According to information provided by the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies in Canterbury, the parish registers for Bishop Norton were commenced in 1587. It also records that the parish was a peculiar in respect of the Ecclesiastical Courts in which wills were proven. The Peculiar Court for the Prebendal of Bishop Norton had jurisdiction over Bishop Norton, Atterby and all of Spital-in-the-Street. Excepting the other Prebendal Manors of Corringham, Stow, Caistor and Louth who each had their own peculiar courts, generally, the old Lindsey parishes west of the River Ancholme were under the jurisdiction of the Archdeaconry Court of Stow and those to the east came under the Consistory Court of Lincoln. Bishop Norton's immediate neighbour to the south, Glentham, was one of several parishes forming another peculiar, the Peculiar of the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln. The fact that the Prebendary of Bishop Norton, from the creation of the separate manor until the church commissioners took charge of the property associated with it in January 1868, held the advowson of the church. This along with the Peculiar Court gives good reason why the Vicar at St Peter's in Bishop Norton was also responsible for the Chapel at Spital-in-the-Street, despite it not being within the parish.