ABSTRACT
Excommunication in the proper sense could only in the Middle Ages and later occur by due sentence of a court acting on behalf of the bishop; it was never the prerogative of the parish clergy to excommunicate their erring parishioners on their own authority. In ecclesiastical controversy there are a few instances where High Church bishops invoked the language of excommunication in a blatantly political sense, summoning up the anathemas of the Middle Ages in a way more theatrical than legal. This chapter is of necessity a limited perspective on the subject, derived from the known cases and other sources making reference to repulsion. The legal framework for repulsion is ambiguous because it depended on two historic texts, both of which presumed the operation of church courts able to both impose and lift excommunication as necessary, which no longer happens.
