[188] He might
even fail in his proof because he was poor. When the judge arraigned
Lewis Billings of Barking, Essex archdeaconry, for "that he hath
failed in his purgacion," Billings pleaded "that he is a very poore
man and not able to procure his neighbours to come to the cort, and
beare their charges."[189] But, as is well known, contemporaries
attacked not only the inferior officers, but the judges themselves.
Complaints of great abuses were loud and long,[190] and when the
ecclesiastical courts were abolished by the Long Parliament in
1641,[191] the satirical literature of the day celebrated their
downfall with a verve, a gusto, and an exultation amazing to one not
familiar with the procedure of these courts.[192]
As was mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the secular judges
were given statutory authority to take cognizance of breaches of the
order prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer, of the offence of not
attending church, and other delinquencies against the legal settlement
of religion. Hence in these matters they exercised what might be
called a sort of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in aid of the ordinary
and concurrently with him, though their mode of procedure, of course,
was that of the common law, possessing nothing in common with the
practice adopted in courts Christian.
Pages:
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59