The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects | Page 4

of Durham, the 13th March, 1578/1579, the
wardens of Coniscliffe are found to "lacke 2 Salter bookes [and] one
booke of the Homelies," they are admonished to certify "that they have
the books detected 4th April and to bringe their boks hither."[26] Thus,
too, the wardens of St. Michael's, Bishop Stortford, record in 1585 that
they have paid 8d. "when we brought in to the court the byble and
comunion booke to shewe before the comysary."[27] There is a curious
entry in the same accounts some years earlier, viz.: "pd for showing
[shoeing] of an horse when mr Jardfield went to london to se wether it
was our byble that was lost or no and for his charges...."[28]

At the visitation held at Romford Chapel, Essex Archdeaconry, 5th
September, 1578, the wardens of Dengie "broughte in theire surplice,
which surplice is torne & verie indecent & uncomly, as appereth;
whereupon the judge, for that theie neglected their othes, [ordered them
to confess their fault and prepare] a newe surplice of holland cloth of v
s. thele [the ell], conteyninge viii elles, citra festum animarum prox."
Remembering that money was then worth ten to twelve times what it is
today, this was probably considered too great a burden by the
parishioners of Dengie. A petition must have been presented to be
allowed to procure a cheaper surplice, for on the 6th October following
the wardens were permitted to prepare a surplice containing six ells
only at the reduced price of 2s. 8d. per ell.[29]
It seems to have been the practice in the Dean of York's Peculiar for the
judge to threaten the churchwardens occasionally with a fine for failure
to repair their church or supply missing requisites for service by a fixed
day. Thus at Dean Matthew Hutton's visitation, July, 1568, the
churchyards of Hayton and of Belby were found to be insufficiently
fenced. The order of the court was: "Habent ad reparanda premissa
citra festum sancti Michaelis proximum sub pena XX s."[30]
So, too, the Thornton wardens at the same visitation are warned to
repair the body of their church "betwixt this and Michlmes next upon
paine of X s."[31] But as spiritual tribunals had no legal power to
fine[32] or to imprison, apparently the usual penalty prescribed by the
judges in case of disobedience to, or neglect of, their orders to repair or
replace by a certain day, was, in the words of Bishop Barnes addressed
to the churchwardens in Durham diocese, the "paynes of interdiction
and suspencion [_i.e._, temporary excommunication] to be pronounced
against themselves."[33] Yet here, too, the wardens did not escape
indirect amercement, for absolution from interdiction or
excommunication often meant a payment of various court fees, which
in many cases were by no means light. These fines the wardens put to
their credit in the expense items of their accounts if they could possibly
do so, and it is probable that the parish always paid them except in
cases of very gross individual delinquency in office. Thus the wardens
of St. Martin's, Leicester, record: "Payd to Mr. Comyssarye whe[n] we
was suspendyd for Lackynge a Byble & to hys offycers xxiij d."[34]
The wardens of Melton Mowbray register: "Ffor our chargs &

marsements at Lecest[e]r ... for yt ye Rood loft whas not takyn down &
deafasyed iiij s. iiij d."[35]
In the same accounts we find some years later: "Payde to ... at the
vicitacion houlden at Melton for dismissinge us oute of there bookes
for not reparinge the churche iij s. ij d."[36] So, also, we read in the St.
Ethelburga-within-Bishopsgate Accounts: "Paid in D[octor] Stanhope's
courte beinge p[re]sented by p[ar]son Bull aboute the glasse windowes
xvj d." And nine years later: "Paid for Mr Gannett and myselfe
['Humfery Jeames'] for absolution iiij s. viij d." Also: "Paid for our
discharge at the courte for [from] our excomm[uni]cacon xvj d."[37]
The act-books abundantly show that ecclesiastical courts were very far
from being limited to mere moral suasion or to spiritual censures. They
could never have accomplished their work so thoroughly if they had
been. This point will be brought out much more clearly, it is hoped,
when we come to consider excommunication as a weapon of
coercion.[38] The courts fined parishioners individually[39] and they
fined them collectively. What matters it that these fines were called
court fees, absolution fees, commutation of penance, or by any other
name? What signifies it that the proceeds could be applied only _in
pios usus_? The mulcting was none the less real. On the score of
bringing stubborn or careless wardens to terms through their purses, the
following extract from a letter written in 1572 to the official of the
archdeacon of the bishop of London is in point. The letter informs the
judge that Jasper Anderkyn, a churchwarden,