Twice a year as a rule the archdeacon, or his official in his place, held a visitation or kept a general court (the two terms being synonymous) in the church of some market town—not always the same—of the archdeaconry. The usual times for these visitations were Easter and Michaelmas. The bishops also commonly held visitations in person, or by vicars-general or chancellors, once every third year throughout their dioceses. Yet at the semiannual visitations of the archdeacon as well as at the triennial visitations of the bishop, the mode of procedure, the class of offences, the parish officers summoned, the discipline exercised—all were the same, the bishop's court being simply substituted for the time being for that of the archdeacon.

There were other visitations: those of the Queen's High Commissioners, and those of the Metropolitan. There were a very great number of other courts, but for the purposes of the every-day ecclesiastical governance of the parish the two classes of courts or visitations above mentioned are all that need concern us. It is, however, important to state, that while churchwardens and sidemen were compelled to attend the two general courts of the archdeacon (and of course the bishop's court) and to write out on each occasion formal lists of offenders and offences ("presentments" or "detections") these parish officers might also at any time make voluntary presentments to the archdeacons. Those functionaries, in fact, seem to have held sittings for the transaction of current business, or of matters which could not be terminated at the visitation, every month, or even every three weeks. Others may have sat (as we should say of a common-law judge) in chambers.[5] Before each general visitation an apparitor or summoner of the court went about and gave warning to the churchwardens of some half-dozen parishes, more or less, to be in attendance with other parish officers on a day fixed in some church centrally located in respect of the parishes selected for that day's visitation.

The church of each parish was, indeed, not only its place for worship, but also the seat and centre for the transaction of all business concerning the parish. In it, according to law, the minister had to read aloud from time to time articles of inquiry founded on the Queen's or the diocesan's injunctions, and to admonish wardens and sidemen to present offences under these articles at the next visitation.[6] In it also he gave monition for the annual choice of collectors for the poor;[7] warning for the yearly perambulation of the parish bounds;[8] and public announcement of the six certain days on which each year every parishioner had to attend in person or send wain and men for the repair of highways.[9] In the parish church also proclamation had to be made of estrays before the beasts could be legally seized and impounded.[10] Here, too, school-masters often taught their pupils[11]—unless, indeed, the parish possessed a separate school-house. Here, in the vestry, the parish armor was frequently kept, and sometimes the parish powder barrels were deposited;[12] here too, occasionally, country parsons stored their wool or grain.[13]

Finally, in the parish church assembled vestries for the holding of accounts, the making of rates and the election of officers. Overseers of the poor held their monthly meetings here. Occasionally the neighboring justices of the peace met here to take the overseers' accounts or to transact other business;[14] and in the church also might be held coroners' inquests over dead bodies.[15] Last, but not least in importance, in the churches of the market towns the archdeacon made his visitations and held his court; and on these occasions the sacred edifice rang with the unseemly squabbles of the proctors, the accusations of the wardens and sidemen or of the apparitor, and the recriminations of the accused—in short, the church was turned for the time being into a moral police court, where all the parish scandal was carefully gone over and ventilated.[16]

The ecclesiastical courts carried on their judicial administration of the parish largely, of course, through the medium of the officers of the parish. These were the churchwardens, the sidemen and the incumbent, whether rector, vicar or curate.[17]

First in importance were the churchwardens. Though legislation throughout the time of Elizabeth was ever adding to their functions duties purely civil in their nature, and though they themselves were more and more subjected to the control of the justices of the peace, nevertheless it is true to say that to the end of the reign the office of churchwarden is one mainly appertaining to the jurisdiction and supervision of the courts Christian.

The doctrine of the courts that churchwardens were merely civil officers belongs to a later period.[18]

After a churchwarden had been chosen or elected, he took the oath of office before the archdeacon. In this he swore to observe the Queen's and the bishop's injunctions, and to cause others to observe them; to present violators of the same to the sworn men (or sidemen), or to the ordinary's chancellor or official, or to the Queen's high commissioners; finally, he swore to yield up a faithful accounting to the parish of all sums that had passed through his hands during his term of office.[19]

Before each visitation day, as has been said, the archdeacon's or the bishop's summoner went to each parish and gave warning that a court would be held in such and such a church on such and such a day. Pending that day wardens and sidemen drew up their bills of presentment. These bills were definite answers to a series of articles of inquiry founded on the diocesan's injunctions, themselves based on the Queen's Injunctions of 1559 and on the Canons.[20] Failure to present offences was promptly punished by the judge.[21] Failure to attend court when duly warned was no less promptly followed by excommunication, and then it was an expensive matter for the wardens to get out of the official's book again.[22] But of fees and fines more hereafter.

Among the churchwardens' principal obligations, as laid down in the injunctions and articles they were sworn to observe, was the keeping in repair of the church fabric and its appurtenances, as well as the procuring and the maintaining in good condition of the church "furniture," a term which in the language of the time included all the necessaries for worship and the celebration of the sacraments: church linen, surplices, the communion cup, the elements themselves, bibles, prayer books, the writings of authorized commentators on the Scriptures, or the works of apologists for the Anglican Church; tables of consanguinity and other official documents enjoined to be kept in every parish by the diocesan.[23]

The visitation act-books of the period abundantly show the processes employed by the ecclesiastical authorities in enforcing these and other duties (which will be detailed in their turn), and prove that the courts Christian were emphatically administrative as well as judicial bodies. To show these courts at work it will be necessary to give a number of illustrative examples taken from the visitation entries. Thus the wardens of Childwall, having been presented at the visitation of the bishop of Chester, 9th October, 1592, because their church "wanteth reparac[i]on," are excommunicated for not appearing. On a subsequent day John Whittle, who represents the wardens, informs the court that the repairs have been executed. Thereupon the wardens are absolved and the registrar erases the word "excommunicated" from the act-book.[24] At the same visitation the wardens of Aughton are presented because "there bible is not sufficient, they want the first tome of the homilies, Mr. Juells Replie and Apologie[25] [etc.]…." The two wardens are enjoined by the judge to buy a sufficient bible and to certify to him that they have done so.