The spiritual duties of the parish were sometimes served by one of the community in holy orders, or by a cleric attached to the house; sometimes by a stipendiary priest who was paid according to private agreement, and dismissed at pleasure.
A short experience showed that the monks told off to take charge of these appropriate parishes did not generally make very efficient parish priests--how, indeed, should they? The pastoral work of a parish requires other qualities, ideas, sympathies, than those which are proper to the cloister. And, on the other hand, it was soon found that where clerks were employed to fulfil the parochial duties, the parishes were under the disadvantages--with which some of us are well acquainted in these days--of one supplied during a vacancy by temporary help; the clerk had no status in the parish, and no permanent interest in it. In both cases it was found that the duties were often perfunctorily performed, and that the spiritual life of the parish languished.
[Illustration: Abbot presenting clerk for ordination. (Harl. MS., 1527.)]
At the great national synod of Westminster, held by Anselm in 1102, which was attended by some of the lay nobles, an attempt was made to mitigate the evil. It was decreed (canon 21) that monks should not possess themselves of parish churches without the sanction of the bishop, and that they should not take so much of the profits of appropriate parishes as to impoverish the priests officiating therein. But the evil continued and increased until the Court of Rome took up the question and lent its authority to the movement. A decree of the Lateran Council in 1179 forbade the religious to receive tithes from the laity without the consent of the bishops, and empowered the bishops to make proper provision for the spiritual work of the appropriate parishes. The English bishops, strengthened by the Papal authority, set themselves to provide a remedy. This took the form of the foundation of Perpetual Vicarages in the appropriated parishes. The bishop required that the convent, instead of serving the parochial cure by one of the brethren, or by a clerk living in the monastery, or by a chaplain resident in the parish on such a stipend as the convent chose to give, and removable at pleasure, should nominate a competent parish priest, to the satisfaction of the bishop, who was to institute him as perpetual vicar. His title of "Vicarius" implied that he was the representative of the rector; his tenure was permanent and independent; he was answerable to the bishop, and to him only, for the proper fulfilment of his duties; and the bishop required that out of the revenues of the parish a house and such a portion should be assigned for a perpetual endowment as would enable the vicar of the parish to maintain his position in decent comfort.[83]