Every year, on the Feast of Saint Michael, 29 September, congregations the length and breadth of medieval England would come together to contemplate and give thanks for God's holy angels and the ministry and succour they provided to humanity. The sermons and prayers offered on this day focused the laity's attention on an aspect of belief that permeated numerous areas of religious life, and on concepts and ideas central to the whole community. Angels were a ubiquitous presence on the medieval landscape. The liturgy and preaching of 29 September would have been received in an environment that was imbued with the physical presence of the angels: meditations and music thus building on conceptual ideas with their foundations in the very stone, wood and glass of the church itself. Their principal responsibility of leading men to beatitude meant that the deeds of the angels were as diverse as they were far-reaching; their duties included roles as worshippers, protectors, messengers and guardians, and contemporary understanding and official endorsement of these concepts gave the celestial beings an integral part in the functioning of medieval religious life.

Angelology had a strong scriptural basis, and from here, angels went on to assume their pervasive role in medieval religious culture.