From the point of view of their fellow-parishioners, no doubt, the most important function of the wardens was that of administering the parish finances. This subject will be considered at length in the chapter which follows, but the fact that the spiritual courts enforced the levying of rates for church repair, etc., through the wardens, as well as an accounting to the parish of all monies received or disbursed, concerns us here. When the Ealing wardens were "detected" to the chancellor of the bishop of London because they had no pulpit-cloth, no poor-box, nor the Paraphrases of Erasmus, they appeared and declared in court that they had not provided these things "nor can do it, for that there is no churche stock wherewith to do it." Hereupon they were admonished that the judge's pleasure was that they should procure Mr. Fleetwood and Mr. Knight (evidently two prominent parishioners) to make an assessment on the parish in order to purchase these articles, and further that they (the wardens) should certify to the court at a later day fixed that the rate had been laid and the missing requisites bought, unless, indeed, some refused to pay, in which case their names should be handed into court.[81] So, again, when rector and wardens of Sutton were presented in the same court for letting their church go to ruin, they protested that the reason was that £40 "will skant repayre it, and that so mutch cannot be levied of all the land in the p[ar]ishe." But this excuse was not for a moment admitted, and they were warned to appear in the next 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]