The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects

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 paris