43. Deanesly, pp. 188–204; Herklots, pp. 43–46. There were some dedicated biblical scholars among the highest orders of the clergy, but in the lower classes, particularly among the parish priests, biblical knowledge was very scant. Beryl Smalley, in The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1941), pp. 222–25, describes some of the specific reasons why study of the scriptures by the clergy themselves was not always considered important.