id="Page_20" class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 20]"/>The church of St. John of Beverley had a charter from Athelstan, and near the altar was the Fridstool, or chair of peace, “to which what criminal soever flies hath full protection.” The privilege extended for a radius of about a mile round the minster, and the limits were marked by stone crosses. Infraction of the right of sanctuary was punishable by severe penalties, and to take a refugee from the Fridstool was to incur both secular and ecclesiastical penalties, the latter extending to excommunication.[2]

The widow of Edward IV. fled with her younger children for safety to the sanctuary of Westminster after her eldest son had fallen into the keeping of the Duke of Gloucester. Sir Thomas More reports the discussion in the Council of the Protector, and the arguments used by Cardinal Bourchier, which induced the queen to give up the Duke of York. The boy king, who was never crowned, and his brother were murdered in the Tower. It is noteworthy that this unfortunate monarch was born in the sanctuary of Westminster when his father was in exile. Skelton, the poet, died in this same sanctuary.

The privileges of the sanctuary were not always respected. When Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, took refuge in St. Martin’s Priory, Dover, he was dragged from the altar in his pontifical robes by order of the bishop of Ely, who was then Chancellor of the Kingdom. But this arbitrary proceeding was not the least of the causes of the downfall of William of Longchamp. When William Longbeard, who had been condemned to death, took sanctuary at St. Mary-le-Bow, Hubert de Burgh ordered the church tower to be set on fire to compel him to come forth. Longbeard abandoned his place of refuge, and was dragged to Tyburn, and there hanged. But although de Burgh was Archbishop of Canterbury and Justiciary of the Kingdom, and the Church was his own peculiar, his violation of sanctuary led to the loss of his great secular dignity. Later, when he had himself to seek refuge, a great debate arose as to his having been forcibly taken from a sanctuary, and he was restored to its protection, and escaped to Wales.

Whilst the same rights of sanctuary existed in Ireland and in Wales, they were apparently not made use of to any great extent. In Scotland, the churches of Wedale, near Galashiels, and of Lesmahagow, near Lanark, were the most famous of the religious sanctuaries. The latter had also a royal charter from David I. These sanctuaries ended with the Reformation. The abbey of Holyrood and its precincts, which include Arthur’s Seat and the Queen’s Park, gave protection to debtors until, by the abolition of imprisonment for debt, its privileges ceased to have any meaning. One of those who thus sought refuge at Holyrood during a part of his career was Thomas de Quincey.

Sanctuaries probably served a useful purpose in ages when the law was harsh and indiscriminate in its punishment of offenders. The limited protection afforded by the Church sanctuaries at least gave an opportunity for the first heat of revengeful feeling to subside, and the greater sanctuaries protected not merely vulgar offenders, but those whom the stormy tide of politics had placed at the mercy of their enemies. As the law became stronger, and the course of justice more certain, the need for these refuges ended, and those that continued were public nuisances, and mere centres of crime and anarchy, such as Scott has described for us in his picture of Alsatia. We may be thankful that sanctuaries are now merely objects of antiquarian interest and speculation.

Trials in Superstitious Ages.

By Ernest H. Rann.

In superstitious ages, when belief in the power of the law to adjust all quarrels, to hold the balance equally between man and man, and to accord to each one his rights, was less prevalent than it is at the present day, disputants naturally resorted to other tribunals for the settlement of their claims. A perfect system of law was impossible; what law existed was arbitrarily administered, often for the benefit of the most powerful litigant, and the claimant with only justice on his side often had the mortification of seeing a verdict given against him. During the development of a system of law-giving, when the accumulated experience of humanity had not sufficed to produce perfection, man in his darkness, his ignorance, and superstition, turned to the supernatural, and devised certain ceremonies by which the judgment of God might be evoked to demonstrate the guilt or innocence of the accused.

The antiquity of the ordeal, as it was called, cannot be measured. Such a form of trial is found to have existed in the earliest ages, and even now traces of it linger among savage tribes of the earth. In Africa especially the ordeal is well known. During his travels among the negro tribes north of the Zambesi, Dr. Livingstone encountered the curious practice of the “mauvi,” which consisted of making all the women of a tribe drink an infusion of “goho,” for the purpose of ascertaining which of them had bewitched a particular man. The accused women were drawn up in a row before the hut of the king, and the draught administered to them. Those who were unable to retain the horrible decoction, and vomited, were considered innocent of the charge: those who were purged were adjudged guilty, and put to death by burning.

The Calabar bean is also used by the natives of Africa in the form of an emulsion as an ordeal for persons accused of witchcraft, proof of innocence consisting of ability to throw off the poison by vomiting. Among the Barotse tribes the process is conducted by deputy, the testing liquid being poured down the throat of a dog or cat, and the accused person being treated according to the effect produced on the animal. Among the Dyak tribes lumps of salt are thrown into a bowl of water by the accuser and accused, and judgment is given against the owner whose lump disappears first. Another method adopted by the Dyaks is for each of the two parties to choose a mollusc, and to squeeze over it a few drops of lime-juice; the owner of the mollusc which moves first under the acid stimulant losing the case. Ratzel mentions that among the Malay tribes ordeals by fire, ducking, pulling a ring out of boiling water, or licking red-hot iron, are still frequent. Where the ordeal fails to produce the desired result, wager of battel, in reality another form of ordeal, is resorted to. Among the Tagals it is usual to light a consecrated candle, and to consider the person guilty of the crime under consideration to whom the candle flame is blown during the performance of the ceremony. The Igorrotes have a more painful method of fixing guilt. The accuser and the accused are placed together; the backs of their heads are scratched with a sharply-pointed bamboo stick, and the man who loses most blood also loses his case.

In Hawaii ordeals are administered by the priests, the suspected person being compelled to hold his hands over consecrated water, and adjudged guilty if the liquid trembles in the vessel while the priest looks at him. The Siamese have a form of ordeal which consists of making the two parties to a suit swallow consecrated purgative pills, the man who retains them for the greater length of time winning the case.

Even among the comparatively enlightened races of the peninsula of India, ordeals