This book is concerned with the social milieu of Christianity in England from the time of its first introduction in the third or fourth century until the early years of the nineteenth. Its diffusion during the seventh and later centuries was accompanied and made possible by the institution of the parish – first the larger parochia of the minster church and later the smaller ‘parish’ of the later Saxon period. Both parochia and ‘parish’ fitted into a territorial structure of manors and royal estates and were conditioned by them. A consequence was that the parish, at least in its later sense, came to have precise and generally accepted boundaries. A further consequence was that, with its almost complete coverage of this country, the parish came ultimately to be the chief vehicle of public administration at the local level. The parish, from being a unit of ecclesiastical control and pastoral care, became and remained until the middle years of the nineteenth century, the basic area of secular administration.

From the first, the parish embraced a community which, whatever other structures it may once have possessed, derived its unity and its cohesion from the parish and its church. Most activities of the parishioners were watched over by the church courts.