allowe'en, or on the eve of All Souls; excessive
tolling of bells at funerals,[80] etc.

From the point of view of their fellow-parishioners, no doubt, the
most important function of the wardens was that of administering the
parish finances. This subject will be considered at length in the
chapter which follows, but the fact that the spiritual courts enforced
the levying of rates for church repair, etc., through the wardens, as
well as an accounting to the parish of all monies received or
disbursed, concerns us here. When the Ealing wardens were "detected"
to the chancellor of the bishop of London because they had no
pulpit-cloth, no poor-box, nor the Paraphrases of Erasmus, they
appeared and declared in court that they had not provided these things
"nor can do it, for that there is no churche stock wherewith to do
it." Hereupon they were admonished that the judge's pleasure was that
they should procure Mr. Fleetwood and Mr. Knight (evidently two
prominent parishioners) to make an assessment on the parish in order
to purchase these articles, and further that they (the wardens) should
certify to the court at a later day fixed that the rate had been laid
and the missing requisites bought, unless, indeed, some refused to
pay, in which case their names should be handed into court.[81] So,
again, when rector and wardens of Sutton were presented in the same
court for letting their church go to ruin, they protested that the
reason was that L40 "will skant repayre it, and that so mutch cannot
be levied of all the land in the p[ar]ishe." But this excuse was not
for a moment admitted, and they were warned to appear in the next
consistory court to take out a warrant for the assessment of the
lands.[82]

Though the wardens did not themselves in practice always make the rate
directed by the archdeacon, yet they were held responsible for its
making. So true was this that if, after a duly called parish meeting
for the purpose of laying the rate in obedience to the archdeacon's
orders, no parishioners appear, then, in the words of the archdeacon's
official to the wardens of Ramsden Bellhouse (Essex): "if the
inhabitants of the said p[ar]ish will not join with the said church
wardens &c., that then the said churchwardens shall themselves make a
rate for the leveinge of the said charges [etc.] ..."[83]

Finally, the archdeacons or their officials always stood ready to
enforce an accounting by the outgoing wardens to the parishioners o