Holdings of Lambeth Palace Library

Visitation articles and returns

The practice of episcopal visitation developed in the medieval church as a means of correcting clerical and lay abuses. It became customary for a bishop to carry out a visitation of his own diocese during his first year of office and at intervals of every three to four years thereafter. The 1604 canons confirmed this practice of episcopal visitation. During a visitation, clergy and churchwardens would be examined according to a set of articles of enquiry.  Misdeamours presented would be dealt with by the bishop’s officials, and often led to proceedings in the diocesan consistory court. However as the churchwardens’ presentments became more formal and of less use to a bishop wishing to know the state of the church within his diocese, the practice was developed, first by William Wake as bishop of Lincoln, of circulating printed articles of enquiry addressed to local clergy to answer before a visitation. These visitation articles together with their answers, known as returns, were designed to furnish the bishop with an account of the state of every parish within his diocese.

The visitation articles were printed and each question or series of questions was followed by a space in which the cleric wrote his answer. Although the scope and number of questions varied from bishop to bishop, or even archbishop to archbishop, there was normally a standard core of questions concerning the extent of the parish, the residence or non-residence of the incumbent, the number of church services, the instruction of the youth in the articles of faith, and the prevalence of nonconformity or Roman Catholicism. In general the visitation articles of the 18th and early 19th century archbishops of Canterbury were more rigorous than those of the bishops of London, and provide more detailed information and replies. But in the second half of the 19th century, A.C. Tait devised a lengthy and searching series of questions, totally over 37 major questions and subsidiary questions, and circulated these with minor amendments both as bishop of London (1856-68) and later as archbishop (1868-1882). They continued to be used with slight modifications by his immediate successors at both London and Canterbury. 

Samples of visitation articles of various archbishops and bishops for the dioceses of Canterbury and London 1716 - 1935 are available online.  An example of a return for the parish of Faversham, Kent, 1758, is also available.

These visitation articles asked about all aspects of the life and work within the parish, including the provision of education at all levels, for both children and adults. In the late 19th century in particular, the local church was still viewed by some as responsible for the overall moral and physical wellbeing of its parishioners in a way that is almost inconceivable now. The handbills of St. Barthomew’s, Bethnal Green, entitled ‘From Tiger’s Corner to Dog Row’, provide a graphic account of the work of the local clergy within a poor part of London: free meals, ‘tobacco sociables’, horn polishing, sewing classes as well as moral and spiritual succour. 

The visitation articles reflected changes in society at large, as well as the particular interests of the bishop or archbishop. In 1900, for instance, Bishop Creighton asked about the incumbent’s connection with ‘the labour organisations or movements of social and economical reform’. In 1935 Lang questioned the clergy about the influence of the cinema and wireless and the extent of poverty and unemployment and housing, as well as requesting information on intemperance, gambling and sexual morality locally. 
 

The Library has visitation returns for the diocese and peculiars of Canterbury. With the exception of those for 1717 and 1758-61, which are in the manuscript series, all of these are in the Vicar General archive.   The returns for the diocese of London are in the Fulham Papers. 


There are detailed alphabetical indexes of the parishes for which there are returns; these are available in the reading room.  However for the convenience of searchers, a place-name index is available here. Information about the extent of the dioceses of Canterbury and London and the peculiar jurisdiction of the archbishops (use your browser's back button to return here).

Select Bibliography

W.R. Ward (ed) Parson and parish in eighteenth-century Surrey. Replies to bishops’ visitations, Surrey Record Society, vol. 34, 1994.  (Includes the returns for the archbishop’s peculiars in Surrey).

W.R. Ward (ed) Parson and parish in eighteenth-century Hampshire. Replies to bishops’ visitations, Hampshire Record Series, vol. 13, 1995.

H.A. Lloyd Jukes (ed) Articles of enquiry addressed to the clergy of the diocese of Oxford at the primary visitation of Dr. Thomas Secker, 1738, Oxfordshire Record Society, 38, 1957.

S.L. Ollard and P.C. Walker (eds) Archbishop Herring’s returns, 1743, Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, 71, 72, 75, 77, 79, 1928-1931.

The Speculum of Archbishop Thomas: the diocese of Canterbury, 1758-1768, ed. Jeremy Gregory. Church of England Record Society, 2, 1995.  (Secker extracted many of the details given in this survey from the 1758 visitation returns for the diocese and peculiars of Canterbury).

Wiltshire returns to the bishop’s visitation queries, 1783, ed. Mary Ransome. Wiltshire Record Society, 27, 1972

Clergé et pastorale en Angleterre au XVIIIe sielce: le diocese de Londres, by Vivienne Barrie, Paris, 1992. (This study was based on the late 18th century London visitation returns).

The church in Derbyshire, 1823-4; the parochial visitation of the Rev. Samuel Butler, archdeacon of Derby, in the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, ed. by M.R. Austin. Derbyshire Archaeological Society 5, 1972.

Visitation of the archdeaconry of Stafford, 1829-41, ed. D. Robinson. Staffordshire Record Society, 10, 1980.

Bishop Wilberforce’s visitation returns for the archdeaconry of Oxford in the year 1854, ed. E.P. Baker, Oxford Record Society, 35, 1954.

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