h likewise of the decay of parishes in great cities and towns,
missing in some six or eight or twelve churches and more, of all which he
giveth particular notice. For albeit that the Saxons builded many towns
and villages, and the Normans well more at their first coming, yet since
the first two hundred years after the latter conquest, they have gone so
fast again to decay that the ancient number of them is very much abated.
Ranulph, the monk of Chester, telleth of general survey made in the
fourth, sixteenth, and nineteenth of the reign of William Conqueror,
surnamed the Bastard, wherein it was found that (notwithstanding the Danes
had overthrown a great many) there were to the number of 52,000 towns,
45,002 parish churches, and 75,000 knights' fees, whereof the clergy held
28,015. He addeth moreover that there were divers other builded since that
time, within the space of a hundred years after the coming of the Bastard,
as it were in lieu or recompense of those that William Rufus pulled down
for the erection of his New Forest. For by an old book which I have, and
some time written as it seemeth by an under-sheriff of Nottingham, I find
even in the time of Edward IV. 45,120 parish churches, and but 60,216
knights' fees, whereof the clergy held as before 28,015, or at the least
28,000; for so small is the difference which he doth seem to use. Howbeit,
if the assertions of such as write in our time concerning this matter
either are or ought to be of any credit in this behalf, you shall not find
above 17,000 towns and villages, and 9210 in the whole, which is little
more than a fourth part of the aforesaid number, if it be thoroughly
scanned.[74]

* * * * *

In time past in Lincoln (as the same goeth) there have been two-and-fifty
parish churches, and good record appeareth for eight-and-thirty; but now,
if there be four-and-twenty, it is all. This inconvenience hath grown
altogether to the church by appropriations made unto monasteries and
religious houses--a terrible canker and enemy to religion.

But to leave this lamentable discourse of so notable and grievous an
inconvenience, growing as I said by encroaching and joining of house to
house and laying land to land, whereby the inhabitants of many places of
our country are devoured and eaten up, and their houses either altogether
pulled down or suffered to decay little by little,[75] although some time
a poor man peradventure doth dwell in