land one year and a half unpaid."[146] John Smithe presented for
felling and selling a great oak which stood upon church land, "whereas
now we stand in lack of the same to repair our Church."[147] A
parishioner is cited before the ordinary because he withholds church
goods and refuses both to enter into bond for them and to make an
accounting.[148] So men are presented for not paying the parish fees
due for the burial of members of their family, or for the ringing of
knells;[149] for suffering a church tenement or a part of the church
fence, which they are bound to repair, to fall into decay,[150] and so
forth. In short, any one at all, whether in the capacity of parish
officer; rate payer; trustee; administrator or executor; lessee of the
parish cattle or its lands or tenements--any one, in fact, standing in
the relation of debtor to the parish in a matter falling within the
jurisdiction of the spiritual courts, could be, and was, compelled by
these to pay or to account to the parishioners.

Not only did the Church regulate many acts of a parishioner's life,
and preside over his moral conduct, making him pay in great measure
the costs of this disciplinary administration, but it also was
entrusted with his education, through which it sought to control his
ideas and convictions, and to direct and form public opinion. The
education and training of a nation depend, of course, in greatest
measure on its primary schools and its press. As for its universities,
these are but the apex on the educational pyramid, for a very select
few only. Now the primary schools were represented in the times
whereof we write by the parish schoolmaster, the familiar
"_ludimagister_" of the canons and act-books, and by the incumbent
himself. For the people at large the press was represented almost
entirely by the licenced preacher, and, in the larger towns, the
licenced lecturer.