1, 2, 3, 4 are about sensual sins on the part of the laity. 5. Whether any laymen are drunkards, or habitually frequent taverns, or practise usury of any kind. 6. Receive the free land of any church to farm. 7. Or receive in their fee the tithes of any church. 8. Whether rents assigned to lights or other specified uses of the church are converted to the use of the rector or vicar. 9. Whether any layman is compelled to communicate and offer after mass on Easter Day.[285] 10. Whether any layman or other of whatever condition or reputation (famæ) perierit conscio rectore vel vicario loci. 11. Whether any layman is notably proud, or envious, or avaricious, or slothful, or malicious, or gluttonous, or luxurious [the seven deadly sins]. 12. Whether any layman causes markets, or plays or pleas (placita peculiaria) to be held in sacred places, and whether these things have been prohibited on the part of the bishop. 13. Whether any laymen have played at “Rams” (elevaverint arietes[286]), or caused scotales to be held, or have contended for precedence with their banners in their visitation of the mother church. 14. Whether any layman or woman entertain as a guest the concubine of any man of whatever condition, and keep a bad house. 15. Whether any sick person has lacked any sacrament from negligence of the priest lawfully called. 16. Whether any layman or other of whatever condition have died intestate, or without partaking of the sacraments, by the negligence of the priest or rector. 17. Whether any churches remain to be dedicated, or any have been destroyed without licence from the bishop, since the Council of London. 18. Whether Jews dwell anywhere where they have not been used to dwell. 19. Whether any laymen have clandestinely contracted marriage in cases forbidden by law or without banns. 20. Whether the laity insist upon (sunt pertinaces ut stent) standing in the chancel with the clergy. 21. Whether any layman causes Divine service to be celebrated in any chapel without licence from the bishop. 22. In what way lay servants and representatives of parsons, abbots, priors, prioresses, and other parsons and religious persons, behave in their granges, mansions, and possessions. 23. Let diligent inquiry be made concerning the taxation of every church, and how much the rector of every church has given to the subsidy of the Lord Pope. 24. Whether any rectors or vicars or priests are very illiterate (enormiter illiterati). 25. Whether the sacrament of the Eucharist is everywhere carried to the sick with due reverence, and is kept in a proper manner. 26. Whether any of the aforesaid or others in sacred orders are incontinent, and in what kind of incontinence. 27. Whether the incontinent have been corrected by the archdeacon of the place, and how often and in what manner. 28. Whether any convicted or confessing incontinence have bound themselves to resignation of their benefices or other canonical punishment if they relapse, and whether any after so binding themselves have relapsed. 29. Whether any men beneficed or in sacred orders are married (uxorati). 30. Whether any clerics frequent the churches of nuns without reasonable cause. 31. Whether any of the clerks in holy orders keep (tenent) any woman related to him, or any concerning whom evil suspicions may arise. 32. Whether any are drunken, frequenters of taverns, or traders, or usurers, or fighters or wrestlers, or notorious for any vice. 33. Whether any are farmers, giving and receiving churches or vicarages to farm without the licence of the bishop. 34. Whether any are viscounts (high sheriffs) or secular judges, or hold bailywĩcks (stewardships) for laymen, for which office they are obliged to give account (unde obligentur eisdem ad ratiocinia). 35. Whether any rectors make a bargain with their annual priests (cum sacerdotibus annuis) that, besides the stipend received from the rector, they may receive annualia and tricennalia from others. 36. Whether any is guilty of simony, either in regard to ordination or preferment. 37. Whether any parish priest has not sufficient maintenance from the rector. 38. Whether any rector or vicar has built on a lay fee or cemetery out of the revenues of the Church, or has placed tithes in a lay fee. 39. Whether any carry weapons, or have not the tonsure, and fitting habit. 40. Whether any one has more than one cure of souls without dispensation. 41. Whether any rector or vicar is the son of the last incumbent. 42. Whether any priest extorts money for penance or other sacraments, or enjoins lucrative penances. 43. Whether deacons hear confessions or minister other sacraments committed to priests only. 44. Whether any rector or vicar does not reside on his benefice. 45. Whether any church has not clerks or one honest clerk according to the means of the church. 46. Whether the cemeteries are everywhere enclosed, and the churches becomingly built and adorned, and the ornamenta and sacred vessels properly kept. 47. Whether any priest celebrates in sour wine (aceto). 48. Whether any beneficed men learn or teach secular laws.[287] 49. Whether cartings are done (fiant cariagia) on the Lord’s days or festivals, and by whom. 50. Whether the canon of the mass is everywhere duly corrected. 51. Whether any layman or cleric keeps as a guest the concubine of a cleric, and where are there harbours of concubines. 52. Whether any priest celebrates twice a day except in the conceded cases, and except in his own church. 53. Whether any religious have appropriated to themselves any tithes, or churches, or such like, or any additional pension or portion has been given to religious, without the consent of the bishop of the place. 54. Whether any vicars make themselves rectors, or the converse. 55. Whether any illegitimates who have not a dispensation hold ecclesiastical benefices, or are in sacred orders. 56. Whether any act as rectors or vicars who have not been instituted by the bishop. 57. Whether the super altars are proper (honesta), and not used for grinding colours upon them. 58. Whether adulteries and public and notorious crimes of laymen are duly corrected by the archdeacon, and whether any one has celebrated marriage in a disallowed case. 59. Whether in every deanery there have been appointed penitentiaries[288] of rectors, vicars, and priests, and who they are. 60. What priests were ordained in Ireland or elsewhere outside this diocese, and whence did they come, and in what places have they ministered hitherto, and by whom are they licensed to celebrate. 61. Whether in every archdeaconry there are sufficient penitentiaries of the bishop (for cases reserved to the bishop?). 62. Concerning the life and proper conduct of archdeacons, deans, and clerics who minister in churches, and concerning the agents and servants of parsons and others. 63. Whether any anchorite has been made without the assent of the bishop. 64. Whether any monks or religious dwell in their granges or possessions, and how the monks behave there in spiritual things, and what is their reputation. 65. Whether the dean and others have entered into a confederacy during the vacancy of the see to the prejudice of the incoming bishop. 66. Whether any archdeacons have received more for procuration than they ought to receive according to the new constitution. 67. Enquiry is to be made concerning executors of wills, whether they have acted well and faithfully in the performance of their executorship, and if concerning the said executorship they have paid the computum to the bishop. 68. Whether markets are held by any one on the Lord’s day.
The answers show that the testes synodales did not scruple to find fault when they had cause, and perhaps sometimes when they had not much cause. We gather a few of the returns from the diocese of Exeter at Bishop Stapledon’s Visitation in 1301,[289] as examples—
Sidbury.—Walter the Vicar, optime se habet in omnibus, bene predicans, et officium sácrum sacerdotale laudabiliter exercens. Similiter et Clerici honestè se gerunt.
Branscombe.—Thomas the Vicar conducts himself well in all things, and preaches willingly (libenter), and diligently does all things which belong to the office of a priest.
The returns from many parishes are equally satisfactory. We take more interest, perhaps, in those in which the failings of the clergy are pointed out. Here are some of them—
Culmstock.—William the Vicar is a man of good life and honest conversation, and his clerk likewise, and well instructs his parishioners. In the visitation of the sick and baptizing the children, and in all things which belong to his office, they know nothing to be found fault with in him, with the exception that he makes too little pause between the matins and mass on festival days.[290]
Colyton.—Sir Robert the Vicar is a good man (probus homo), and preaches to them so far as he knows (quatenus novit), but not sufficienter, as it seems to them. They say also that his predecessors were accustomed to call the friars to instruct them about their souls’ salvation, but he does not care for them; and if by chance they come he does not receive them, nor give them entertainment (viatica); whereof they pray that he may be admonished. Item, all the chaplains and clerks of the church live honestè et continentes.[291]
At a later visitation, in 1330, the synodsmen of Colyton complain that their vicar had been struck with leprosy, but continued to come to communion with the parishioners at the risk of contaminating the whole flock, which was a scandal. They report that they used to have one sufficient vicar, one fit parochial chaplain, one deacon, and two clerks serving in the said church of the alms of the parishioners, and that the vicar used to find that number, out of whom they have now only one chaplain and one clerk, and that the said vicar refuses to supply more. They complain that the vicar chooses his parish clerk at his own pleasure, and will not manucipere pro eodem. They say that the clerks of the church used by custom to ring the curfew, and at the elevation of the corpus domini.
They complain that John Prouz (lord of the manor of Gatcombe, in the parish) is not willing to contribute with the other parishioners to the church, nor to do other things which belong to him. They say that Sir Hugo Prouz, father of the said John, knight, deceased, left 10 marks sterling to the fabric of the church of Colyton, which the heirs refuse to pay.[292]
Colebrook.—Hugh de Coppelestone and other trustworthy men of the parish, lawfully requisitioned and examined, say that Sir William the Vicar preaches after his own fashion (suo modo); also he expounds to them the Gospels on the Lord’s Days so far as he knows (quatenus novit); but concerning the Articles of the Faith, the Commandments of the Decalogue, and the mortal sins, he does not teach them much. And he does not say his matins with note on the more solemn days, and only celebrates on the week days every other day. He is defamed of incontinency with Lucia de la Stubbe, a married woman (conjugata). All his houses, except the hall and chamber, which were in a good state at his coming, are now falling to pieces and threatening to come down, and could not be made good for a hundred shillings. Also his gate is so far from the hall, which he has lately lengthened, that one calling without is not heard in the hall, which is dangerous for the sick parishioners.[293]