Deanery

a. A sub-division of an English diocese, often corresponding to an existing local government area. Although common in the Middle Ages the deanery had largely fallen into deseutude until its resoration in the Victorian period when there was an increasing realization that the size of English dioceses made them untenable as pastoral units. The first diocese to reestablish rural deaneries was that of Oxford. The Enabling Act of 1919 made it possible to establish Ruri-Decanal Conferences as an inferior level of ecclestiastical governance and these were adapted into the present English Synodical system as the Deanery Synod. Increasingly, dioceses are delegated decisions about budgets and the deployment of stipendiary ministers to this more local level.

b. The residence of the dean of a cathedral.