What are the advantages and disadvantages of being a bishop?

Answer 1

Well, being a bishop can bring many blessings, like the opportunity to guide and support your community spiritually. You can inspire others and make a positive impact on people's lives. However, it also comes with responsibilities and challenges, such as the weight of making important decisions and balancing the needs of your congregation. Just remember, with each challenge comes an opportunity for growth and learning.

Answer 2

Medieval priests were appointed to a parish by a sponsor - either a monastery or a bishop's court. These sponsors were responsible for ensuring that a suitable candidate was chosen and for punishing any wrong-doing by the priest.

In town parishes, priests fared quite well because the congregation would be quite large. Everyone attending services paid a kind of tax, called "church-scot", which went towards feeding and clothing the priest. People attending funerals, weddings or baptisms would also pay a small contribution ("altar-money") which increased the priest's income. The priest also collected tithes, which were one-tenth of the income and produce of everyone in the congregation; these tithes went to the Church as an institution but the priest was entitled to keep a small proportion for himself.

In rural parishes where fewer people could attend services, priests struggled to survive. Their income was meagre, church-scot minimal and tithes would be mainly in the form of cereal crop. A diet of bread and pottage (a cereal and vegetable soup) was often all that a priest could look forward to. Many rural priests had a small patch of ground for growing their own vegetables or raising a few pigs or goats, since the alternative could be gradual starvation.