xi (Multitude of apparitors and their excesses) in
Cardwell, _Syn_., i, 159. Also Canons of 1603/4, _ibid_. Most of the
Elizabethan and Stuart metropolitan and diocesan injunctions call for
the presentment of the abuse of apparitors and other court officials.
See Cardwell, _Doc. Ann_., ii, _passim_. Also _Appendix to 2nd Rep. of
the Com. on Ritual_ to Parliament (1870), where a large number of
injunctions from Parker to Juxon (1640) are gathered together.
[186] By this system, if the accused could get together a certain
number of his neighbors (3, 4, 6 or more) to act as oath-helpers,
_i.e._, who would swear that they believed him on oath, he was
acquitted. It seems to have been no concern of the judge to weigh the
evidence on the facts themselves.
[187] The churchwardens accounts are full of items for horse hire and
other expenses for long journeys, for ecclesiastical courts were held
at all kinds of places at the pleasure of the judges. See Mr. Bruce's
remarks on the Minchinhampton Acc'ts, _Archaeologia_, xxxv, 419 ff. Cf.
the Ludlow Acc'ts, _Shrop. Arch. Soc. 2nd. ser_., i, 235 ff.--in fact
any of the accounts of the period that have been printed
in detail.
[188] Archdeacon Hale in _Crim. Prec_., introd., p. lx.
[189] Hale, _Crim. Prec_., 205 (1591).
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