[176] Tacitus, Annales, iv. 67. Suetonius, Tiberius, 53. Mommsen, op. cit. p. 460.
[177] Mommsen, op. cit. p. 461 sq.
[178] Novellæ, xvii. 7.
The right of sanctuary existed among the pagan Slavs, or some of them,[179] and probably also among the ancient Teutons.[180] After their conversion to Christianity the privilege of asylum within the church was recognised in most of their codes. In the Middle Ages and later, persons who fled to a church or to certain boundaries surrounding it were, for a time at least, safe from all persecution, it being considered treason against God, an offence beyond compensation, to force even the most flagrant criminal from His altar. The ordinary of the sacred place, or his official, was the only one who could try to induce him to leave it, but if he failed, the utmost that could be done was to deny the refugee victuals so that he might go forth voluntarily.[181] In the ‘Lex Baiuwariorum’ it is asserted in the strongest terms that there is no crime which may not be pardoned from the fear of God and reverence for the saints.[182] But the right of sanctuary was gradually subjected to various restrictions both by secular legislation and by the Church.[183] Innocentius III. enjoined that refuge should not be given to a highway robber or to anybody who devastated cultivated fields at night;[184] and according to Beaumanoir’s ‘Coutumes du Beauvoisis,’ dating from the thirteenth century, it was also denied to persons guilty of sacrilege or arson.[185] The Parliament of Scotland enacted that whoever took the protection of the Church for homicide should be required to come out and undergo an assize, that it might be found whether it was committed of “forethought felony” or in “chaudemelle”; and only in the latter case was he to be restored to the sanctuary, the sheriff being directed to give him security to that effect before requiring him to leave it.[186] In England, in the reign of Henry VIII., there were certain places which were allowed to be “places of tuition and privilege,” in addition to churches and their precincts. They were in fact cities of permanent refuge for persons who should, according to ancient usage, have abjured the realm, after they had fled in the ordinary way to a church. There was a governor in each of these privileged places, charged with the duty of mustering every day his men, who were not to exceed twenty in each town and who had to wear a badge whenever they appeared out of doors. But when these regulations were made, the protection of sanctuary was taken away from persons guilty of murder, rape, burglary, highway robbery, or arson. The law of sanctuary was then left unchanged till the reign of James I., when, in theory, the privilege in question was altogether denied to criminals.[187] Yet as a matter of fact, asylums continued to exist in England so late as the reign of George I., when that of St. Peter’s at Westminster was demolished.[188] In the legislation of Sweden the last reference to the privilege of sanctuary is found in an enactment of 1528.[189] In France it was abolished by an ordonnance of 1539.[190] In Spain it existed even in the nineteenth century.[191] Not long ago the most important churches in Abyssinia,[192] the monastery of Affaf Woira in the same country,[193] and the quarter in Gondar where the head of the Abyssinian clergy has his residence,[194] were reported to be asylums for criminals. And the same is the case with the old Christian churches among the Suanetians of the Caucasus.[195]
[179] Helmold, Chronik der Slaven, i. 83, p. 170.
[180] Wilda, Das Strafrecht der Germanen, p. 248 sq. Stemann, Den danske Retshistorie indtil Christian V.’s Lov, p. 578. Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, ii. 610. Fuld, loc. cit. p. 138 sq. Frauenstädt, Blutrache und Todtschlagsühne im Deutschen Mittelalter, p. 51.
[181] Milman, History of Latin Christianity, ii. 59. Bulmerincq, op. cit. p. 73 sqq. Fuld, loc. cit. p. 136 sqq. Bracton, De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliæ, fol. 136 b, vol. ii. 392 sq. Réville, ‘L’abjuratio regni,’ in Revue historique, l. 14 sqq. Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law before the Time of Edward I. ii. 590 sq. Innes, Scotland in the Middle Ages, p. 195 sq.
[182] Lex Baiuwariorum, i. 7.
[183] Brunner, op. cit. ii. 611 sq. Bulmerincq, op. cit. p. 91 sqq. Fuld, loc. cit. p. 140 sq.
[184] Gregory IX. Decretales, iii. 49. 6.