This account of parochial life in pre-Reformation England requires some brief description of the Sacramental system, which had its effect on every soul in the district. From the time of his baptism as a child of the Church, till his body was laid to rest in its tomb, each parishioner was the constant recipient of some one of those mysterious rites, by which, as he was taught by the Church and as he believed, God’s grace was received into his soul to enable him to lead the life of a good Christian. In the administration of these Sacraments, nothing is more clear in the teaching of the Church of the Middle Ages than that there was to be no question of money. They--the Sacraments--were spiritual things, and to sell them for fees would be plain simony, which was prohibited by every law of God and man. If the administrator was permitted to take an offering, it was only with the plain understanding that the payment was made in regard to the service rendered, for which the recipient desired to make some return; and that the Sacrament should be given without the fee. In the case of such a Sacrament as Penance, for example, where the acceptance of a fee or offering might lead to a misunderstanding of the judicial character of the rite, and so bring it into contempt, the reception of money was altogether prohibited by the ecclesiastical authorities, and any such abuse was sternly repressed. Thus, to take an example, in the acts of the Synod of Ely in 1364, the bishop, Simon Langham, says, “We have heard, and greatly grieve to have done so, that some priests exact money from the laity for the administration of penance or other Sacraments, and that some, for the sake of filthy lucre, impose penances” which bring in money to them. “These we altogether prohibit.” The Sacraments, according to the teaching of the Church, which every one who pretended to be a practical Christian was bound to receive, were Baptism, Confirmation, Penance, Holy Eucharist, Extreme Unction, and in the case of those desiring to marry, Matrimony. Something may, therefore, usefully be said about each of these.