Although the archbishop of Canterbury, and indeed the bishops generally, had considerable political influence at this period, Cnut's chief minister was a layman, and this had an important bearing on the progress of a change in the administrative machinery of the kingdom that deeply affected the Church. As long as the chief minister of the king was an ecclesiastic, the clergy who carried on the routine of government under his direction naturally had no distinct position. Now, however, the king's clerks or chaplains begin to appear as a recognized body of officials discharging the ordinary business of the administration. When Cnut visited different parts of the kingdom he took four of these clerks with him; for his journeys were really judicial circuits, and he needed clerks to register his decrees and other acts. Deeds and charters drawn up by these clerical secretaries were, when necessary, kept in the royal chapel, of which they were the priests. In the Confessor's reign it became customary for the king to signify his will by sealed writs, and an officer was appointed to keep the king's seal. He was called the chancellor, from the screen (_cancelli_) behind which the secretaries worked. He was chief of the royal clerks, and the institution of his office gave further distinctness to the body over which he presided. The king's clerks were generally rewarded with bishoprics or other ecclesiastical preferments; and thus, while the State gained the services of a body of trained officials, the Church lost much; for the surest path to preferment lay in the discharge of secular rather than of religious duties, and many of its chief ministers were servants of an earthly rather than of a Heavenly King. Indeed, from the death of Cnut to the Norman Conquest, the life of the Church is marked by increasing worldliness. Bishops played a large part in the affairs of the nation, but, for the most part, had little regard for their spiritual duties. Bishoprics were sought after as sources of wealth and power, and were often obtained by simony and held in plurality. While Wulfstan of Worcester was a man of holy life, Leofric of Exeter an ecclesiastical reformer, and Ealdred of York a prelate of conspicuous energy, most of the bishops of this period were simply greedy, second-rate men. Nor do the inferior clergy appear to have been better than their rulers; for baptism is said to have been much neglected, because the clergy refused to administer it without a fee. [Sidenote: Eadward the Confessor, 1042-1066.] [Sidenote: Foreigners appointed to English sees.]