Sanctuary (law)

“ Probably the privilege has been exaggerated, the fugitive kinsmen were exempt from outside jurisdiction and liable only to the court of the earl of Fife.
The canon law allowed the protection of sanctuary to those guilty of crimes of violence for a limited time only, in order that some compensation (wergild) should be made, or to check blood-vengeance. In several English churches there was a stone seat beside the altar which was known as the frith-stool (peace-stool) , upon which the seeker of sanctuary sat. ”

“ To catalogue the evils of the sanctuary system were to show lack of historical sympathy, nay, even of humour. The former days were not as these; it had its place with the shrine and the pilgrimage, the knight errant, and the trial by ordeal in the strange economy of a vanished world. As the times grew modern its practical inconvenience was felt for the first time. Yet the occasion of the first assault on the privilege of sanctuary was one where the benefits were conspicuous, and the assailant had the worst of motives. It was the case just noted of Edward IV.'s widow ”

“ Here the informer, the perjurer, the cheat, held his court unmolested, here the debtor was free from pursuit, and the highway robber safe from the arm of the law.
Whitefriars was sanctuary! Oh, the mockery of the word! For it was the brawlers and the bullies, the termagants and hags that inhabited these once holy and consecrated precincts, who enforced this self-ordained law of sanctuary. ”

“ The mischief of this system was alleviated under the Levitical law by the creation of cities of refuge, and in Greece and Italy, both in Pagan and Christian times, by the recognition of the right of sanctuary in temples and churches. ”

“ Fineux pointed out that Sanctuary grants had always been made to monasteries and churches “to the laud and honour of God,” and that it was not certainly likely to redound to God’s honour when men could commit murder and felony, and trust to get into the safe precinct of some Sanctuary; neither did he believe that to have bad houses in Sanctuaries, and such like abuses, was either to the praise of God or for the welfare of the kingdom. Further, that as regards Westminster, the abbot had abused his privileges as to the ambitus or precincts which in law must be understood in the restricted sense. ”

“ A man unjustly deprived of sanctuary could plead the right before his judges. It was a declinatory plea, and must be urged before he answered as to his guilt or innocence; it availed him nothing to do so after, for he was strung up forthwith. ”

“ Whenever he ventured forth—as he might in the daytime—he must wear the prescribed badge of the refuge. He dare carry no weapon save a meat-knife, and that but at meal-times. He must likewise answer to the daily roll-call. If he committed another felony—and crimes done sub spe redeundi had been a sore grievance of late—he was to [Pg 94] lose his rights. The governor was empowered to hold courts for debt and minor offences within his bounds. And so "the sanctuary person abjured," as the Tudor lawyers phrased him, spent the last days of his evil life. ”

“ So York may overlook the town of York."
One very interesting practice in connection with the mediæval system of law and policing was the use of the right of sanctuary. The monasteries, the Minster, and all churches had this right of giving a sacrosanct safety to criminals and others flying from their pursuers, whether officers of the law or the general mob, whose right, be it noted, it was to join in the chase after offenders (the "hue and cry") and help to arrest them. Provided the pursued reached the prescribed area, which, in some cases, as at the nationally famous sanctuary of St. ”

“ The other side argued in reply to them that a sanctuary was a place where persons could seek refuge to escape punishment in case of crime, and that where no crime could have been committed, and no charges of crime were made, the principle did not apply. ”

“ If a sanctuary man left his retreat without being granted his discharge by the King’s pardon, he ran the risk of being tried for his original crime, and was prohibited from the protective power of the sanctuary. ”

“ You have often talked about people going into sanctuary. What does it mean?
Mrs. M. Originally every church, abbey, or consecrated place was a sanctuary, and all persons who had committed crimes or were otherwise in fear of their lives might secure themselves from danger by getting into them. But in the reign which we have been discussing it came to be used specially of the House of Commons from the number of tiresome and objectionable people who sought refuge there, because of the freedom from legal penalties which they enjoyed. ”

“ We touch firmer ground in the centuries immediately preceding the Conquest. In early English legislation churches safeguarded the criminal [Pg 85] from hasty vengeance, and so allowed time to settle the money compensation payable for his offence. Sanctuary was among the privileges that the Conqueror conferred upon his foundation of Battle Abbey—one of many cases wherefrom the Norman lawyers built up a system for mediæval England. ”

“ Not more than twenty persons were to be sheltered in a sanctuary at one time.
An act passed in 1624, in the reign of James I., nominally abolished all privileges of sanctuary in England. It did not completely close all sanctuaries, for in them remained lawless characters, who had long been there, and whom it would not be deemed prudent to have at large. It is asserted that the sanctuary regulations were frequently broken, and that refugees committed robberies and other crimes in the immediate neighbourhood of their sanctuaries. ”

“ Many of our parish churches claim to possess old sanctuary rings or knockers, but it is doubtful if any of these were ever used by fugitives, for the reason that although in early days every parish church had the right to grant sanctuary, few possessed the means of feeding and housing a refugee, save in the church itself, which was expressly forbidden. ”

“ The official sanctuaries were of course on a different footing, and in the fifteenth century were rendered less dangerous to society, than had formerly been the case, by an ordinance which required those who lived hard by the sanctuary to watch all avenues of escape by day and night until the refugee surrendered himself, a fine of five pounds being levied against the responsible ward if he succeeded in getting away. ”

“ A code of laws made in the year 693 by Ina, King of the West Saxons, contains a recognition of the right of sanctuary. It is therein stated that, if any one accused of a capital offence takes refuge in a church, his life shall be spared, but the criminal is directed to make compensation for his crime. If the guilty one deserved stripes, they were not to be inflicted. ”

“ The right of sanctuary, enjoyed by felons, who sought refuge in a church, was a very ancient institution, dating from Saxon times, and only abolished by James I., in 1621, because the great number of churches in the country rendered it so easy a matter for highwaymen, then very numerous, to avail themselves of the privilege, that justice was too often defeated and crime encouraged. ”

“ Any sanctuary man leaving the sanctuary to commit crime, is to be put to ward in the sanctuary, and if he wish to depart the sanctuary he shall do so at a given hour in daytime.
(7) Persons guilty of certain offences, as lock-picking, forgers of seals, evidences, workers of counterfeit gold and silver work not to be suffered in the sanctuary. Persons suspected of such to be committed to ward till they find sufficient security. ”

“ There seem to have been three sanctuary trees: one inhabited by a god, Vave; one respected in memory of a king; and one doing duty as a kind of figure-head, or representative of a king.
If my guess that the tree in the Arician grove was once a [Pg 220] sanctuary, or asylum for fugitives, including fugitive slaves, is plausible, I cannot, of course, conjecture as to the reason of its protective sanctity. ”

“ If however anyone does that, then let him be liable at the rate of breach of a king's protection and at the rate of breach of church sanctuary - more if he take more from the site. [And the sanctuary seeker shall be safe] if he can survive hunger, and unless he himself try to fight his way out. If the community have greater need of their church, let them keep him in another building, and let that not have the more doors than the church itself ”

“ The sanctuary is thronged from week to week with the desperation of a people stripped of every other diversion. It is the State of Colleges, Theological Schools, Bible, Missionary, Tract, and Colonization Societies. If ever there were a nation zealous of good works, here is their habitation. The atmosphere that overhangs the land is heavy with the odor of sanctity. ”

“ At the same time, every political state has an undoubted right to forbid the entry into its territories of any person whose presence may injure its welfare or thwart its policy. No foreigner, whether he comes as a fugitive escaping from the violated laws of another country, or comes for the innocent purposes of travel or residence, can demand a sanctuary as a matter of right. ”

“ The communion-rail in this sanctuary is the family table, from which are dispensed the necessities of life.
There is about the sanctuary in the church of God an atmosphere of piety and reverence. It has a sanctity that no stranger dare violate; it has a privacy which no one but he who has a right dare invade. Such an atmosphere should be about the sanctuary of home. A priest would never allow a heretic or an infidel to sit in the sanctuary of God. He would never allow a corrupt man to stand on the altar of God. Take care, then, Christian parents, how you violate the sanctity of your homes. ”

“ A sanctuarie serueth alwaie to defend the bodie of that man that standeth in danger abroad, not of great hurt onlie, but also of lawfull hurt: for against vnlawfull harmes, neuer pope nor king intended to priuilege anie one place, for that priuilege hath euerie place. Knoweth anie man, anie place wherein it is lawfull one man to doo another wrong? That no man vnlawfullie take hurt, that libertie, the king, the law, and verie nature forbiddeth in euerie place, and maketh (to that regard) for euerie man euerie place a sanctuarie. ”

“ Rising up, therefore, in the midst of the dark night, she caused her innocent children to be brought to her, and hastened with them from the palace of Westminster to the residence of the good abbot. She knew that if able to keep her second son in safety, it would ensure the life of the young king; but she did not go as heretofore into the ancient sanctuary, for the whole of the abbey, with its rooms of state and spacious gardens, was equally privileged, and she felt that she was welcome. Never yet has the right of sanctuary been violated, even in the worst of times ”

“ The best, and as a rule, the only practicable chance of escape open to the pursued, lay in the possibility of his reaching a sanctuary before the hunters came up with him. If a man took sanctuary, his life was safe, but he remained a close prisoner within the precincts of the asylum in which he had found refuge until he received the King's pardon, or until he purchased his freedom by "abjuring the realm," an undertaking which entailed upon him perpetual banishment, besides the forfeiture of all his belongings. ”

“ Articles were drawn up for the better regulation of the Sanctuary. They are like those already quoted from the Archives of Beverley. Thus (1) every person on entering must declare the cause of his seeking refuge. (2) No one is to carry any weapon within the Precinct. (3) That any “erraunt and open thiefe, robber, murderer and felon noised by the common fame of the people” shall find security for good behaviour both in sanctuary207 and for a quarter of a year afterwards, and that he be kept in ward until he has found that security. ”

“ In the reign of Henry VIII. several acts were passed dealing with this subject. The reason why one of the acts was passed was the loss of the strength of the country by persons taking sanctuary and abjuring the realm, teaching foreigners archery, and also of disclosing the secrets of the realm. To prevent such loss, “it was enacted that every person abjuring was to repair to some sanctuary within the realm, which himself should choose, and there remain during his natural life; and to be sworn before the coroner upon his abjuration so to do.” ”

“ They could take refuge in the sanctuaries to be found in churches, from which no officer of the law could take them, and, though the Church preserved some guilty ones from just punishment, she also saved many who were either innocent or who were exposed to punishments far too severe for their slight offences. ”

“ We must have him out."
"Do you not know that this is sanctuary," cried the abbess, "and, even if he had committed parricide or treason, any man would be safe within these walls."
"Ay, but he has not committed any offence which makes sanctuary available," replied the other. "This is a deserter from his right standard, and we will have him forth, sanctuary or no sanctuary."
"There is no such man within the walls of St. Clare," replied the abbess. "I only stand up for the privileges of the place, because they are its privileges ”

“ The number of sanctuaries had been limited by Act of Parliament previous to their final abolition; certain favoured spots were permitted for a time to absorb the villany of the country; and felons who had taken refuge elsewhere, were to be removed into some one of these. Bewley in Hampshire had been condemned to lose its privilege. Richard Layton, the monastic visitor, describes and pleads for it to the privy seal.
'There be sanctuary men here,' he says, 'for debt, felony, and murder, thirty-two; many of them aged, some very sick. ”