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.

The courts fined parishioners individually and they fined them collectively.

Do you know anyone ordered by law to do penance, or excommunicate for not doing the same, who still continues unreformed?by virtue of this strict questioning by the ordinary put to them in written articles before each visitation, church wardens, and their coadjutors, the sworn men or sidemen, were compelled to exercise a continual supervision over their minister's conduct as well as over that of the parishioners generally.

From the point of view of their fellow-parishioners, no doubt, the most important function of the wardens was that of administering the parish finances.

" Finally, the archdeacons or their officials always stood ready to enforce an accounting by the outgoing wardens to the parishioners or their representatives.

A permanent parish officer and one over whose appointment the parishioners had usually no control was the parish minister, whether officiating rector, vicar or curate.

The minister was usually addressed by his parishioners as "Sir" John, or "Sir" George, etc., quite irrespective of his actual rank, and this in an age of punctilious distinctions in forms of address.

Furthermore the minister was the vehicle through which the commands of the authorities, lay or ecclesiastical, were conveyed to the parishioners.

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.

Next in importance to church attendance and the observance of the sacraments came the duty of all parishioners to contribute to the parish expenses.

As the wardens of East Tilbury were going about among the parishioners demanding money of each one according to the rating inscribed on an assessment roll which they carried with them, one Garrett, a constable, discontented that he himself should be rated as high as four shillings, seized the roll and refused to produce it.

So, too, when Richard Fynsett of Clayton, Sussex, was "detected" to the official for not paying his rate for church repairs, November, 1595, he appeared and claimed that not only was his rating excessive, but that the assessment had not been according to custom, to wit, made by the majority of the parishioners.

In short, any one at all, whether in the capacity of parish officer; rate payer; trustee; administrator or executor; lessee of the parish cattle or its lands or tenementsany one, in fact, standing in the relation of debtor to the parish in a matter falling within the jurisdiction of the spiritual courts, could be, and was, compelled by these to pay or to account to the parishioners.

If he continued in his contempt of court he made himself liable to the greater excommunication, and then he was virtually an outcast from the society of his fellow parishioners.

Speaking generally of the average parish, Elizabethan churchwardens accounts and vestry minutes show that for the purposes of raising money amongst themselves to meet every-day parish expenditures,[201] the parishioners of the period did not commonly resort to rates, if by "rate" be understood a general assessment of all lands or all goods alike at a fixed percentage of their revenue or value above a minimum exempted.

The justices of the peace and the ecclesiastical authorities usually cast lump sums upon the parishes, leaving ways and means to the parishioners themselves.

Here, however, we are chiefly concerned with the raising of money amongst the parishioners themselves.

These sheep, as well as the parish cows, were often hired out to parishioners, who gave security for their return.

By the Queen's Injunctions of 1559 parsons are diligently to exhort their parishioners, "and especially when men make their testaments," to give to the poor-box, the surplus of which, after provision for the needy, might be devoted to church and highway repair.

Sometimes well-to-do parishioners with good credit would themselves borrow parish money, returning ten per cent.

For the brewing of the ale the wardens bought many quarters of malt out of the church stock, but much, too, was donated by the parishioners for the occasion.

Accordingly we find the parishioners of St. John's, Glastonbury, making an order in 1589 "that the churchwardens shall yearly keape ale to the comodeti of the parishe upon payne of xxs.

As the parishioners were always eager to turn an honest penny for their own benefit, no possible source of receipts was neglected.

If, for instance, any part of the church or the church premises might, temporarily or permanently, be rented out without drawing upon the community the censure of the ordinary, the parishioners were happy to do so.

A preacher had ordered a load of hay from one of his parishioners.