m the Greek _Soter_,
Saviour, to whose name the cathedral of Iona was dedicated. And yet a
fourth authority derives it from the supposed third name of the little
islet rock called variously Holm Isle, Sodor, Peel, and St. Patrick's
Isle, whereon St. Patrick or St. Germain built his church, I can claim
no right to an opinion where these good doctors differ, and shall
content myself with saying that the balance of belief is in favour of
the Norwegian derivation, which offers this explanation of the title of
Bishop of Sodor and Man, that the Isle of Man was not included by the
Norsemen in the southern cluster of islands called the Sudereys, and
that the Bishop was sometimes called the Bishop of Man and the Isles,
and sometimes Bishop of the Sudereys and the Isle of Man. Only one
warning note shall I dare, as an ignorant layman, to strike on that
definition, and it is this: that the title of Bishop of Sodor dates back
to the seventh century certainly, and that the Norseman did not come
south until three centuries later.

THE EARLY BISHOPS OF THE HOUSE OF STANLEY

But now I come to matters whereon I have more authority to speak. When
the Isle of Man passed to the Stanley family, the Bishopric fell to
their patronage, and they lost no time in putting their own people into
it. It was then under the English metropolitan of Canterbury, but early
in the sixteenth century it became part of the province of York. About
that time the baronies, the abbeys, and the nunneries were suppressed.
It does not appear that the change of metropolitan had made much
change of religious life. Apparently the clergy kept the Manx people in
miserable ignorance. It was not until the seventeenth century that the
Book of Common Prayer was translated into the Manx language. The Gospels
and the Acts were unknown to the Manx until nearly a century later. Nor
was this due to ignorance of the clergy of the Manx tongue, for most
of them must have been Manxmen, and several of the Bishops were Manxmen
also. But grievous abuses had by this time attached themselves to the
Manx Church, and some of them were flagrant and wicked, and some were
impudent and amusing.

TITHES IN KIND

Naturally the more outrageous of the latter sort gathered about the
process of collecting tithes.

Tithes were paid in kind in those days. It was not until well within our
own century that they were commuted to a money payment. The Manxman paid
tithe on everything. He began to p