ABSTRACT
The diocese of Chester was much larger than many other English dioceses, and several deaneries within it were remote, difficult of access, and sparsely populated. During the sixteenth century in the northern part of the diocese, as in the rest of the north, feuds, murders, and affrays disturbed its life, but these problems do not justify the region to be classified as backward, immobile, and reactionary, an opinion that has been a historical convention for too long. 1
