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.[1] 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.[2] 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[3] there is more than one in-
- ↑ Reply of the Ordinaries to the petition of the Commons, infra p. 223, &c.
- ↑ Petition of the Commons. 23 Hen. VIII. c. 9.
- ↑ Hale's Criminal Causes, p. 4.
