y were resorted to only to compel unwilling
culprits to accept the alternative.

The misdemeanours of which the courts took cognisance[192] were "offences
against chastity," "heresy," or "matter sounding thereunto," "witchcraft,"
"drunkenness," "scandal," "defamation," "impatient words," "broken
promises," "untruth," "absence from church," "speaking evil of saints,"
"non-payment of offerings," and other delinquencies incapable of legal
definition; matters, all of them, on which it was well, if possible, to
keep men from going wrong; but offering wide opportunities for injustice;
while all charges, whether well founded or ill, met with ready acceptance
in courts where innocence and guilt alike contributed to the revenue.[193]
"Mortuary claims" were another fertile matter for prosecution; and probate
duties and legacy duties; and a further lucrative occupation was the
punishment of persons who complained against the constitutions of the
courts themselves; to complain against the justice of the courts being to
complain against the church, and to complain against the church being
heresy. To answer accusations on such subjects as these, men were liable to
be summoned, at the will of the officials, to the metropolitan courts of
the archbishops, hundreds of miles from their homes.[194] No expenses were
allowed; and if the charges were without foundation, it was rare that costs
could be recovered. Innocent or guilty, the accused parties were equally
bound to appear.[195] If they failed, they were suspended for contempt. If
after receiving notice of their suspension, they did not appear, they were
excommunicated; and no proof of the groundlessness of the original charge
availed to relieve them from their sentence, till they had paid for their
deliverance.

Well did the church lawyers understand how to make their work productive.
Excommunication seems but a light thing when there are many communions. It
was no light thing when it was equivalent to outlawry; when the person
excommunicated might be seized and imprisoned at the will of the ordinary;
when he was cut off from all holy offices; when no one might speak to him,
trade with him, or show him the most trivial courtesy; and when his
friends, if they dared to assist him, were subject to the same penalties.
In the _Register_ of the Bishop of London[196] there is more than one
instance to be found of suspension and excommunication for the simple crime
of offering shelter to an e