ABSTRACT
The ecclesiastical reforms introduced by the papacy in the eleventh century had a significant impact on the spiritual mores and social life of Christians. Manuscript evidence such as that herein mentioned shows that in the higher tiers of the ecclesiastical hierarchy there was a desire to reform the manners and morals of church life through regulation and exhortation. Establishing behavioural boundaries was also a powerful means in the hands of the bishop to keep control over the churches of his diocese. In his study of the Church in Anglo-Saxon society J. Blair shows that church provision in urban locations including Exeter had gradually increased by 1086, about a dozen years after Bishop Leofric’s death. The choice of texts copied in In Dedicatione Aecclesiae and the ways in which these were structured into a topical text reflect, to some extent, an innovative, perhaps creative, use of traditional rhetoric.
