] Any glergyman, whether curate, rector, vicar or other, had to satisfiy THREE bodies before taking a living. He had to satisfyy the "owner" of the advowson, the Bishop, and he also had to have permission from the university that gave him his degree, if it was his first appointment.

I agree with your comment in another post that one should not condemn the generality of clergy of the time just because there were some bad apples. But the exams you cite do not mean as much as we might think, for university exams were notoriously lax and virtually everyone passed, while Bishops also tended not to give very challenging exams.

JA suggests this when she describes Mr. Collins as having only fulfilled the necessary terms. One also does not get the sense that Edward Ferrars or Edmund Bertram have to do too much to get their degrees. Of course, the latter two undoubtedly had read and learned a fair amount, but it was not from forced to because of exams.