Photius (patriarch of Constantinople 858–67, 877–86) was born c. 813. His father Sergius, a wealthy official, was exiled along with Photius for opposing Iconoclasm, evidently in 833. During this exile, which lasted until 842, Photius read voraciously. Later, probably in 845, he catalogued his reading in his Bibliotheca. Yet Photius composed neither the Bibliotheca nor his other pre-858 work as formal scholarly literature, for which the contemporary audience was exiguous. Indeed he found no satisfactory use for his talents as the leading scholar of his time until he was rewarded for his learning with the patriarchate.

After their trial, Templars in England were in 1311 dispatched singly to religious houses, where they were to observe their vows and do penance. Although there was some opposition from both Templars and monasteries, the payment of pensions assigned to Templars caused longer-lasting problems: the crown and later the Hospitallers frequently defaulted in making payment from former Templar revenues. In 1318 John XXII instructed that Templars should enter a religious house of their choice, either as brothers or lodgers. His decree was occasioned by the situation in other countries, but was implemented in England, and some Templars transferred to other religious houses, although opposition was again expressed by monasteries. There were, however, some Templars in England who were never apprehended and lived out their lives in freedom.

If St Andrew Hubbard, Eastcheap, was a fairly typical London parish in the later fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, its archive is unusually good. A reasonable number of its parishioners have surviving wills, which is true for the City's parishes generally; but St Andrew Hubbard is extraordinary in preserving churchwardens' accounts in a virtually unbroken run from c. 1450. It thus proves possible to gain a more than usually clear impression of parishioners' beliefs and conduct both for the period preceding the Reformation and then during subsequent upheavals. Scrutiny of testamentary practice either side of c. 1540 indicates a profound and rapid shift in the way in which individuals conceived of and exploited their parish. While, by comparison, churchwardens' accounts suggest institutional continuities, analysis of two mid sixteenth-century initiatives to keep property which had been devised to the parish sheds further welcome light on the reflexes that a community developed to safeguard its interests in this critical period.

A Lutheran settlement was the natural outcome for a politically imposed Reformation such as that of Henry VIII. Some aspects of his settlement pointed in that direction, and English evangelicalism during his reign leaned more towards Lutheranism than has been hitherto appreciated. Reformed views only came to dominate the movement at the very end of the reign. This shift reflects the waning influence of German Lutheranism in England, and arguably also the influence of Lollard sacramentarianism. Henry VIII's radical attitude towards images also brought some quasi-Reformed ideas into his settlement. Most important, from 1543 onwards the regime drove Lutheran-leaning evangelicals into open opposition, forcing them towards more confrontational Reformed doctrines.

Parish priests in late eighteenth-century Malta often grumbled about their poverty, but their excuses were generally self-serving and related to the financial demands of their bishop; like incumbents in mainland Europe, they were not in a bad financial situation. Their relative affluence was a result of revenues such as tithes, mass legacies and surplice fees. In small communities this income may have been tiny, but parish priests were not entirely dependent on parochial revenues, since they were generally drawn from middle-rank families and might possess personal wealth in addition.