of the ordinary and by his or the bishop's licence and
allowance. So true was this that the schoolmaster was, like the
parson, a church officer. For the parishioner his church was the place
of business where all local affairs, civil or ecclesiastical, were
transacted, as well as the centre of social life in the village. Here
the mandates of the authorities in Church and State were read to him;
here he was admonished of his duty to contribute to, or to perform,
the burdens of parish administration and warned of the penalties for
neglect; here he met with his fellows to settle parish affairs and
audit parish accounts, or to choose parish officers under the auspices
of the ordinary, being himself compelled, if necessary, by that
official to serve when his own turn for office came round. As
churchwarden it was his duty to collect the rents from parish lands
and tenements, and to see that parish offerings were gathered and the
parish rates assessed and paid, or recovered by means of the
ecclesiastical courts. If the church was ruinous; if bread and wine
were lacking for the communion; if any of the books, furniture,
utensils or ornaments enjoined by the diocesan's articles or by the
canons were missing; if the curate did not follow the Rubric, or
retained "superstitious" rites; if the yearly perambulation was
omitted; if faults of the minister or of the parishioners were not
presented: he and his fellow-warden were held responsible by the
official.

The machinery which the canon and the civil law placed at the disposal
of the ordinary for his judicial administration of the parish was
extraordinarily flexible. Courts Christian were unencumbered by the
formalities of the common law or by the cooeperation of juries. They
could proceed _ex officio, i.e_., without formal presentment and upon
hearsay only, and they were armed with the formidable power of
administering the oath _ex officio_ by which a parishioner was forced
to disclose all he knew against himself. They could in all cases
command the _doing_, as well as the _giving_[181] of a thing--powers
far more extensive than those possessed by any court of equity of
today. Lastly, it was their custom to require that a return be made in
court, or in other words, a certification, that their commands had
been duly performed--thus stamping them as true administrative bodies.
It was inevitable from the nature of their jurisdiction and procedure
that abuses should be committed both