In this way the ecclesiastical division will be found almost everywhere to keep up the remembrance of an earlier political state of things. ♦Patriarchates, Provinces, Dioceses.♦ As the Empire became Christian, it was mapped out into _Patriarchates_ as well as into Prefectures. Under these were the metropolitan and episcopal districts, which in after-times borrowed, though in a reverse order of dignity, the civil titles of _provinces_ and _dioceses_. ♦Divisions within and without the Empire.♦ As the Church carried her spiritual conquests beyond the bounds of the Empire, new ecclesiastical districts were of course formed in the newly converted countries. As a rule, every kingdom had at least one archbishopric; the smaller principalities, provinces, or other divisions became the dioceses of bishops. But the different social conditions of southern and northern Europe caused a marked difference in the ecclesiastical arrangements of the two regions. In the South the bishop was bishop of a city; in the North he was bishop of a tribe or a district. Within the Empire each city had its bishop. Thus in Italy and Southern Gaul, where the cities were thickest on the ground, the bishops were most numerous and their dioceses were smallest. ♦Bishops of cities and of tribes.♦ In Northern Gaul the cities are fewer and the dioceses larger, while outside the Empire, the dioceses which represented a tribe or principality were larger again. Also again, within the Empire the bishop, as bishop of a city, always took his title from the city; outside the Empire, especially in the British islands both Celtic and Teutonic, the bishop of a tribe or principality bore a tribal or territorial title. § 1. _The Great Patriarchates._ ♦The Patriarchates suggested by the Prefectures.♦