ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY Canterbury on the ground that his former profession made on his accession to the see of Hereford would suffice. Becket appealed to the pope, who decided in favour of Foliot, without prejudice to the right of the Archbishop of Canterbury to professions from future Bishops of London.*^ It was after his excommunication in 1169 that Foliot made his definite claim. He declared he was not subject to the archbishop or the church of Canterbury ; he had made no profession of obedience in the name of the church of London, and he ought to make no such profession, for the metropolitan dignity really belonged to London, as could be seen in the chronicles.*^ None of Gilbert's successors revived the claim, and the next bishop duly made his profession of obedience before consecration ; °° but the idea seems to have made a great impression on popular opinion at the time, for the pretensions of London are noticed in many 12th-century chronicles, and, in especial, Fitz Stephen in his famous description writes : ' There is in St. Paul's an episcopal chair which was once the metropolitan seat, and it is believed will be so again in the future if the citizens should return to the Island,' " though he goes on to suggest that possibly the relics of St. Thomas will secure the dignity to Canterbury for ever. While the Bishop of London thus failed to shake the primacy of Canterbury, his own position as head of the suffragan bishops was not unassailed, in spite of the decision of the Council in 1075. In 1 173 the Prior of Canterbury disputed his right to proclaim the election of the new archbishop, and in 11 90 and 11 93 the Bishop of Rochester as 'chaplain' claimed precedence over the Bishop of London as ' dean ' of the suffragan bishops. ^^ But at last in 1204 the pope confirmed the position to the Bishop of London,'^ and after this date there appears to have been no further dispute on the subject. The most significant part of Fitz Stephen's description from the ecclesiastical point of view is his statement that there were ' in London and its suburbs thirteen great conventual churches and 126 lesser parochial churches.' '* This is corroborated by Peter of Blois, Archdeacon of London, who wrote to the pope on his appointment to that office at the end of the 1 2th century that there were 120 parish churches in London.'* Little is known about the formation of these parishes and the building of the great majority of the churches of London, but it is certain that by the end of the 1 2th century ,^ and in all probability much earlier, the parochial boundaries were defined as they remained through the Middle Ages ; there ^ Materials for Hist, of Thomas Becket (Rolls Ser.), v, 56, 60, 130. The date of the decision is uncertain.
- ^ Ibid, iii, 88 ; vi, 605. Writing to the pope in support of Becket, his enemies interpreted this as a
claim based on the fact that London was the seat of the ' archflamen of Jupiter ' ; they either wilfully perverted Foliot's appeal to history, or did not know that there had been any Christian church in Britain before the coming of St. Augustine ; John, Bishop of Salisbury, ibid, vii, 10 ; Maurice, Bishop of Paris, ibid, vii, 41.
- ° Gervase of Cant. O/. Hist. (Rolls Ser.), i, 483.
^' Materials for Hist, of Thomas Becket (Rolls Ser.), iii, 2 ; ' si remeaverint cives in insulam.' Pegge (translating Fitz Stephen [1772], pp. 15, 16) thinks this 'plainly points to some time when a large body of the citizens of London were abroad,' i.e. in 1 174, when many were in Ireland and France. " Materials for Hist, of Thomas Becket (Rolls Ser.), iii, 188 ; iv, 155 ; R. de Diceto, Of. Hist. (Rolls Ser.), i, 354 ; Gervase of Cant. op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), i, 487, 522.
- ' Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 19.
^* Materials for Hist, of Thomas Becket (Rolls Ser.), iii, 3. " Petrus Blesensis, Op. omnia (ed. Giles), ii, 85. ^ For an interesting- 12th-century boundary dispute see Guildhall MS. No. 122, fol. 740. 179
