[738] Ibid., 433; III, 74, 139, 361; Acts of the Gen. Assembly, 287. The first representative assembly, which met at Jamestown in the summer of 1619, enacted, "Against excesse in apparell that every man be cessed in the church for all publique contributions, if he be unmarried according to his owne apparell, if he be married according to his owne and his wives, or either of their apparell."—Col. Rec. of Va. (ed. Bancroft), 20. The same assembly provided that "All Ministers in the Colony shall once a year, namely in the moneth of Marche, bring to the Secretary of Estate a true account of all Christenings, burials and marriages, upon paine, if they faill, to be censured for their negligence by the Governor and Counsell of Estate; likewise where there be no ministers, that the comanders of the place doe supply the same duty,"—Ibid., 26.
[739] Quoted by Cooke, Virginia, 149; also Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors, I, 246, 247.
[740] See, however, Goodwin, The Colonial Cavalier, 45 ff.; and on social customs in general Fiske, op. cit., II, 174, 269.
[741] For this document see The Virginia Mag. of Hist. and Biog., IV (July, 1896), 64-66.
[742] Streeter, Papers Rel. to the Early History of Md., 278, 279. This license may be compared with the bonds required by Governor Andros in New England or by the New York governors: see chaps, xii and xiv.
[743] In the "book in the land office, entitled, Liber No. 1": Bozman, Hist. of Maryland, II, 604, who gives the following example: "November 2d, 1638. This day came William Lewis, planter, and made oath, that he is not precontracted to any other woman than Ursula Gifford, and that there is no impediment of consanguinity, affinity, or any other lawful impediment to his knowledge, why he should not be married to the said Ursula Gifford; and further he acknowledgeth himself to owe unto the lord proprietor 1000 lb. tobacco in case there be any precontract or other lawful impediment whatsoever as aforesaid, either on the part of the said William Lewis or the said Ursula Gifford."
[744] Among the thirty-six bills of the assembly of February, 1639/40, which according to Bozman were engrossed for a third reading, but not finally enacted into laws, was one giving the so-called "county court" jurisdiction in "all causes matrimonial, for as much as concerns the trial of covenants and contracts, and the punishment of faults committed against the same; and all offences of incest; attempting of another's chastity; defamation; temerarious administration; detention of legacies; clandestine marriage without banns thrice published or bond entered in the court."—Bozman, op. cit., II, 106, 128, 129. Since at this time there was but one organized county, St. Mary's, and this "county court" is made a tribunal of appeal in all civil common-law cases, the body is really the supreme provincial court, and it is given about the same jurisdiction thereafter exercised by the latter.
[745] Archives of Md.: Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1637-64, 97.
[746] Ibid., 374. The fine for each of the parties violating the statute is 1,000 pounds of tobacco; for the magistrate or minister, 5,000 pounds, one half to the Lord Proprietor, the other half to the informer. In 1650 it is provided that adultery shall receive punishment as the court may see fit, but "not extending to life or member": ibid., 286. The penalty is the same in 1654: ibid., 344. In the last-named year "the names of all that shall be borne, married or buried ... shall be Exhibited to the Clarke of Every Court who shall Inst Register thereof who shall be allowed five pounds of Tobacco as a ffee due to him for every such Registr made and kept."—Ibid., 345.
[747] Ibid., 442, 443. This act is approved in 1664: ibid., 537.