Note (28) — Chapter II

On the cruel punishments inflicted in the King’s courts Herbert of Bosham is very emphatic in more than one passage. He pleads (vii. 101) as a merit of the Bishops’ courts that in them no mutilations were inflicted. Men were punished there “absque omni mutilatione vel deformatione membrorum.” But he by no means claims freedom from mutilation as a mere clerical privilege; he distinctly condemns it in any case. “Adeo etiam quod ordinis privilegium excludat cauterium: quam tamen pœnam communiter inter homines etiam jus forense damnat: ne videlicet in homine Dei imago deformetur.” (vii. 105.) A most curious story illustrative of the barbarous jurisprudence of the time will be found in Benedict’s Miracula Sancti Thomæ, 184.