Henceforth, instead of giving the local clergyman an agreed portion of his crop, the farmer would pay him a fixed annual sum based on the general worth of his land. This meant that the clergy were entitled to their allotted share even when the farmers had bad years, which in turn meant that clergymen had nothing but good ones. The role of country clergy was a remarkably loose one. Piety was not necessarily a requirement, or even an expectation. Ordination in the Church of England required a university degree, but most ministers read classics and didn’t study divinity at all, and so had no
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Ah. Capitalism (and feudalism, honestly). Why am I not surprised.
