Terry Jones' Medieval Lives by Alan Ereira Page A

penances. But a poor man who knew no Latin, and was disliked by his neighbours, needed to hide from a system that would kill him for sure. And then he would hide as a robber:
    I have not the goods to arrange a ransom ,
    but if I were in their bailiwick, I’d be given over to death
    [I would die in prison]
    Whoever began this business
    will never amend in his life.
    I tell you the truth, there is too much sin in it ,
    because for fear of prison many will turn robber.
    Some will become robbers who never used to be ,
    who dare not lead a peaceful life for fear of jail;
    they lack what it takes to keep them alive each day.
    Whoever began this business embarked on a great task.
    SANCTUARY
    One alternative was to run like hell for the nearest church and claim sanctuary. Almost any religious building could offer immunity from arrest for 40 days; one or two select establishments (such as Westminster Abbey and Beverley Minster) could even offer perpetual sanctuary.
    The whole system of sanctuary may seem extraordinary to us. Why on earth should the Church be prepared to harbour thieves and murderers and protect them from the law? Actually the same thought struck a lot of people at the time.
    In 1402 the Commons complained that the sanctuary associated with the London church and college of St Martins le Grand, just north of St Paul’s near Aldersgate, was being abused by ‘murderers, traitors and disturbers of the King’s peace’ who ‘hide out by day and at night go forth to commit their murders, treasons, larcenies, robberies and felonies’. *4 And a century later a Venetian traveller, visiting England in the time of Henry VII, recorded his amazement that so many villains were permitted to conduct organized criminal activities under the shelter of the Church. *5
    The idea of sanctuary dates back to ancient times, and was vigorously defended by Saxon kings. It may be that in the days of vendetta, when law was a matter to be settled by individual families, the church could offer a cooling-off period during which some accommodation could be arrived at. However, as the law developed such considerations began to appear outdated.
    But for much of the Middle Ages, sanctuary was a hotly disputed subject. In some places the area of sanctuary around a given religious building was enormous – the boundaries being clearly marked by special ‘sanctuary posts’. For instance, around both Hexham Abbey and Beverley Minster, crosses were erected in a radius of one mile to indicate the area of sanctuary.
    To qualify for a permanent position as a Sanctuaryman in Beverley, the accused had to make a full confession of his crime, which was then duly recorded in a register that was kept in the Minster and which still exists. The Beverley records show that the most common perpetrators of crimes of violence were butchers, while the most frequent debtors were builders. Plus ça change  . . .
    Most sanctuaries, however, could only offer a short-term solution to the average criminal’s woes. If he refused to leave at the end of the forty days, he was as good as dead. Any layman who even communicated with him after the forty days were up would be hanged. When he finally emerged, he would be immediately seized and executed on the spot, unless he swore on the Gospels to ‘abjure the realm’. In which case he would be issued with a crude sackcloth garment, without a belt, and a wooden cross to carry and he would have to make for the nearest port. There he would have to take the first ship out of England, and for every day he failed to find a passage, he would have to wade into the sea up to his knees.
    It’s probably the only time that paddling has been used as a form of punishment.
    If the criminal could not leave within forty days due to bad weather, then, in theory, they could seek new sanctuary in another local church and start the whole business all over again. However, there is no record of