The act books of church courts are among the more strikingly repulsive of all the relics of the past – written in cramped and hurried hand, in very abbreviated and technical Latin, often preserved (if that is the right word) in fairly noisome conditions, ill-sorted and mostly unlisted, unindexed and sometimes broken in pieces. Cause papers, where they exist, are likely to be found in total confusion and with no guide to their contents… Only young scholars, still enthusiastic, physically strong, and possessed of a sound digestion, are advised to tackle these materials. On the other hand, they offer a most promising field of research because they illumine the history of church and people in ways that no other source can. They take one to the realities. This is because of the wide range of cases that came before these courts, and because that range touched the human being so very near his personal centre.