In 1524, Suffolk and Essex ranked on a par as the fourth richest counties in the realm: only Kent, Devon and Norfolk were richer. Suffolk had always been well populated too. As early as 1086, it had been the most densely settled county in England, revealing even then an unusual landscape of small, individual freeholdings: it had 7,460 freemen, half the total for whole the kingdom. Nearly five centuries later, the number of taxpayers in the 1524/5 subsidy shows that Norfolk and Suffolk had some of the highest densities of population in the country, with many low-level taxpayers, the distribution of which hints at a population denser and perhaps wealthier (per capita) than usual. Suffolk's parishes, of which there were many, were relatively modest in size. Most of these were mentioned in the Domesday survey complete with a church or churches, some parishes being credited with two or more.

The deanery of Dunwich, which was part of the diocese of Norwich and which lay within the Archdeaconry of Suffolk, was the largest deanery in pre-Reformation Suffolk (MapII). Inparochial make-up,the Deanery was identical to the civiladministrativeareaofBlythingHundredexceptthat the Deanery contained, in addition, theparishesofKelsaleandCarlton, both situated in the adjacent civil administrative area of theHundredof Hoxne. The inclusion of Kelsale in the deanery of Dunwich gave the DeaneryanimportantDomesday marketwithinitsboundaries.Later, Kelsale's gild dedicated to St ]ohn the Baptist was a centre of communal religious focus.

When the deanery of Dunwich is considered in the light of the area's Anglo-Saxon past, it appears as a later religious administrative unit superimposed on a distinct and identifiable area of historic importance and great antiquity.