History
Because the bishop's diocese includes the royal palaces and the seat of government at Westminster, he has been regarded as the "King's bishop" and has historically had considerable influence with members of the Royal Family and leading politicians of the day. Since 1748 it has been customary to appoint the Bishop of London to the post of Dean of the Chapel Royal, which has the amusing effect of putting under the bishop's jurisdiction, as dean, several chapels (at the Tower of London and St. James's Palace, among others) which are geographically in the Diocese of London but, as royal peculiars, are specifically outside the bishop's jurisdiction as bishop.
The recorded antiquity of the office dates back to the Roman province of Britannia when 16 named bishops are listed by Jocelyne of Furness in his work Bishops. Stowe noted that this was the sole available source of these names. However, the earlier of the two bishops named Restitutus in the work was alive in 314, the year in which he was named as attending the Council of Arles. The Saxon bishopric of which the present diocese is the direct successor was established in 604 by Mellitus, the same year as St Paul's Cathedral (and also the Diocese of Rochester) were founded.
Read more about this topic: Bishop Of London
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The visual is sorely undervalued in modern scholarship. Art history has attained only a fraction of the conceptual sophistication of literary criticism.... Drunk with self-love, criticism has hugely overestimated the centrality of language to western culture. It has failed to see the electrifying sign language of images.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“These anyway might think it was important
That human history should not be shortened.”
—Robert Frost (18741963)
“If man is reduced to being nothing but a character in history, he has no other choice but to subside into the sound and fury of a completely irrational history or to endow history with the form of human reason.”
—Albert Camus (19131960)