ABSTRACT
If there had been no effective provision for pastoral care, the impact of the rituals and ideas of the Church and of the efforts of kings and ecclesiastics to create a godly society would have been very limited. This chapter will attempt an overview of provision in Anglo-Saxon England, without detailing either old or current debates, such as those about the ‘minster hypothesis’, the effects of the Vikings, and the frequency of penance, and without considering the lack of vernacular liturgy, which has already been discussed. Rather, it will address the provision of churches; the standards of bishops and priests; teaching, through preaching, texts and works of art; and the availability of the liturgy and of the sacraments of the Eucharist, baptism, penance and extreme unction (last rites, for the dying).
