Diocese at the county town

The diocese and bishop over the march. Bishop's faculties and reconsecrations come from here. Faculty applications go through the priory to the county town and are considered at a chapter. The bishop keeps a closed archive at the county town.

The bishop's see at the county town, with the Church's courts to which the assize defers questions of haunting. Its papers speak of disused chapels, closed burial grounds and interdicted ground, and exorcism requires the bishop's leave.

Named with it

• the bishop · unnamed

Ties

• exorcism leave passes through Harrowgate Priory
• correspondence with the priory runs back a century unread
• applications reach it through Harrowgate Priory
• orders men from the Harrowgate infirmary to the county town

At the table

Two of Harrowgate Gaol's unaccountable prisoners were sent to the county town at the bishop's order, and to what purpose the record does not say. Its instruments call the reed creatures 'infernal issue' and add nothing more. Where a parish cannot pay for a suppression, the archdeaconry pays. A faculty takes anything from a season to a year to obtain, and eleven have been granted within the record. Only a bishop, in person, may lift an interdict or deconsecrate. Once only has the diocese moved with unusual speed, and that was to reconsecrate the burial ground at Crowdyke. For the lesser troubles of the March it cannot spare a priest; and the March's unlicensed practitioners it neither authorises nor suppresses.