e done so.

But--so careful is the supervision over parish affairs--mere
certification by vicar or wardens that a certain article has been
procured in obedience to a court order will not always suffice. If the
thing can be produced in court the judge often orders it to be brought
before him for personal inspection. Accordingly, when at the
visitation of the chancellor of the bishop of Durham, the 13th March,
1578/1579, the wardens of Coniscliffe are found to "lacke 2 Salter
bookes [and] one booke of the Homelies," they are admonished to
certify "that they have the books detected 4th April and to bringe
their boks hither."[26] Thus, too, the wardens of St. Michael's,
Bishop Stortford, record in 1585 that they have paid 8d. "when we
brought in to the court the byble and comunion booke to shewe before
the comysary."[27] There is a curious entry in the same accounts some
years earlier, viz.: "pd for showing [shoeing] of an horse when mr
Jardfield went to london to se wether it was our byble that was lost
or no and for his charges...."[28]

At the visitation held at Romford Chapel, Essex Archdeaconry, 5th
September, 1578, the wardens of Dengie "broughte in theire surplice,
which surplice is torne & verie indecent & uncomly, as appereth;
whereupon the judge, for that theie neglected their othes, [ordered
them to confess their fault and prepare] a newe surplice of holland
cloth of v s. thele [the ell], conteyninge viii elles, _citra festum
animarum prox_." Remembering that money was then worth ten to twelve
times what it is today, this was probably considered too great a
burden by the parishioners of Dengie. A petition must have been
presented to be allowed to procure a cheaper surplice, for on the 6th
October following the wardens were permitted to prepare a surplice
containing six ells only at the reduced price of 2s. 8d. per ell.[29]

It seems to have been the practice in the Dean of York's Peculiar for
the judge to threaten the churchwardens occasionally with a fine for
failure to repair their church or supply missing requisites for
service by a fixed day. Thus at Dean Matthew Hutton's visitation,
July, 1568, the churchyards of Hayton and of Belby were found to be
insufficiently fenced. The order of the court was: "_Habent ad
reparanda premissa citra festum sancti Michaelis proximum sub pena XX
s_."[30]

So, too, the Thornton wardens at the same visitation are warned to
repair the body of their church "betwixt this an