The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects | Page 8

the fear of God."[101] When the archdeacon sent down an excommunication against any one of the parish, it was delivered to the minister to be solemnly proclaimed by him from the pulpit,[102] and thereafter he had to see that the excommunicate person remained away from service until absolution was granted[103] by the ordinary, which absolution was then publicly pronounced from the pulpit.[104] When penance had to be done in church by an offender, it was the duty of the parson to superintend the performance; to say, if necessary, before the congregation the formula of confession prescribed for the offence, in order that the guilty person might repeat it after him;[105] to exhort the persons present to refrain from similar transgressions; to read, on occasion, some homily bearing upon the subject;[106] and finally to make out a certificate (together with the wardens, if necessary) that the penance had been carried out as enjoined by the judge.
Besides the celebration of the rites pertaining to his priestly office, which need not detain us here, there were many other duties which the ecclesiastical courts enjoined on the parish incumbent. Some of these have already been referred to.[107] Others will appear as we view the discipline of the courts Christian when exercised over the parishioners at large, to which subject we shall now address ourselves.
Foremost among the requirements exacted by the ordinaries from all alike was the duty of attending church. Every one had to frequent service on Sundays and on feast-days, and to be present at evening as well as at morning prayer.[108] Nor might a man repair to a church in another parish because it was nearer than his own.[109] Should his own minister be unlicenced to preach--and only about one incumbent out of four or five was licenced[110]--he was not permitted, except under special authorization,[111] to hear a sermon in another church while service was going on in his own.[112] If, however, a man were able to pay the statutory[113] fine of 12d. for each absence on holy days he could, it would seem, in practice resort to his parish church only on occasions, say once a month, and yet not get himself written down as a recusant.[114]
Heads of families were made responsible for the attendance of their children and servants; innkeepers or victuallers for their guests.[115]
If it was not permissible to frequent service in another place of worship, neither was it optional with a parishioner to get married elsewhere than in his own church.[116] There, too, his marriage banns had to be published--and it was a presentable offence to marry without banns;[117] there he had to have his children christened[118] and his wife churched;[119] there he was compelled to send sons, daughters or apprentices to be catechized,[120] and there himself learn the principles of religion (if he were ignorant of them), for without a knowledge of the Catechism and the Ten Commandments he could not receive communion.[121]
All persons over fourteen had to receive communion at Easter, and at least on two other occasions during the year.[122] In fact readiness to receive according to the Anglican rites became the test of a loyal subject.[123]
The strict requirement to report all non-communicants to the official resulted in the keeping of books in which were written the names of the parish communicants.[124]
Next in importance to church attendance and the observance of the sacraments came the duty of all parishioners to contribute to the parish expenses. We have viewed church courts at work, compelling wardens to levy church rates; we have now to see how the judges forced recalcitrant ratepayers to pay the sums assessed upon them to the wardens or other collectors.
Among the earliest vestry minutes of the parish of St. Christopher-le-Stocks, London, is one which, after ordering that an assessment be made for the clerk's wages and for pews, decreed that any rebellious persons should be summoned before themselves, the vestry, to be reformed. But if the rebel would not appear, or, on appearance, remain stubborn to reason, then the churchwardens should sue him before the ordinary at the parish costs "vntill suche tyme as he be reduced vnto a good order, and hath paid bothe the costys of the sute and the chargs that he owith vnto the church...."[125] Fifty years later we find this vestry ordaining the same procedure to be followed against parish debtors, and referring to its former order.[126]
It seems, in fact, to have been the well-understood thing that just as parish rates to defray the costs of those matters of parish administration, falling within the province of the ecclesiastical courts, were to be assessed by the authority, and under the direction, of those courts, so, too, the recovery of these rates was to be had before the same tribunals. It is not denied that recourse may occasionally have been