Note 288 — Chapter I · PENAL METHODS OF THE MIDDLE AGES
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They would be brought before the Court by its apparitors, of whom there were many; citations were not to be made through the vicars, rectors, or parish priests, lest the secrecy of the confessional should become mistrusted and the people cease to confess their sins.—Vide Archbishop Stratford, A.D. 1342, C. Lond. Can. 8. J. Johnson, Laws and Canons, ii. p. 371. Chaucer has given us a specimen of one of those “moral” agents in his account of the sumptnour or summoner.