Living/, etc., emphasise very strongly the duty of attending the
religious instruction given by the clergy, while the manuals written
for the guidance of the clergy make it very clear that preaching was a
portion of their duties that should not be neglected. The fact that
religious books of this kind were multiplied so quickly, once the art
of printing had been discovered, affords strong evidence that neither
priests nor people were unmindful of the need for a thorough
understanding of the truths of their religion. The visitations of the
parishes, during which some of the prominent parishioners were
summoned to give evidence about the manner in which the priests
performed their duty of instructing the people, were in themselves a
great safeguard against pastoral negligence, and so far as they have
been published they afford no grounds for the statement that the
people were left in ignorance regarding the doctrines and practices of
their religion. Apart entirely from the work done by the clergy in the
pulpits and churches, it should be remembered that in the cities and
even in the most remote of the rural parishes religious dramas were
staged at regular intervals, and were of the greatest assistance in
bringing before the minds even of the most uneducated the leading
events of biblical history and the principal truths of Christianity.

That the people of England as a body hearkened to the instructions of
their pastors is clear enough from the testimony of foreign visitors,
from the records of the episcopal visitations, the pilgrimages to
shrines of devotion at home and abroad, from the anxiety for God's
honour and glory as shown in the zeal which dictated the building or
decoration of so many beautiful cathedrals and churches, the funds for
which were provided by rich and poor alike, and from the spirit of
charity displayed in the numerous bequests for the relief of the poor
and the suffering. The people of England at the beginning of the