In the past much scholarship based on diocesan registers concentrated on what their records revealed about the lives and careers of male clergy. The voluminous entries concerning institution, induction and/or collation to ecclesiastical benefices, together with the fullness and continuous nature of the ordination lists in some registers, allowed the analysis of clerical recruitment patterns and qualifications. David Lepine used the information concerning institutions of canons to examine the relative influence of pope, king, bishop or exchange over the making of appointments. Kathleen Major asked how resignation deeds contained within the episcopal registers for Lincoln diocese can inform us about the personal history of the clergy. Gordan Dunstan has identified trends of increasing parochial stability in Exeter diocese by using the information in Bishop Lacy’s register to trace changes in the number of exchanges of benefice. These studies (and many more) have all used episcopal registers for qualitative and quantitative research with a focus on the details pertaining to the male clergy, who were the central figures in the registers.

Nevertheless, although created within an almost exclusively male environment and worldview, episcopal registers, and the administrative and legal framework in which they were compiled, frequently brought women within their compass. Women were, of course, as much subject to ecclesiastical administration as men, and were, for example, the subject of visitations, patrons of benefices, subject to agreements and disputes relating to marriage and divorce, swearers of oaths (vowesses and anchoresses) and their conduct might be addressed through specific mandates relating to such issues as pregnancy, co-sleeping and their enclosure. While it is important to use these records with care, acknowledging that they will reflect the perspective of the Church, episcopal registers can be read both with and against the archival grain to highlight aspects of secular (and monastic) women’s lives and experiences. The appearance of secular women in episcopal records can reveal much about their roles and positions in medieval society, their relationship with and responsibilities to the medieval Church, their own attitudes and values and how the Church viewed both them and their action.