give them much instruction (_non multum eos informat_), they think, in “the articles of faith, the Ten Commandments, and the deadly sins.” At another place, the priest, one Robert Blond, “preaches, but,” as appears to the witnesses, “not sufficiently clearly;” but they add, as if conscious of some hypercriticism, that they had long been accustomed to pastors who instructed them most carefully in all that pertained to the salvation of their souls. But these are perhaps the least satisfactory cases. In most instances the priest is said to instruct his people “well” (_bene_), and “excellently” (_optime_), and the truth of the testimony appears more clearly in places where, in other things, the parish-folk do not consider that their priest was quite perfection; as, for instance, at Culmstock, where the vicar, Walter, is said to be too long over the Matins and Mass on feasts; or still more at St. Mary Church, where the people think that in looking after his worldly interests, their priest was somewhat too hard on them in matters of tithe. The Register from which these details are taken is a mere accidental survival, but the point which it is of importance to remember is this: that during Catholic times, in the course of every few years the clergy were thus personally reported upon, so to say, to the chief pastor or his delegates, and the oaths of the witnesses is a proof of how gravely this duty was regarded. And here may be noted, in passing, a fact not realized nor even understood, namely, that one of the great differences between ecclesiastical life in the Middle Ages and modern times lies in the fact that then people had no chance “of going to sleep.” There was a regular system of periodical Visitations, and everything was brought to the test of inquiry of a most elaborate and searching kind, in which every corner, so to speak, was swept out. In this special instance, before passing on, attention may be called to the manifest intelligence, in spiritual things, shown by these jurors--peasants and farmers--in out-of-the-way parishes of clod-hopping Devon, in the early years of the fourteenth century. To assist priests in the preparation of these familiar discourses, manuals of all kinds were drawn up in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It is impossible here to do more than give the names of a few of the best known. They are (1) The _Pars Oculi Sacerdotis_, by William Pagula, or Parker. (2) The _Papilla Oculi_, by John de Burgo, Rector of Collingham in A.D. 1385. (3) The _Regimen Animarum_, compiled about 1343. (4) The _Speculum Christiani_, by John Walton. (5) The _Flos Florum_, etc. All these, and many others like them, may be called popular books of instruction. Besides these, of course, there are a multitude of theological text-books, all calculated to aid the clergy in what the great Grosseteste calls “as much a part of the _cura pastoralis_ as the administration of the Sacraments.”