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[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
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[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:
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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:
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Ffor our chargs & marsements at Lecest[e]r ... for yt ye Rood loft whas not takyn down & deafasyed iiij s. iiij d.
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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:
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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:
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Paid for Mr Gannett and myselfe ['Humfery Jeames'] for absolution iiij s. viij d. Also:
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Paid for our discharge at the courte for [from] our excomm[uni]cacon xvj d.
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Continuing, the writer states that his reason for writing is
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to ride to Lichfield and there tarry several days seeking absolution. For this 20 shillings was paid, a very large sum for the time, not to mention a fee to the summoner, travelling expenses and the writing of letters on the parish's behalf.[44] The wardens of Stratton, Cornwall, had a similar experience
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in 1565. Among the expense items relating to that occasion is a significant one:
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The chancel[46] is out of repairs, for the repairing whereof some things are provided. [47] Two years later they state to the court:
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For repairing of the churchyard we desire a day. [48] At the same visitation the wardens of St. Lawrence in Thanet (Ramsgate) present:
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Our Church is repaired, saving that some glass by reason of the last wind be broken, the which are [sic] shortly to be amended.