entity and a certain autonomous life of its own,
which otherwise it never could have possessed over against the
all-regulating and inquisitorial Tudor machinery of Church and State.

As the reign advanced the parish developed a selfish, jealous and
exclusive gild life of its own, especially under the operation of the
poor laws.

Non-parishioners, or "foreigners," were viewed with the strongest
suspicion. Generally they were discriminated against if they happened
to have dealings with the parish. Wedding or funeral fees were doubled
in their cases.[323] If the parishioners could have had their will no
alien poor could have gained a settlement amongst them--no, not even
after twenty years' residence. In 1598 the West Riding, Yorkshire,
justices were compelled to interfere in favor of divers poor persons
in various parishes, where officers were seeking to expel them as
vagrants born elsewhere, though they had been domiciled in their
adopted communities for twenty years and upwards.[324]

Already that "organized hypocrisy," so characteristic of parish life
in later reigns, shows itself in the many presentments of, and
petitions against, persons supposedly immoral--especially single
women. Not zeal for morality prompts these indictments, but fear that
the community may have to support illegitimate children.[325] Quite
typical of the times is the language held by the inhabitants of Castle
Combe in appealing to the Wiltshire justices against a townwoman in
1606. They are apprehensive, they say, lest "by this licentious life
of hers not only God's wrath may be powered downe uppon us ... but
also hir evill example may so greatly corrupt others than great and
extraordinary charge ... may be imposed uppon us."[326]

Few laws on the statute book were so frequently enforced as the 31
Eliz. c. 7, which required four acres to be laid to every cottage to
be constructed, for there was a powerful local backing behind the law.
When John Fletcher, "a meere stranger lately come into this Parish
with his wife and children," took certain parcels of land in Severn
Stoke in 1593, and was suspected of the intention to build a cottage
without laying to it the requisite number of acres, the parishioners
immediately complained to the Worcester justices, for they wanted to
provide against the contingent liability of having to support the
inmates.[327] Four acres was then the quantity considered necessary to
maintain a man and his family. It was