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]

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]

The archdeaconry was divided again into rural deaneries, of which Kendal was one. This deanery embraced ten parishes, Grasmere being the westermost of them. It appears singular that this group of ten parishes lay in three different counties,—Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Westmorland; and from this circumstance it has been argued that here (as in our own parish) the ecclesiastical division was made prior to the political one of counties. This probably was so; and it is clear that the deanery represents in reality another political area, viz.: that of the barony of Kendal created by William Rufus.[29]

Kirkby Kendale, the caput of the barony, became from this period the official church centre. There the Synods and Archidiaconal Courts were held, and all dues were paid which the higher church authorities exacted from the parishes—Grasmere among them.[30] Thither the rector or his substitute, along with the churchwardens, annually repaired.

The exact relationship between the central church at Kirkby and the churches of Grasmere and Windermere in early days is hard to make out. They were considered in some sort as dependencies, and were called chapels after they had become parish churches. This uncertain position recalls the constitution of the early British church. And it must be remembered that Theodore's parochia was not a parish but a diocese. Again, the laws of Edgar (959-975) place churches in three classes: first, the ancient church or monastery of a district; second, the church with a corpse-ground; and third, the church without a corpse-ground.[31] Tithes moreover were enjoined to be paid to the ancient or central church.

Now Grasmere may at first have ranked in the third order, as a mission church (capella). It would in that case pay its tithes, or a large proportion of them, to Kirkby Kendal, and bury its christian dead within the consecrated soil of that church. It may not have acquired the right of burial until the lord created a demesne there.[32] This view is strengthened by the fact that the church of Kendale claimed certain dues from Grasmere and Windermere down to a late date. One was a pension of 13s. 4d. (one mark) paid to the vicar out of the tithes of the parish. The other was a mortuary fee, exacted by him as late as the seventeenth century.[33]