The Whalley ecclesiastical court, whose records are preserved in an act book (1510-37), was directed and sustained by “sworn men”—local secular men of middling status representing their villages. An examination of illicit sex crimes reveals that although Whalley Abbey was in charge of holding court sessions and supplying the court’s commissary, the sworn men determined the majority of which cases were presented. These sworn men were also closely connected to accusations of illicit sex. They could be involved in the presentation of their relatives’ moral crimes and even committed moral crimes themselves. Nevertheless, sworn men presented illicit sex crimes almost exclusively on the basis of evidence rather than speculation, and were collectively motivated to restore the moral health of individuals within their community and the community itself. After presentation of one’s illicit sex crime, the accused was forced to make a decision: to stay within the jurisdiction or to leave, to appear or absent oneself from court, to admit to or contest accusations. At the same time, the commissary’s role began. In the majority of cases recorded to their conclusion, the commissary determined what punishment their crime merited. Punishment usually took the form of public performative penance that likely induced shame as a the accused repented in compliance with the court’s aim to restore the moral health of the accused souls and the onlooking community as a whole. The community’s moral restoration was always short lived. When another committed a moral transgression, it was the sworn men’s duty to initiate moral repair once more.