If the bishops were to be the prime movers in the preaching of the Word in their dioceses, they needed to be supported by a learned and educated body of clergy equipped fully for the task. The educational shortcomings of the clergy were a source of almost universal concern amongst the early reformers, in England as much as on the Continent. In 1528 William Tyndale complained of the English clergy that

The bishops were not unaware of the failings of their clergy in this matter. A concern for education as an essential component of the episcopal office was derived from the idea of the bishop as the first and foremost preacher in his diocese. Many bishops sought to improve clerical education for the express purpose of raising the standard of preaching in the Church, there was no conception of an integrated training programme for priesthood as a whole at the end of the Middle Ages. Until the idea of the seminary was first proposed by Cardinal Pole, the main (and only formal) school of ministerial training was the university; Oxford and Cambridge received a number of endowments in the years preceding 1520 to the end that they might perform this task more effectively.