[4][5] He then entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, but was rusticated (suspended) for a year and chose not to return to complete his degree.

[6] In 1894, he was ordained deacon in the Diocese of Chester and became a curate in Flowery Field, Cheshire, but left following parishioners' objections to his socialism.

In 1910, he became the vicar of Thaxted, Essex[8] presented by the patron of the living Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick, who was herself a socialist.

[13] On Noel's perspective on the Middle Ages, which was similar to that of William Morris and John Ruskin,[14] Reginald Groves wrote: He himself had drawn much inspiration from the Middle Ages only because he felt that this period, despite many oppressions, had a certain vigour and freedom which expressed itself in communal life; and he borrowed much from the ancient English uses and ceremonials for the worship at Thaxted.

But he adapted the ideas and usages to contemporary needs, and he formulated his rediscovery to make of it an outward expression of the newly aroused modern movement for social justice.