lsdon in
Surrey became for a time the episcopal home. Quite recently a new palace
has been completed at Kennington, in the most populous and needy part of
the diocese.

[Illustration: THE GUILDHALL VANE (FROM A DRAWING BY R. J. BEALE).]

In mediaeval times the bishops of Rochester had a town house at
Southwark. This was afterwards changed for the one at Lambeth Marsh,
where the attempt to poison Bishop Fisher occurred. They had also other
country homes at Halling and Trottescliffe. Our space will not, however,
allow us to deal at length with these palaces outside the cathedral
precincts.

The poverty of the Church at the time of the Conquest has been already
mentioned, and even later we find that the episcopal revenue continued
to be very small. One diocese only, we are told, paid a lower
"Rome-scot," and only two English bishoprics appear as inferior in
value in the King's books. Some old sources of episcopal and monastic
income seem to us curious. The bulk was, of course, derived from manors
or estates, but we find also that the bishop was entitled to a share of
the whales killed on the shores of his diocese and that the monks of the
priory of St. Andrew owned oyster fisheries. Out of the estates assigned
to them the monks had to make an annual contribution, in kind, called
the Xenium, to the bishop's income, and this, due on St. Andrew's Day,
was on several occasions a subject of dispute. In Henry VIII.'s time we
find the bishopric valued at L358 4_s._ 9 1/2_d._, and later, in 1595,
it is stated that the clear annual profits did not exceed L220. To
supplement this paltry revenue the bishops often held other appointments
_in commendam_. During the latter part of the seventeenth century and
the greater part of the eighteenth, the deanery of Westminster was, in
this way, almost continuously attached to the bishopric of Rochester.
Such pluralities are, of course, no longer allowed, the estates of this,
as of other sees, being administered by the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners, through whom the bishop receives the regular and more
adequate income that he now enjoys. Poor though the see has been, we
find many distinguished men among those who have held it. A great number
of such passed on soon to richer bishoprics, and some even attained the
archiepiscopal dignity, but one or two of the greatest consistently
refused to be thus advanced.

For the sake of convenient reference, we now give a list of the bishops,
in chronol