87. On the subject of the rural bishops, or Chorepiscopi,
who voted in synods, and conferred the minor orders, see
Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 447, etc. and
Chardon, Hist. des Sacramens, tom. v. p. 395, etc. They do
not appear till the fourth century; and this equivocal
character, which had excited the jealousy of the prelates,
was abolished before the end of the tenth, both in the East
and the West.