Note 24 — Chapter IX · Privilege of Sanctuary.

This term is composed of the words “frith” and “stol,” meaning “the seat of peace.” It was a heavy stone chair, or seat and that at Beverly was devoid of decoration, but perfectly plain, in every particular. It has been broken and repaired with clamps of iron and we are informed that it formerly bore a Latin inscription, which stated that: “This stone chair is called Fridstool—that is, the Chair of Peace, to which what criminal soever flies to it hath full protection.” Chamber’s Journal, Vol. 64, 1887, p. 513.

Littell’s Living Age, of July-Sept., 1907, Vol. 254, p. 700, produces a transcript of the register at Beverley, when one John Spret was entered as a sanctuary criminal, as follows: “John Spret, gentleman. Memorandum. That John Spret, of Barton, upon Umber, in the counte of Lyncoln, com to Beverlay, the first day of October, the vii year of the reen of Keing Henry the VII., and asked the lybertes of Saint John of Beverlay, for the death of John Welton, husbondman of the same town, and knawlig hymself to be at the kylling of the same John with a degart, the 15’ day of August.” And thus, this tragedy, which resulted in the death of husbandman John Welton, at the point of a dagger, in the hand of Mr. John Spret, has caused both of these gentlemen to be known in history after a period of many centuries, and this sad circumstance of their lives is quoted long centuries later, to illustrate the manner of an obsolete custom.