In the ecclesiastical division of the county, this hundred was one of the rural deaneries under the archdeacon of Suffolk. Bishop Kennet, in his parochial antiquities, informs us that this office in the church was very ancient, for in one of the laws ascribed to Edward the Confessor, it is provided, that of eight pounds penalty for breach of the king’s peace, the king shall have an hundred shillings, the earl of the county fifty, and the dean of the bishop in whose deanery the peace was broken, the other ten; which words can be applied only to the office of rural deans, according to the respective districts which they had in parts of every diocese. At first their office was merely to inspect the manners and behaviour of the inferior clergy and people, but by degrees they became possessed of a power to judge and determine in smaller matters, and the rest they were to report to their ecclesiastical superiors. Some time before the Reformation, by the great power of the archdeacons and their officials, the jurisdiction of rural deans declined almost to nothing; and at that period no steps being taken for the restoration of this part of the government of the Church, their name and office unhappily ceased together, notwithstanding attempts have since been made to revive this ancient and useful institution, which in some places have been successful. Rural Deans of the deanery of Lothingland, Anno 1325, Jeffrey de Boudon, priest, upon the resignation of William de Weston: 1326, John de Wynneferthyng; 1328, John de Thrillo; 1339, Edmund de Bokenham; 1376, Roger de Belton. {1} It has been conjectured by some, that the island took its name from the lake Lothing, but, I apprehend, without any foundation; it seeming more probable that both the island and lake derived their names from Lothbrock, a noble Dane, whose descendants, in order to perpetuate his memory, gave to this part of the kingdom of the East Angles—frequently the seat of war in their descents on the British coast—the name of Luddingland, Lovingland, Luthingland, or as it is now called Lothingland.