by ecclesiastical judges and by
their officers, such as registrars, proctors and apparitors. These
judges wielded an admirable instrument of administration and
discipline, one that could be bent to meet any emergency, but this
efficiency had been attained at the sacrifice of some indispensable
safeguards for the carrying out of impartial justice. First, no
parishioner's acts, whether done in an official or a private capacity,
were ever quite safe from misrepresentation, or downright
falsification by his enemies, for secret denunciation to wardens or
sidemen (or to the ordinary himself) by any one[182] might start a
proceeding against the person denounced and force him upon oath to
disclose the most private, the most confidential, matters. Again,
proctors, apparitors, registrars, and other scribes whose fees
depended on citations and the drawing up of court proceedings,
documents, or certificates, had every interest in haling persons
before the official, because court fees had to be paid whether a man
were found innocent or guilty.[183] Hence the system tended to create
spies, of whom the chief were the apparitors, or summoners, and their
underlings. There is a very interesting contemporary ballad entitled
_"A new Ballad of the Parrator and the Divell_," attributed by its
modern editor to not later than 1616, which throws much light on the
proceedings of certain unscrupulous apparitors, and reflects also the
strong dislike entertained for the whole tribe of apparitors by people
of the time.[184] The devil going a hunting one Sunday and beating the
bushes, up starts a proud apparitor. During several stanzas the
apparitor narrates to the devil, as one consummately wicked man to
another, all the tricks of his trade to drum up cases for himself and
his court. He spies on lovers as they pass unsuspecting; he haunts the
ale-houses and overhears men's tales over their cups; if business be
dull he even devises scandal among neighbors, and sets them at enmity.
Thus he concocts his accusations of immorality, or drunkenness, or
profanity, or uncharity towards neighbors, and writes them busily down
in his _quorum nomina_, or formulas of citations to appear before the
official's court. "My _corum nomine_ beares such swaye," he boasts,
"They'le sell their clothes my fees to pay." But, remarks the devil
after listening to all this, surely the innocent pay no court fees,
"But answere and discharged bee." "My _corum nomine_ sayth not so,