[83] Hale, Churchwardens’ Prec., 98 (1601).  Burn, Eccles.  Law, i, 268 (citing Gibson, Codex, 196, and 1 Bacon, Abridg., 373), says that if no parishioners appear at a meeting duly called for the purpose of assessment,” the churchwardens alone may make the rate, because they and not the parishioners are to be cited and punished in defect of repairs.”  To these words should be added the qualification that the parishioners were sometimes collectively punished, viz., by interdiction of their church.  Thus in St. Alban’s archdeaconry the parishioners of Redbourn were directed through the wardens to make a rate to levy L60 “sub pena interdictionis eccl[es]ie sue a divinoru[m] celebratione et sacramentaru[m] et sacramentaliu[m]...[etc].”  Hale, op. cit., 89 (1599).  In Jan., 1599/1600; we find Shoreham Vetera in Lewes archdeaconry interdicted, and one of its wardens appearing, “humil[ite]r petijt interdicc[i]o[n]em ... emissam pro defect[u] eccle[s]ie ruinos[e] ... revocari ...” in order that time might be given him to call together the tenants and owners of land in the parish and outlying districts as well as “strangers” who held lands in the parish. Ibid., 111-12.  In 1603 the wardens of Northawe are to see a levy made “sub pena interdicti.” Ibid., 90.  Cf. pp. 36-7.

[84] Examples are:  Hale, Crim.  Prec., 189 (Mucking, Essex, wardens. 157-6/7). Ibid.,199 (East Horndon, Essex, wardens confess they have not accounted “by reason the parishioners will not come to recken with them.”  They are warned to make their account and if the parishioners will not audit it, to exhibit it at the next court. 1590). Ibid., 222 (Several parishioners presented for “not receiving” a warden’s account.  They plead that he was not chosen to be warden by their parson. 1600).  See also Canterbury Visit., xxvi, 20, 21, also Ibid., xxvii, 220, et passim.  Dean of York’s Visit., 335.

[85] “The cases in which the advowson of the parish belonged to the inhabitants, though more numerous than is often supposed, were distinctly exceptional.”  Beatrice and Sidney Webb, Local Government, the County and the Parish (1906), 34 note.

[86] On the distinction between rector, vicar, curate, etc., see Felix Makower, The Constitutional History and Constitution of the Church of England (Engl. trans. 1895), 334-7.  Also Rev. W.G.  Clark-Maxwell in Wilts Arch., (etc.) Mag., xxxiii (1904), 358-9.

[87] E.g., the Canons of 1571, sec. De Episcopis, required that the bishops ordain no one except such as had a good education and were versed in Latin and the Holy Scriptures.  Nor was a candidate to be admitted to orders “si in agricultura vel in vili aliquo et sedentario artificio fuerit educatus.”

[88] Of some 8,800 parish churches in England in 1601 only 600, it was computed, afforded a competent living for a minister.  Dr. James in debate in Parliament November 16th, 1601.  Heywood Townshend, Historical Collections or Proceedings in the last Four Parliaments of Elisabeth (ed. 1680), 218-19.  Sir S. D’Ewes, The Journals of all the Parliaments during the Reign of Elizabeth (ed. 1682), 640.  How this came about see White Kennett, Parochial Antiquities (ed. 1695), 433-45.