the spiritual courts was not immediately curtailed, and the authority which
was in future to be permitted to convocation lay over for further
consideration, to be dealt with in another manner. But probate duties and
legacy duties, hitherto assessed at discretion, were dwarfed into fixed
proportions,[238] not to touch the poorer laity any more, and bearing even
upon wealth with a reserved and gentle hand. Mortuaries were shorn of their
luxuriance; when effects were small, no mortuary should be required; when
large, the clergy should content themselves with a modest share. No velvet
cloaks should be stripped any more from strangers' bodies to save them from
a rector's grasp;[239] no shameful battles with apparitors should disturb
any more the recent rest of the dead.[240] Such sums as the law would
permit should be paid thenceforward in the form of decent funeral fees for
householders dying in their own parishes, and there the exactions should
terminate.[241]

The carelessness of the bishops in the discharge of their most immediate
duties obliged the legislature to trespass also in the provinces purely
spiritual, and undertake the discipline of the clergy. The Commons had
complained in their petition that the clergy, instead of attending to their
duties, were acting as auditors, bailiffs, stewards, or in other
capacities, as laymen; they were engaged in trade also, in farming, in
tanning, in brewing, in doing anything but the duties which they were paid
for doing; while they purchased dispensations for non-residence on their
benefices; and of these benefices, in favoured cases, single priests held
as many as eight or nine. It was thought unnecessary to wait for the
bishops' pleasure to apply a remedy here. If the clergy were unjustly
accused of these offences, a law of general prohibition would not touch
them. If the belief of the House of Commons was well founded, there was no
occasion for longer delay. It was therefore enacted[242]--"for the more
quiet and virtuous increase and maintenance of divine service, the
preaching and teaching the Word of God with godly and good example, for the
better discharge of cures, the maintenance of hospitality, the relief of
poor people, the increase of devotion and good opinion of the lay fee
towards spiritual persons"--that no such persons thenceforward should take
any land to farm beyond what was necessary, _bona fide_, for the support of
their own households; that they should not buy