At his point, we may try to picture the priest in his parish as revealed by surviving official visitation records. Such records must, of course, be discounted by the consideration that the visitor's direct duty was that of noting faults for future amendment. Yet, with this discount constantly in mind, we shall be able to observe the extent to which our literary testimonies are borne out by the cold-blooded evidence of commissaries and clerks who were thinking of nothing less than of possible readers four or five centuries after their death.

The routine was always pretty much the same. The bishop's commissary, or the archdeacon, went round the district, and heard evidence either in each village or, more often, at certain accessible points. The clergy were supposed to attend in person; and from each parish came four “synodsmen” (sidesmen, by modern corruption) to answer a regular questionnaire, the points of which were nearly the same in every case.

One of the first and most important questions touched the cleric's morals; and on that point we must begin with a brief explanation. Though priestly celibacy had been decreed from very early times in the Roman Church, the law was very generally neglected both in Saxon England and in Normandy. The story was told fully and accurately by the late Dr H. C. Lea of Philadelphia, whose essential fairness and whose laborious scholarship, in spite of occasional lapses, have on the whole survived even the most hostile criticism from those who are interested to contest his conclusions.