[MR] Wikipedia: Medieval Right of Sanctuary

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble Friends,

This morning I ran across a BBC feature partly on legal sanctuary,
specifically as practiced at Beverley Minster in Yorkshire. Unfortunately,
I wasn't able to come up with a web page that specifically discussed the
concept of felons receiving protection from the church in England, though
sanctuary is covered on Wikipedia as a sub-topic under Right of Asylum. So
here is a brief summary of the concept and how it played out in merry old
England.

The first known official sanctuary law is ascribed to Æthelberht, King of
Kent, around 600 CE. After the Norman conquest, certain important churches
were granted official powers of legal sanctuary by royal charter, including
Beverley Minster, Winchester Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Durham Cathedral
and a number of others.

If a felon managed to reach the "sanctuary stones" that marked a safe area,
they could claim sanctuary. In other cases, they had to make it into the
church itself, or even to the altar or some special area such as a
"sanctuary chair". Supposedly, their pursuers could no longer touch the
miscreant, but that sometimes meant little to vengeful nobles who knew they
could usually square things with the church later. In most cases, the felon
was given 40 days to surrender himself/herself to the civil authorities for
trial, which could quite often end in a hanging. Alternatively,
the criminal could elect banishment from the realm. The miscreant would
then confess their sins, surrender all weapons, sign over their property to
the king, and leave England by the shortest route as a penitent under the
protection of the church. Of course, if the felon's enemies were mad enough
and were watching the road to the nearest port . . . well, let's just say
church protection could prove less than effective. Instead a wiley felon
might take off in another direction, hoping to get beyond harm's way.

Henry VIII put a stop to most sanctuary claims by tightening the number of
offences under which sanctuary could be applied. King James VI & I finally
stopped the practice altogether in 1623.

The story about sanctuary is contained among other topics in the BBC story
"The Beasts of Doggerland and a Town of Sanctuary":
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0mz3ze0283o .

Wikipedia covers sanctuary under "Right of Asylum" at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_asylum#Medieval_England .

Yours Aye,


Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆
Continuing a crusade to keep the original Merry Rose relevant and in
business.