Note 41 — Chapter VII

These decrees lose something of their harshness by the provision: "If after secretly committing any one of these mortal crimes any one shall flee of his own accord to the priest and, after confessing, shall wish to do penance, let him be freed, on the testimony of the priest, from death." This is but another illustration of the theory that the Church was in the Middle Ages a governmental institution. It would be quite out of harmony with modern ideas should the courts of law, in dealing with one who had committed a crime, consider in any way the relations of the suspected criminal to his priest or minister, or modify his sentence on account of any religious duties that the criminal might consent to perform.