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 or
their representatives. If the accounting was delayed too long, or if
the surplus was not promptly handed over to the incoming (or newly
elected) wardens, then the delinquent officers were cited before the
court. Numerous instances are found in the court records of the
enforcing of this duty. [84]

A permanent parish officer and one over whose appointment the
parishioners had usually no control [85] was the parish minister,
whether officiating rector, vicar or curate. [86] Elizabethan statutes
and canons sought to increase the dignity of the incumbents of cures,
[87] but royal greed did yet more to lower it. [88]

The minister was usually addressed by his parishioners as "Sir" John,
or "Sir" George, etc., quite irrespective of his actual rank,[89] and
this in an age of punctilious distinctions in forms of address. In the