At three-yearly intervals between 1706 and 1715 William Wake, bishop of Lincoln, sent out printed questionnaires to all 1,272 parishes and chapelries within his diocese. The 1706 questionnaire is the earliest example of printed visitation questions and one of the earliest printed questionnaires of any kind to be distributed systematically (p. xiv). This in itself reveals something of Wake's organisational abilities. Although the diocese had been reduced in size in 1540, even in Wake's time it comprised about 10 per cent of English parishes. It was some 150 miles long, stretching from the Humber to the Thames, and covered the whole of Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Huntingdonshire, and 59 parishes in the north and east of Hertfordshire. Published in these two volumes are Wake's summaries, or digests, of the returns for 1706, 1709 and 1712, which he probably made in 1712, supplemented with material from 1715, added by John Broad. In addition, where possible, Broad has cross-checked the original returns with Wake's summaries to ascertain what had been omitted or conflated. Almost all of the original returns survive at Christ Church, Oxford, as do the summaries. Browsing through the two volumes, the amount of work completed, first by Wake and then by Broad, is astounding. The parish entries provide details that will be of interest not only to church historians, but also to local and social historians. The Introduction puts the returns into context and provides some analyses of them, but Broad notes that this is not the place for a full-length study of the data embedded in the parish answers: he plans to complete such an analysis in due course (p. xix).

The questions posed by Wake in the four questionnaires, which are published in the Appendices in Part 2, are discussed in ‘Gathering the Information’. Broad demonstrates that some questions were modified over the years to provide more nuanced answers and it is clear that some clergy were apprehensive as to how he intended to use them. The first questions enquired about the physical size of the parish and number of families and/or the size of the population. Taking 1710 as the end date, Broad compares parish population figures with the Compton Census (1676) and argues that the diocese can be used as a testing ground for existing estimates of population (p. xxvii). The results show not only an increasing population in the counties nearest London but also an increase in Leicestershire, suggesting that economic activity in textiles was having an impact.

Many of the questions covered the conduct of religion in a parish: how many communicated, how often, whether there were any dissenters or papists, whether they had a meeting house. Analysis refutes suggestions that dissent was declining at this time and also indicates that dissenters played a largely harmonious part in the community (p. xxix). The values of livings indicate that in Lincolnshire there were a large number of small and poorly endowed parishes, where stipends were only between £10 and £25. This was too low to support a family and so in that county clergymen held two or three benefices in adjacent or nearby parishes, with the net result that those parishes had fewer services. The questions about almshouses, schools and hospitals within parishes, and how they were endowed, emphasise the continuing social role of the parish.

Perhaps the most interesting for local and social historians are questions VI and VII posed in 1706. The former asked whether any persons of quality or gentlemen of estate lived, or had a seat, within the parish; the latter whether there were any monuments of note in the church or antiquities in the parish. Given the propensity of clerics towards antiquarianism, some detailed responses were supplied. At Owmby (Lincs), for example, ‘there have sometimes been ploughed up in the feilds joining to the great Road from Hull to Stamford, brasse & silver Coins with the figure of Rome on one side, & this inscription, Urbs Roma: One [sic] the other, pax et Tranquillitas’ (p. 11). The church at Wroot (Lincs) was dedicated to St Peter but an ancient will in the rector's custody suggested that its previous dedication has been to St Pancrace (Pancras) (p. 29). At Althorpe (Lincs) the rector noted that ‘the only remarkable thing in this parish is the spacious and Chargeable Stone-work that secures both the Church & Church yard against the [river] Trent’ (p. 57). However, at Skinnand (Lincs), a deserted village with only one family, ‘the Church is in Ruines. The lead, & other Materialls dayly Stollen: & 2 bells expected daily to fall into the Rubbish, & perish’ (p. 331). The rector of Bletchley (Bucks) was obviously proud of the newly refurbished church: ‘The chancell, which is already finished being paved with black and white stone, wainscoted round with Dantzick oak, and adorned with a beautifull altar peice, communion table, and rails of the same …’ (p. 965).

It is frustrating that there is only one index, that of parishes; there is not one of people, let alone subjects. And why is there no map of the diocese, since the text specifically mentions Peter Kitson's GIS-linked database of ancient parishes (p. xxii)? It is a shame that the British Academy prices its publications so high: at £190 for the set, it is unlikely that even the relevant record offices will buy these volumes. The work undertaken by Broad in compiling these volumes is prodigious and one hopes that eventually his detailed analysis will be forthcoming and affordable.