called in question for every action of his life; and an elaborate network of canon law perpetually growing, enveloped the whole surface of society.  But between the original design and the degenerate counterfeit there was this vital difference,—­that the censures were no longer spiritual.  They were commuted in various gradations for pecuniary fines, and each offence against morality was rated at its specific money value in the episcopal tables.  Suspension and excommunication remained as ultimate penalties; but they were resorted to only to compel unwilling culprits to accept the alternative.

The misdemeanours of which the courts took cognisance[192] were “offences against chastity,” “heresy,” or “matter sounding thereunto,” “witchcraft,” “drunkenness,” “scandal,” “defamation,” “impatient words,” “broken promises,” “untruth,” “absence from church,” “speaking evil of saints,” “non-payment of offerings,” and other delinquencies incapable of legal definition; matters, all of them, on which it was well, if possible, to keep men from going wrong; but offering wide opportunities for injustice; while all charges, whether well founded or ill, met with ready acceptance in courts where innocence and guilt alike contributed to the revenue.[193] “Mortuary claims” were another fertile matter for prosecution; and probate duties and legacy duties; and a further lucrative occupation was the punishment of persons who complained against the constitutions of the courts themselves; to complain against the justice of the courts being to complain against the church, and to complain against the church being heresy.  To answer accusations on such subjects as these, men were liable to be summoned, at the will of the officials, to the metropolitan courts of the archbishops, hundreds of miles from their homes.[194] No expenses were allowed; and if the charges were without foundation, it was rare that costs could be recovered.  Innocent or guilty, the accused parties were equally bound to appear.[195] If they failed, they were suspended for contempt.  If after receiving notice of their suspension, they did not appear, they were excommunicated; and no proof of the groundlessness of the original charge availed to relieve them from their sentence, till they had paid for their deliverance.

Well did the church lawyers understand how to make their work productive.  Excommunication seems but a light thing when there are many communions.  It was no light thing when it was equivalent to outlawry; when the person excommunicated might be seized and imprisoned at the will of the ordinary; when he was cut off from all holy offices; when no one might speak to him, trade with him, or show him the most trivial courtesy; and when his friends, if they dared to assist him, were subject to the same penalties.  In the Register of the Bishop of London[196] there is more than one instance to be found of suspension and excommunication for the simple crime of offering shelter to an excommunicated neighbour; and thus offence begot offence, guilt spread like a contagion through the influence of natural humanity, and a single refusal of obedience to a frivolous citation might involve entire families in misery and ruin.