One could have wished St Thomas here to have told us what he knew of any variation of Ordinal in local churches of his time; what ceremonies were comparatively recent, and what more ancient and primitive. Had any one in Paris, Rome, or Naples, an old Sacramentary or Pontifical that St Thomas could have looked into, and compared its formularies with those by which he himself was ordained? But the spirit of documentary research slumbered in the thirteenth century, except for the quest (or invention) of charters and bulls of privilege.

Of God and His Creatures: 4.74