If lay people were most likely to encounter the lower clergy they did nevertheless come up against the higher clergy on occasion. The classic study of the secular rule of the city refers to Durham's ‘all-powerful ecclesiastical overlords’ and considers that because the bishop and the priory between them ran all the courts the laity were never able to assert their independence of either. In discussing the reasons for the failure of the townsmen to rebel against the bishop or the priory Bonney notes that the priory was more interested in recording its quarrels against the bishop than against the townsmen. Her explanation of the absence of rebellion was that most of the natural leaders of the town worked for the priory, but also that usually the overlords were neither oppressive nor unjust. She also asserts that it was not possible for the townsmen to play off one lord against another because the agreement between bishop and priory, called the Convenit (of 1229), had ensured parity between the boroughs.

These questions need to be discussed again. The views just rehearsed cannot be wholly accepted either in the secular or in the ecclesiastical sphere. It is not true that most of the employment of the area was wholly dependent on the priory or the bishop; though some of the most respectable citizens, for instance in Elvet, were always married clerks who did a great deal of work for the prior.