Excerpt from Parish History and Records Beton's Thesaurus and Bacon's I/iber Regis, we shall find that only a few have vanished or have become consolidated with others. Otherwise the alterations of the parishes and the rural deaneries to which they' belong have been of the most tri ing kind until the beginning, still within living memory, of the obliteration on a large scale of ancient boundaries in the interests of modern efficiency. Generally speaking, owing to the action of the local land-owner in harmony with the Church, the English parish corresponds to the vill or township.1 This is true, at any rate, of the greater part of England south of Trent, where large parishes comprising several vills, though not uncommon, are the exception. In the wilder country north of Trent, where population was sparse and civili sation more gradual, the parishes were as a rule larger and included several scattered vills. Thus, of the two largest dioceses of medieval England, L'incoln contained some 1750 parishes, while the number in York, which was actually larger in area, was under 700. There is a vast difference between the normal Midland parish of between two and three thousand acres and the great medi eval parishes of western Yorkshire, Halifax with Aysgarth with nearly acres. In one case, the historian has to deal with a compact and well-defined area; in the other, he has to pursue the history of a large and intricate district. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."