Note 13 — Thomas of Canterbury The Defender of the Poor 1162–1170

“It must be held in mind that the archbisholp had on his side the Church or Canon Law, which he had sworn to obey, and certainly the law courts erred as much on the side of harshness and cruelty as those of the Church on that of foolish pity towards evil-doers.”—F. York Powell.

“We have to take ourselves back to a state of society in which a judicial trial was a tournament, and the ordeal an approved substitute for evidence, to realise what civilization owes to the Canon Law and the canonists, with their elaborate system of written law, their judicial evidence, and their written procedure.”—Rashdall, Universities of Europe during the Middle Ages.