Then, it was in the church that all laws, civil as well as ecclesiastical, were published. Here, too, notice of all manner of civil proceedings was made. A, for instance, had died and been laid to rest in the churchyard; it is from the pulpit of his parish church that the fact is announced that he has left B and E the executors of his will, and people are notified to send in their claims, or pay what is owing to the estate to these two. Or it may be that A has died intestate, or that those he has appointed to carry out his wishes will not do so, in which cases people are to be warned that the bishop’s official will administer the estate, and all claims are to be sent in to him. Then all questions of social order and well-being, as well as infraction of law in the district, came before the people in some form or other in the church and from the pulpit. “When Agnes Paston,” for example, “built a wall (across a property to which the people claimed access), it was thrown down before it was half completed, and threats of heavy amercements (says Dr. Gairdner) were addressed to her in church, and the men of Paston spoke of showing their displeasure when they went in public procession on St. Mark’s day.” So, also, the parish priest of Standon, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, was ordered to publish an excommunication under the following circumstances: Margaret Basun, a parishioner, was charged by some people with having stolen a silver ring belonging to Alice Braymer, and with having sold it to Anne Boghley. Margaret Basun denied the truth, and was called to make canonical purgation before the bishop. She did so, and the bishop, having heard the case, declared her innocent of the charge, and ordered her innocence to be proclaimed, and an excommunication to be pronounced against those who had defamed her. To take another sample case: a man spread false stories about the apprentices of his father, saying that they had been the thieves of some goods, etc., which had been stolen. An examination by the bishop revealed the fact that it was the accuser who was in reality the robber, and it was proved that he had made a false key, had opened his father’s chest, and taken from it money and jewels. The bishop directed that this should be told the people on the following Sunday.