d Michlmes next upon
paine of X s."[31] But as spiritual tribunals had no legal power to
fine[32] or to imprison, apparently the usual penalty prescribed by
the judges in case of disobedience to, or neglect of, their orders to
repair or replace by a certain day, was, in the words of Bishop Barnes
addressed to the churchwardens in Durham diocese, the "paynes of
interdiction and suspencion [_i.e._, temporary excommunication] to be
pronounced against themselves."[33] Yet here, too, the wardens did not
escape indirect amercement, for absolution from interdiction or
excommunication often meant a payment of various court fees, which in
many cases were by no means light. These fines the wardens put to
their credit in the expense items of their accounts if they could
possibly do so, and it is probable that the parish always paid them
except in cases of very gross individual delinquency in office. Thus
the wardens of St. Martin's, Leicester, record: "Payd to Mr.
Comyssarye whe[n] we was suspendyd for Lackynge a Byble & to hys
offycers xxiij d."[34] The wardens of Melton Mowbray register: "Ffor
our chargs & marsements at Lecest[e]r ... for yt ye Rood loft whas not
takyn down & deafasyed iiij s. iiij d."[35]

In the same accounts we find some years later: "Payde to ... at the
vicitacion houlden at Melton for dismissinge us oute of there bookes
for not reparinge the churche iij s. ij d."[36] So, also, we read in
the St. Ethelburga-within-Bishopsgate Accounts: "Paid in D[octor]
Stanhope's courte beinge p[re]sented by p[ar]son Bull aboute the
glasse windowes xvj d." And nine years later: "Paid for Mr Gannett and
myselfe ['Humfery Jeames'] for absolution iiij s. viij d." Also: "Paid
for our discharge at the courte for [from] our excomm[uni]cacon xvj
d."[37]

The act-books abundantly show that ecclesiastical courts were very far
from being limited to mere moral suasion or to spiritual censures.
They could never have accomplished their work so thoroughly if they
had been. This point will be brought out much more clearly, it is
hoped, when we come to consider excommunication as a weapon of
coercion.[38] The courts fined parishioners individually[39] and they
fined them collectively. What matters it that these fines were called
court fees, absolution fees, commutation of penance, or by any other
name? What signifies it that the proceeds could be applied only _in
pios usus_? The mulcting was none the less real. On the score of
bringing