ister to
denounce solemnly three obstinate excommunicates, and to warn all good
Christians not to eat or drink, buy or sell, or otherwise communicate
with them under the pains of being themselves excommunicated. 1628).

[167] Thus those who talked with him, ate at the same table with him,
saluted him, or gave anything to him were themselves _ipso facto_
excommunicate. See Reeve, _Hist. of English Law_ (Finlayson's ed.),
iii, 68. If such an excommunicate brought an action at law, the
defendant could plead in bar the excommunication. The testimony of
such a man was not admissible in court. Finally, he could not be
buried in the parish churchyard nor could services be performed over
his body. Burn, _loc. cit., supra_.

[168] See the case of Kenton v. Wallinger, 41 Eliz., _Croke's Eliz.
Rep., Leache's ed_., Pt. ii, 838. This has already been mentioned on
p. 33, note 102. In the Leverton, Lincoln, Overseers for the Poor
Acc'ts, there occurs, _s. a_. 1574 an item of 7s. given to John
Towtynge "for the discharge of ... his excomynacion," and the next
year a sum of 2s. 6d. given to a woman for a like discharge.
_Archaeologia_, xli, 369-70.

[169] Whereby any but a perjured man would be forced to incriminate
himself.

[170] Cf. Maitland, _Canon Law in the Church of England_, chapter,
"The Pope the Universal Ordinary." For proceedings by High
Commissioners see Stubbs in _Eccles. Courts Com. Rep_. to Parliament
(1883), i, Hist. Append., 50.

[171] As to the expense in suing out the writ, and also the slackness
of bailiffs, etc., in executing it, see [R. Cosen], _An Apologie of
and for Sundrie proceedings by Jurisdiction Ecclesiasticall_ (1st ed.,
London, 1591), 64-5. Speaking of the great charges incurred in suing
out the writ Cosen writes: "So that I dare auowe in Sundrie Diocesses
in the Realme, the whole yeerly reuenue of the seuerall Bishops there
woulde not reach to the iustifying of all contemnours ... by the
course of this writte." That temporal judges sometimes set prisoners
under the writ free at their own discretion without notice to the
spiritual judges, see Bancroft's _Petition to the Privy Council_ in
1605, Cardwell, _Doc. Ann_. ii, 100. For hostility of temporal judges
for ecclesiastical jurisdiction, see Bancroft, _op. cit_., 85. He
counts up 488 prohibitions during Elizabeth's reign, many of them
awarded without good cause and "upon frivolous suggestions" of
defendants (_Op. cit_., 89).

[172] Hale, _Crim.