumbled away. It is neither dated nor witnessed, but appears evidently from its contents to have been drawn up in the year 1214, immediately upon the death of William Piro the last recognised Bishop of Glendalough, and refers to those grants and documents hereinafter * See Mason's Hist. St. Patrick's Cathedral, p. 4. |