What these means were will be taken up and discussed a little further on. Returning to the matter of suing parish debtors in courts Christian, it is interesting to find that in the language of the period a suit "at law" did not always mean at common law. An order of the vestry of Stepney, London, in February, 1605-6, after determining the manner in which £50 should be raised to pay off parish debts due to the bell founder, adds that persons refusing to pay their shares, or neglecting to do so, should not find themselves aggrieved "if the same be recouered against them by Lawe." And the meaning of this term is fully explained by these subsequent words in the same order, that the churchwardens shall "at the chardg of the p[ar]ish appointe and entertayne one doctor and a proctor to sue and recouer the same by lawe of any p[er]son [etc.]."[128] Now doctors and proctors practiced before ecclesiastical tribunals only.[129] That presentment to the ordinary was the common and usual way, not only of recovering church rates, but any thing of value that belonged to the parish and was unjustly detained, the act-books and other documents of the time plentifully show. Thus in Archbishop Parker's Visitation Articles for the diocese of Canterbury in the year 1569, he requires all churchwardens to report to their ordinaries "whether there be any money or stoke, appertaininge to any paryshe churche, in anye manne's handes, that refuse or differeth to paye the same [etc.]."[130] The wardens of Melton Mowbray record under the year 1602 an item for charges at the court at Leicester against a parishioner "for not payinge his levi for the churche."[131] Those of Ashburton, Devon, itemize in 1568-1569 two shillings "for a zytation to those that wold nott pay to the power."[132] As the wardens of East Tilbury were going about among the parishioners demanding money of each one according to the rating inscribed on an assessment roll which they carried with them, one Garrett, a constable, discontented that he himself should be rated as high as four shillings, seized the roll and refused to produce it. This, of course, put an end to further collections. For this he was presented by the vicar before the consistory court at Stratford Bow Chapel. Here he alleged that the rating "was very unequally made." But the judge warned Garrett to appear in court the following Tuesday to answer for his contempt. Further he was to pay his four shillings to the wardens and bring to the judge the wardens' certificate that he had done so. On the day appointed Garrett was present in court with the vicar and wardens. The decree of the court is headed: "_Negotiu[m] reparac[i]o[n]is eccl[esi]e de_ East Tilburie," and is so characteristic of the thoroughgoing and searching manner in which ordinaries supervised the administration of parish affairs that we cannot forbear to quote a large part of it in full. "Touchinge the same Wm Garrett," the