Most historians have seen Nigel as an administrator, not a religious bishop. The historian David Knowles wrote that Nigel "had devoted all his energies and abilities to matters purely secular; in the department of financial administration he was supreme, and more than any other man he helped to ensure the continuity and development of the excellent administrative practice initiated under Henry I". The historian W. L. Warren said that "Stephen probably paid dearly for the dismissal of Bishop Roger of Salisbury and Bishop Nigel of Ely, for the expertise of the exchequer was lodged in their expertise." Whatever Nigel's administrative talent, his ecclesiastical abilities are generally held to be low; the "Gesta Stephani" says of both him and Alexander that they were "men who loved display and were rash in their reckless presumption ... disregarding the holy and simple manner of life that befits a Christian priest they devoted themselves so utterly to warfare and the vanities of this world that whenever they attended court by appointment they ... aroused general astonishment on account of the extraordinary concourse of knights by which they were surrounded on every side."