A bishop did not start on a journey without a great train; and the bishops, besides their episcopal visitations, {116} had, like the nobility, to travel to visit their lands and to live on them. On all these occasions they took with them their servants of different kinds and their followers, as the king did his court. The accounts of the expenses of Richard de Swinfield, Bishop of Hereford, give an idea of the lordly life led by well-to-do prelates. He was a bishop of some importance, and rich in proportion; many manors belonged to his bishopric; he could hold his rank as prelate and as lord, be hospitable, charitable to the poor, and spend much on requests and suits at the court of Rome and elsewhere. He had constantly in his pay about forty persons of different ranks, the greater part of whom accompanied him in his numerous changes of residence. His squires (_armigeri_) had from a mark (13s. 4d.) to a pound a year; his _valleti_, that is, the clerks of his chapel and others, his carters, porters, falconers, grooms, messengers, etc., had from a crown to eight {117} shillings and eightpence. In the third category came the kitchen servants, the baker, with two to four shillings a year; in the fourth, that of the boys or pages who helped the other servants, and whose wages greatly varied, being from one to six shillings a year. All the household was dressed alike, in striped cloth (_pannus stragulatus_), supplied by the bishop, besides the fixed salary. One of the most peculiar retainers of the bishop belonged to a now extinct race, and was his champion, Thomas de Bruges, who received an annual payment to fight in the prelate’s name in case any lawsuit should have to be terminated by a judicial duel.[120] III