A.D. 1195. DECREES OF THE SYXOD OF YORK. 365 or tithes to farm, whether solely, or whether in partnership with a clerk. " That the dishonesty of calumniators, and the wickedness of rash swearers may be checked, through fear of the Divine judgment, we do order that, for the future, every priest, three times in the year, with candles lighted and bells ringing, shall solemnly excommunicate those who, in recognizances and other matters of testimony, shall have knowingly and wilfully been guilty of perjury, and those who shall wickedly cause others to be guilty of peijury, and shall on every Lord's day denounce them as excommunicated ; to the end that the frequent repetition of the malediction may withdraw those from their iniquity, whom the accusation of their own conscience does not deter therefrom. But if they repent of their perjury, let them be sent before the archbishop or bishop, or, in the absence of the archbishop or bishop, general confessor of the diocese, for the purpose of receiving absolution from him. But in cases where persons are in the last extremity, penance is to be suggested, and not to be enforced ; and they are to be strictly enjoined, if they shall survive, to go before the archbishop or bishop, or, in the absence of the archbishop or bishop, the general confessor of the diocese, to the end that due penance may be imposed on them. " Because it is the word of the Lord, ' If any priest shall sin, he will make my people to sin,'39 and ' A wicked priest is the ruin of the people,' the excellence of so high an order requires' that priests should abstain from public drinkings, and from taverns, and that those who are bound by a vow of chastity, should by no means give way to acts of uncleanness. We do, therefore, forbid them to have harlots in their houses, or, when expelled therefrom, in fraud of our enactments, to have access to them in the houses of others. But if they shall persist in their uncleanness, and the superiors, concealing it, shall not bring the same to the notice of their prelates, they shall be suspended from their duties ; but those who, inflamed by zeal for God, have told the prelates of their excesses, shaU obtain the favour of the Divine blessing. " Also, the punishment of those who publicly keep harlots, shall be as follows : as being infamous, they shall be disabled from making accusation against others, and from ' bearing 3 8 These words do not appear in Scripture ; though, of course, the meaning of them is to be found there.