or sidemen (or to the ordinary himself) by any one[182] might start a proceeding against the person denounced and force him upon oath to disclose the most private, the most confidential, matters.  Again, proctors, apparitors, registrars, and other scribes whose fees depended on citations and the drawing up of court proceedings, documents, or certificates, had every interest in haling persons before the official, because court fees had to be paid whether a man were found innocent or guilty.[183] Hence the system tended to create spies, of whom the chief were the apparitors, or summoners, and their underlings.  There is a very interesting contemporary ballad entitled "A new Ballad of the Parrator and the Divell,” attributed by its modern editor to not later than 1616, which throws much light on the proceedings of certain unscrupulous apparitors, and reflects also the strong dislike entertained for the whole tribe of apparitors by people of the time.[184] The devil going a hunting one Sunday and beating the bushes, up starts a proud apparitor.  During several stanzas the apparitor narrates to the devil, as one consummately wicked man to another, all the tricks of his trade to drum up cases for himself and his court.  He spies on lovers as they pass unsuspecting; he haunts the ale-houses and overhears men’s tales over their cups; if business be dull he even devises scandal among neighbors, and sets them at enmity.  Thus he concocts his accusations of immorality, or drunkenness, or profanity, or uncharity towards neighbors, and writes them busily down in his quorum nomina, or formulas of citations to appear before the official’s court.  “My corum nomine beares such swaye,” he boasts, “They’le sell their clothes my fees to pay.”  But, remarks the devil after listening to all this, surely the innocent pay no court fees, “But answere and discharged bee.”  “My corum nomine sayth not so,” rejoins the apparitor, “For all pay fees before they goe.—­The lawier’s fees must needs be payd,—­And every clarke in his degree—­Or els the lawe cannot be stayd—­But excommunicate must they bee.”  The devil, amazed and disgusted at laws which “excell the paines of hell,” turns to go, whereupon the apparitor seeks to arrest and fine him for traveling on the Sabbath.  Exclaiming “Thou art no constable!” the devil pounces upon the unworthy officer and carries him off to hell.[185] Thirdly, even when at their best and conducted by upright judges and officers, the modes of proof in force in the courts Christian were sometimes utterly inadequate as means for getting at the truth.  The inquest, or trial by jury, had never been introduced into these courts, where the archaic system of compurgation[186] still lingered.