English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages (XIVth Century)

by J. J. Jusserand

Excommunication was the punishment meted out to Ralph de Ferrers, one of the retainers of the then all-powerful John of Gaunt, for having dragged from the Westminster sanctuary, at mass time, two prisoners escaped from the Tower where his master had sent them, and for having killed one in the process, 1378. The Duke of Lancaster, in alliance then with Wyclif, caused the reformer to write one of his most virulent treatises against the right of sanctuary, asking for its abolition.

The right was, however, maintained; the king himself did not dare to infringe upon it, and, though unwilling, had to let traitors escape, by such means, his revenge or justice. In a case of this kind, one of the Henries wrote to the Prior of Durham, and careful as he was to state that he bound himself only “for the present occasion,” there is no doubt that his acknowledgment of the full immunities enjoyed by St. Cuthbert’s church had nothing {167} exceptional: “Trusty and welbeloved in God,” says the king,[205] “we grete you well. And wheras we undirstand that Robert Marshall late comitted to prison for treason is now escapid and broken from the same into youre church of Duresme, we havyng tender zele and devocion to ye honour of God and St. Cuthbert, and for the tendir favour and affection that the right reverend father in God our right trusty and welbeloved the Bisshop of Duresme our chauncellor of England we have for his merits wol that for that occasion nothyng be attempted that shud be contrarie to the liberties and immunities of [your] church. We therefor wol and charge you that he be surely kept there as ye wol answere unto us for him.” As there could be very little need for the king to declare such an obvious feeling as his respect for St. Cuthbert, the earnest recommendation by which he ends his epistle is most likely to have been the real cause of his writing to his wellbeloved the Prior of Durham. Another characteristic instance is the rebellion of Jack Cade in 1450, when one of his accomplices fled to St. Martin-le-Grand, the most famous of the London sanctuaries. The king in this case wrote to the Dean of St. Martin’s ordering him to produce the traitor. This the Dean refused to do, and he exhibited his charters, which being found correct and explicit, the fugitive was allowed to remain in safety where he was.[206]

The right of sanctuary was most valuable, not only for political offenders, but also, and more frequently, for robbers. They escaped from prison, fled to the church, and saved their lives. “In this year,” 1324, say the “Croniques de London,”[207] “ten persons escaped out of Newgate, of whom five were retaken, and four escaped {168} to the church of St. Sepulchre, and one to the church of St. Bride, and afterwards all for-swore England.” But when the refugees were watched in the church by their personal enemies, their situation, as evidenced by the statute of 1315–1316, became perilous. The authors of a petition[208] to the king set forth in that year that armed men established themselves in the cemetery, and even in the sanctuary, to watch the fugitive, and guarded him so strictly that he could not even go out to satisfy his natural wants. They hindered food from reaching him; if the felon decided to swear that he would quit the kingdom his enemies followed him on the road, and in spite of the law’s protection dragged him away and beheaded him without judgment. The king reforms all these abuses,[209] and re-enacts the old regulations as to abjuration, which were as follows: “When a robber, murderer, or other evil-doer shall fly unto any church upon his confession of felony, the coroner shall cause the abjuration to be made thus: Let the felon be brought to the church door, and there be assigned unto him a port, near or far off, and a time appointed for him to go out of the realm, so that in going towards that port he carry a cross in his hand, and that he go not out of the king’s highway, neither on the right hand, nor on the left, but that he keep it always until he shall be gone out of the land; and that he shall not return without special grace of our lord the king.”

The felon took oath in the following terms: “This hear thou, sir coroner, that I, N., am a robber of sheep, or of any other beast, or a murderer of one or of more, and a felon to our lord the King of England, and because I have done many such evils or robberies in this land, I {169} do abjure the land of our lord Edward King of England, and I shall haste me towards the port of such a place which thou hast given me, and I shall not go out of the highway, and if I do I will that I be taken as a robber and felon to our lord the king; and at such a place I will diligently seek for passage, and that I will tarry there but one flood and ebb, if I can have passage; and unless I can have it in such a place I will go every day into the sea up to my knees assaying to pass over; and unless I can do this within forty days, I will put myself again into the church as a robber and a felon to our lord the king. So God me help and his holy judgment.”[210]

Dover was the port oftenest assigned to abjurors. The time limit varied, being on occasions so brief, that it must have been almost impossible for people on foot to fulfil the condition: which was most probably what the coroner had in view, for he would assign sometimes different delays to different refugees for the same distance. “The distance from York to Dover over London Bridge was nearly 270 miles, and there are several entries of eight days being the allotted time, thus maintaining a rate of over 33 miles a day.”[211] {170}

In the church robbers found themselves side by side with insolvent debtors. These before seeking refuge were usually careful to make a general donation of all their property, and the creditors who cited them to justice remained empty handed. In 1379,[212] Richard II enacted remedial legislation. During five weeks, once a week, the debtor is to be summoned, by proclamation made at the door of the sanctuary, to appear in person or by attorney before the king’s judges. If he does not choose to appear justice shall take its course; sentence will be passed, and the property that he had given away will be shared among the creditors.

This, however, served, as usual, only for a time. In the first years of the following reign the Commons are found lamenting the same abuses. Apprentices who have plundered their masters, tradesmen in debt, robbers, flee to St. Martin-le-Grand and live there in quiet on the money they have stolen. They employ the leisure which this peaceful existence leaves them in patiently forging “obligations, indentures, acquitances,” imitating the signatures and seals of honest city merchants and of other people. Felons, murderers and thieves avail themselves of this restful seclusion for preparing new crimes; they go out at night to commit them, and safely return in the morning to their inviolate retreat. The king, apparently puzzled as to what to do, when the abuse is so great and the privilege {171} so sacred, vaguely promises that “reasonable remedy shall be had.”[213]

Some years later (A.D. 1447) the Goldsmiths’ Company of London was startled on finding that a quantity of sham gold and silver plate and jewellery had been issued from the privileged precincts of St. Martin-le-Grand’s sanctuary, to the great detriment of their own worshipful company. They brought the facts to the notice of the king, who wrote to the Dean recommending him to check this abuse if possible: “Trustie and welbeloved, we grete you wel, and let you to wote that we be informed that there be divers persons dwellinge within our seinctuarie of St. Martin’s that forge and sell laton and coper, some gilt and some sylverd for gold and silver, unto the great deceipt of our lege people. . . . ”[214] The tone of the king’s letter is very moderate; he seems to write only to please the Goldsmiths’ Company, while realizing that he is powerless in the matter, and that his recommendations will come to nothing.

A priest who took refuge in a church was not obliged to quit England; he swore that he was a priest, and “enjoyed ecclesiastic privilege, according to the praiseworthy custom of the kingdom.”[215] But the church, who accorded to all comers the benefit of sanctuary, reserved to herself the power of removal from it. “In this year (1320), a woman who was named Isabel of Bury, killed the priest of the church of All Saints, near London Wall, and she remained in the same church five days, so that the Bishop of London issued his letter that the church would not save her, wherefore she was brought out of the church to Newgate and was hanged on the third day afterwards.”[216] {172}

In those days, when riots and rebellions were not uncommon, the right of sanctuary might be valuable for any one; reformers like Wyclif vainly protested against this exorbitant but useful custom.[217] A bishop even, however sacred his person, might have to spur his horse and fly towards a church to save his head. The Bishop of Exeter tried and failed when Isabella and her son came to overthrow Edward II:[218] “The same day came one Sir Walter de Stapleton, who was Bishop of Exeter, and the king’s treasurer the previous year, riding to his house in Elde Deanes lane to his dinner, and there he was proclaimed traitor; and he seeing that fled on his horse towards the church of St. Paul’s, and was there met and quickly unhorsed, and brought to Cheap, and there he was stripped and his head cut off.”