Note 32 — Chapter IX · Privilege of Sanctuary.

29 Ass. 34; II. Reeve’s History English Law, p. 81; Chamber’s Journal, Vol. 44, p. 171.

Reeve says, speaking of the sanctuary at Westminster: “The resort of felons to this place, being in the metropolis of the kingdom, must have been very great and productive of great disorders.” ante idem.

The sanctuaries to which special charters had been granted, were known during the period of Henry VII., as private sanctuaries, while those that had not received special charters were called general sanctuaries and in distinguishing the two, a historian of that period has said:

“If a man fled to such a sanctuary as Westminster Knoll, he might remain undisturbed for life; but if he chose to abjure within the forty days, the coroner was to appoint him a day to do it. The law of sanctuary is laid down in a reading of this period in the following manner: None shall take sanctuary but in periculo vitae, as for treason, felony, or the like and not for debt; for a grant or prescription to have sanctuary for debt was against law and void. But the reading lays down a strange quibble to evade this; for it admits, that if a man’s body was in execution, and he escaped, and came to a sanctuary, ordained as a refuge, and safeguard for a man’s life, he should have benefit thereof, because by long imprisonment his life might be in jeopardy. If a church was suspended for bloodshed, he who took it for sanctuary should still enjoy it for forty days and abjuration for felony, discharged all felonies done before the abjuration. A man could not abjure for petit larceny, however, but only for such felonies as induced the pain of death.” IV. Reeve’s History English Law, p. 255.