ABSTRACT
Before the Reformation, all priests-regular, higher and parochial-formed a single clerical community. Distinct from the laity in dress, celibacy, and sometimes in their level of education, they frequently appeared as a separate estate, as when on the feast of Corpus Christi they processed together through the streets. Although conflicts within the clergy could break down their unity, they had a strong sense of group identity and individual clerics seem to have built up and valued professional and personal relationships with other priests, irrespective of their particular vocation. Studies of late-medieval Norwich and Coventry and Lichfield have indicated that the beneficiaries, executors and witnesses of the wills of parish priests were monks as well as fellow seculars (Tanner, 1984; Cooper, 1999).
