[166] See Canons of 1597, Cardwell, Syn., i, 156.  Burn, op. cit., 457-8.  For such a sentence see E.H.  Chadwyck Healey, Hist. of West Somerset (1901), 184 (Archdeacon of Taunton requiring a minister to denounce solemnly three obstinate excommunicates, and to warn all good Christians not to eat or drink, buy or sell, or otherwise communicate with them under the pains of being themselves excommunicated. 1628).

[167] Thus those who talked with him, ate at the same table with him, saluted him, or gave anything to him were themselves ipso facto excommunicate.  See Reeve, Hist. of English Law (Finlayson’s ed.), iii, 68.  If such an excommunicate brought an action at law, the defendant could plead in bar the excommunication.  The testimony of such a man was not admissible in court.  Finally, he could not be buried in the parish churchyard nor could services be performed over his body.  Burn, loc. cit., supra.

[168] See the case of Kenton v.  Wallinger, 41 Eliz., Croke’s Eliz.  Rep., Leache’s ed., Pt. ii, 838.  This has already been mentioned on p. 33, note 102.  In the Leverton, Lincoln, Overseers for the Poor Acc’ts, there occurs, s. a. 1574 an item of 7s. given to John Towtynge “for the discharge of ... his excomynacion,” and the next year a sum of 2s. 6d. given to a woman for a like discharge. Archaeologia, xli, 369-70.

[169] Whereby any but a perjured man would be forced to incriminate himself.

[170] Cf.  Maitland, Canon Law in the Church of England, chapter, “The Pope the Universal Ordinary.”  For proceedings by High Commissioners see Stubbs in Eccles.  Courts Com.  Rep. to Parliament (1883), i, Hist.  Append., 50.

[171] As to the expense in suing out the writ, and also the slackness of bailiffs, etc., in executing it, see [R.  Cosen], An Apologie of and for Sundrie proceedings by Jurisdiction Ecclesiasticall (1st ed., London, 1591), 64-5.  Speaking of the great charges incurred in suing out the writ Cosen writes:  “So that I dare auowe in Sundrie Diocesses in the Realme, the whole yeerly reuenue of the seuerall Bishops there woulde not reach to the iustifying of all contemnours ... by the course of this writte.”  That temporal judges sometimes set prisoners under the writ free at their own discretion without notice to the spiritual judges, see Bancroft’s Petition to the Privy Council in 1605, Cardwell, Doc.  Ann. ii, 100.  For hostility of temporal judges for ecclesiastical jurisdiction, see Bancroft, op. cit., 85.  He counts up 488 prohibitions during Elizabeth’s reign, many of them awarded without good cause and “upon frivolous suggestions” of defendants (Op. cit., 89).