The evidence of the various Visitations shows that even the smallest churches were expected to be provided by the rector with the Matin books. For example, in the Visitation of churches in the diocese of Exeter, in 1440, there were constant notes as to the “_libri matutinales_” being in need of repair, or being “sufficiently good.” In one case it is stated that the rector had built a new chancel, had done much to the rectory house, and had “provided good Matin books.” In another the rector is said to have “hired a scribe to write new books.” In the same diocese, in 1301, it was made an article of complaint, by the parishioners of Colebrooke, at the Visitation, that their vicar did not “sing Matins on the Greater Feasts with music” (_cum nota_), and that he “only said Mass every other day.” The general orders for the provision of books for this service in the Constitutions of the English Church is sufficient evidence that the service was faithfully said or sung. Myrc, in his _Instructions_, says that-- “The holy day only ordeynet was To here goddes serves and the Mas. And spare that day in holynes And leve alle other bysynes.” And Langland, after saying that all business, hunting, and labour is to stop on the Lord’s day, says, “And up-on Sonedays to cease--godes servyce to huyre, Bothe Matyns and Masse--and after mate, in churches to huyre here evesong, every man ought.” That this was really done, and moreover that the English practice was to go to the parish church and hear Matins before breaking the morning fast, appears in a passage of Sir Thomas More’s writings. “Some of us laymen,” he says, “thinke it a payne ones in a weeke to ryse so soon fro sleepe, and some to tarry so long fasting, as on the Sonday to com and hear out they Matins. And yet is not Matins in every parish, neyther, all thynge so early begonne norfully so longe in doyng, as it is in the Charterhouse, ye wot wel.” In a fifteenth-century book of instructions there are given as practical examples of the vice of sloth-- “When a man castis hym to leze in reste; to slepe mekell; to be long in bed, late comyng to God’s service; havyng non savour nor swetnes in prechyng, nor in bedys byddyng, nor no devocyon in Matynes nor in Evesong.”