This, however, is but conjecture. The fabric of the present church shows no feature that is of a certainty older than the introduction of manorial rule into Grasmere; while it may be as late as the fourteenth century. But before considering the question of its age, it will be well to point out other evidences of the existence of a church in the valley before record began, and then pass on to such scant records as time has left to us. [Illustration: Date] [Illustration: The PARISH of GRASMERE its Townships and Churches] PART II THE PARISH BOUNDARIES THE TOWNSHIPS LEGAL ASPECTS OF THE CHURCH THE EIGHTEEN [Illustration: Decoration] THE PARISH The church of Grasmere is found when record begins, serving as the centre of a large and regularly constituted parish. The date of the creation of this parish is not known; but from the fact that its southern boundary runs by the Stock Beck--thus cutting the now thriving town of Ambleside into two parts, one of which belonged to Grasmere and the other to Windermere--there seems a probability of it having been delineated at an early period, when the _sæter_ of some Norse settler was but an insignificant clearing in the forest. Every parish is but a unit in a complex Church organization, which passes upwards by rural deanery, archdeaconry, to diocese. In historical evolution, there is a descent from the greater to the less; while each successive ecclesiastical demarcation followed as a rule some political line of kingdom or state. The diocese for instance was conterminous with the Anglo-Saxon kingdom; the parish represented the township, or the manor. But in the vast kingdom of Northumbria the superposition of church boundaries upon state boundaries was not so simple a matter, and the subdivisions that took place are not easy to trace. Archbishop Theodore, when called in by King Egfrith (678) to portion his kingdom for purposes of church rule, made at least three bishoprics out of the one whose centre--after a removal to Lindisfarne--was fixed at York.[27] [27] Bright's _Early Church History_, p. 291. Bishop Browne's _Theodore and Wilfrith_, pp. 132 and 690. Next, the archdeaconries were marked out under Thomas, Archbishop of York, some time between 1070 and 1100. The archdeaconry of Richmondshire, lying in the mountainous region west of the old Anglian kingdom, was a great and peculiar province, and the archdeacon ruled over it with almost the powers of a bishop.[28] [28] It may possibly represent an old sub-kingdom of Northumbria, and is suggestive of Edwin's conquest of a district to the north-west called by the Britons Teyrnllwg. See Rhys's _Celtic Britain_ (quoted in "Rydal," _Westmorland Gazette_, May 2nd, 1903). It contained large portions at least of that great church province which Wilfrid made over to Ripon Minster, which was for a short time the seat of a bishop. The creation of Richmond as a centre was a late Norman measure.