I was given this information from The Archives Assistant at the Borthwick Institute for Archives, when I asked a similar question related to an ancestor who was excommunicated in 1782 along with two other females. I have a copy of the Excommunication document, which contains no indication of their misdemeanour/s.
J.S. Purvis’ Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Terms. This is what he has to say about it, in full:
Excommunication: An ecclesiastical censure. Excommunication is of two quite distinct kinds: (i) entirely spiritual; (ii) enforced by statute and civil law. The first is an entirely ecclesiastical censure, and for a time casts the person concerned out of the communion of the Church, until his offence is purged and the excommunication relaxed. The ‘greater excommunication’ cuts off the excommunicated from all society of the faithful; the ‘lesser excommunication’ deprives the offender of the sacraments and divine worship and Christian burial, and was pronounced as a sentence by judges in an ecclesiastical court for obstinacy in not appearing on a citation or not submitting to the orders and penalties of the court. It was published on occasion by the ceremony known popularly as ‘bell, book and candle’.
If a person excommunicated remain for forty days under the sentence unabsolved, the diocesan may present to the Court of Chancery his certificate, sealed, of ‘significavit’, showing the person has so remained, to the end that he may be arrested and imprisoned by the sheriff on a write of ‘de excommunicato capiendo’. On submission of the offender the archbishop or bishop may absolve, on a caution, by bond, pledge or oath.
My ancestor was buried in the churchyard in 1801.
