24 July 1598. Names of the subscribers:

1. Of prescription and tithe exempt

All demesne chattels in the demesnes [and] granges which abbeys keep for their own provisions and glebe, are not tithable.

No customs can prevail for tithing for other farmers.

A prescription if it be just, of time out of mind, without interruption or alteration, bonae fidei, it must prevail.

The statute law of England is no rule to direct us in judgment here, except such as the lord and the whole body of the island hath received for laws. For if so, then things of greatest importance for the inheritor were altered. At the suppression, men to whom the statute did pertain and knew of it must have been put to prove time out of mind after the suppression, but now to put them to prove it, which they had no cause to take knowledge of it, is an impossibility in my opinion. John Sodorensis.192

2. Of the fifteen episcopal causes

Episcopal causes merely belonging to the ordinary's jurisdiction to be censured, being fifteen in number, exempt from the archdeacon's jurisdiction by ancient laws of this isle as anciently the vicars-general have received them from one another, from time to time, to be preserved, and now set down by William Norris, vicargeneral.

• 1. The censuring of any of the clergy for any default.

• 2. Adultery.

• 3. Excommunication against any offender.

• 4. Mitigation of fines.

• 5. All licences of marriages.

• 6. All divorcements betwixt married couples.

• 7. The granting of administration and the punishment of adultery.

• 8. Incestuous persons.

• 9. Witchcraft.

• 10. The calling a man a dog or a woman a bitch.

• 11. The censuring of fornication upon relapse and the second or third time; also all other offenders upon relapse.

• 12. The effusion of blood in church or in churchyard.

• 13. Profanation of the Sabbath or holy days.

• 14. The censuring of parties for not receiving the communion in or at their parish church, upon any contempt.

• 15. The committing of any offender into Saint German's prison, it being the lord bishop's own prison.

3. Children taking away their parents’ goods

Apud ecclesiam Sanctae Trinitatis in Lezayre, 28 February 1602 [1603].