Note 201 — Chapter XLVIII · DUTIES TO GODS

Among the Barea and Kunáma in Eastern Africa a murderer who finds time to flee into another person’s house cannot be seized, and it is considered a point of honour for the community to help him to escape abroad (Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien, p. 503). In the Pelew Islands “no enemy may be killed in a house, especially in the presence of the host” (Kubary, ‘Die Palau-Inseln in der Südsee,’ in Jour. d. Museum Godeffroy, iv. 25). In Europe the privilege of asylum went hand in hand with the sanctity of the homestead (Wilda, op. cit. pp. 242, 243, 538, 543; Nordström, op. cit. ii. 435; Fuld, loc. cit. p. 152; Frauenstädt, op. cit. p. 63 sqq.); and the breach of a man’s peace was proportionate to his rank. Whilst every man was entitled to peace in his own house, the great man’s peace was of more importance than the common man’s, the king’s peace of more importance than the baron’s, and in the spiritual order the peace of the Church commanded yet greater reverence (Pollock, ‘The King’s Peace,’ in Law Quarterly Review, i. 40 sq.).