115 “Fleta,” lib. i. cap. 19, 20. See also “Local Self-Government and Centralization,” by Toulmin Smith, 1848, pp. 220–232, 298.
116 “Mais de cler jour, à la veue de toutz, issint qe gentz de pays puissent veer la peine et la hounte que les ditz atteintz ount, et par tant en soient les meuz chastiez.” Year, probably, 33 Ed. I; Palgrave, “Original Authority of the King’s Council,” p. 56.
117 Reeves, “History of English Law,” ed. Finlason, ii. p. 408.
118 Prologue to the “Canterbury Tales;” The Monk.
120 “Household Expenses of Richard de Swinfield,” ed. J. Webb, 1854, Camden Society, vols. i. p. 125, ii. pp. xxx–xxxvi. The duels of Thomas de Bruges were not those of the cases of felony and crime which resulted in the death of the vanquished; it was merely the duel with staff and shield, cum fuste et scuto, which required, as may be imagined, the replacement of the champion much less frequently. In the twenty-ninth year of Edward III, a duel took place by means of champions between the Bishop of Salisbury and the Earl of Salisbury. When the judges, conformably to the laws, came to examine the dress of the combatants, they found that the bishop’s champion had several sheets of prayers and incantations sown in his garments (“Year Books of Edward I,” Rolls Series, 32–33d year, preface, p. xvi, note). This examination of the clothing was always made with the intention of discovering frauds of this kind, which were considered as the most dangerous and disloyal of all.
121 See Riley’s “Liber Albus,” p. 303, where the case is entered in full.
122 One has only to peruse Froissart to notice the extreme frequency of this custom. Jean de Hainaut arrives at Denain: “There he lodged in the abbey that night” (lib. i. part i. ch. 14); the queen disembarks in England with the same Jean de Hainaut, “and then they found a great abbey of black monks which is called St. Aymon, and they were harboured there and refreshed for three days” (ch. 18); “there the king stopped and lodged in an abbey” (ch. 292); “King Philippe came to the good town of Amiens, and there lodged in the abbey of Gard” (ch. 296), etc.
123 “The Knights Hospitallers in England,” edited by Larking and Kemble, Camden Society, 1857. It is the text of a manuscript found at Malta entitled, “Extenta terrarum et tenementorum Hospitalis Sancti Johannis Jerusalem in Anglia, A.D. 1338.”
124 “Knights Hospitallers,” pp. 99, 101, 127. The effect of the Scottish wars on the possessions of the Knights is strikingly set forth: “Omnes possessiones hospitalis in Scocia sunt destructa, combusta per fortem guerram ibidem per multos annos continuatam unde nil his diebus potest levari. Solebat tamen, tempore pacis, reddere per annum, cc marcas” (p. 129).
126 Statute 3 Edward I, cap. 1.
127 Statute 9 Edward II, cap. 11, Articuli Cleri, A.D. 1315–1316.
128 “Fleta,” lib. i. cap. 20, § 68, 72.
129 “Rolls of Parliament,” iii. p. 501, A.D. 1402.
130 Ibid., iii. p. 82, A.D. 1379–80. The clergy, on the other hand, complain that the sheriffs sometimes come “with their wives and other excessive number of people on horseback as well as on foot,” to stay in monasteries, under pretext of collecting monies for the king. Ibid. p. 26, A.D. 1377.
131 “Inventories of St. Mary’s Hospital, or Maison Dieu, Dover,” by M. E. C. Walcott, “Archæologia Cantiana,” London, 1869.
132 “Mensæ de medio removentur,” or, in the English version by S. Bateman, of 1582, fol. 81, “when they have eaten, boord, clothes, and reliefe bee borne awaye”—description of a dinner in England, by Bartholomew the Englishman (de Glanville), 13th century. “Bartholomi Anglici de proprietatibus rerum,” Frankfort, 1609, lib. vi. cap. 32. Smollett, in the eighteenth century, notes the existence of similar customs in Scotland; people dine, then sleep in the hall, where mattresses are stretched, replacing the tables (“Humphrey Clinker”).
133 “Hall and chamber, for litter, 20d.; hall and chamber, for rushes, 16d.; hall, &c., for litter, 1d., &c.” Extracts from the “Rotulus familiæ,” 18 Ed. I, “Archæologia,” vol. xv. p. 350. The king was then at Langley Castle, Buckinghamshire.
134 Turner and Parker, “Domestic Architecture in England, from Edward I to Richard II,” Oxford, 1853, p. 75. See also in “Archæologia,” vi. p. 366, the illustrated description of the royal hall at Eltham.
135 Eclogue III in the edition of the “Cytezen and Vplondyshman,” published by the Percy Society, 1847, p. li.
136 “The Vision concerning Piers the Plowman,” ed. Skeat, Text B, passus x. line 96.
with fleas as big as those of the monks of Citeaux. “Œuvres Complètes,” ed. de Queux de St. Hilaire, vol vii. pp. 79, 117.
138 “Works,” Skeat, iv, 595.
139 Statutes 23 Ed. III, ch. 6, and 27 Ed. III, st. 1, ch. 3. As to the inns of the Middle Ages, see Francisque Michel and Ed. Fournier, “La Grande Bohème, histoire de classes réprouvées,” vol. i, “Hôtelleries et cabarets,” Paris, 1851; d’Avenel, “L’évolution des Moyens de Transport,” Paris, 1919. There is in the “Vetusta monumenta,” vol. iv, 1815, pl. xxxv., a fine view of the George Inn at Glastonbury (fifteenth century). The New Inn at Gloucester, Northgate-street, is a good specimen of an English inn of the fifteenth century (below, p. 131. Charming sketches of several by Herbert Railton adorn an article on “Coaching Days and Coaching Ways,” in the “English Illustrated Magazine,” July, 1888. See also Turner and Parker, who mention several, of the fifteenth century, “Domestic Architecture,” vol. iii. pp. 46 ff.
140 The Latin text of their account of expenses was published by Thorold Rogers in his “History of Agriculture and Prices,” ii. p. 638.
141 “Liber Albus,” ed. Riley, Introduction, p. lviii. Cf. the journey from Cambridge to York of a party of twenty-six scholars, in 1319. The beds, wherever they sleep, uniformly cost 8d. for the twenty-six. W. W. Rouse Ball, “Cambridge Papers,” London, 1918, ch. ix. “A Christmas Journey in 1319.”
142 See Appendix IX.
143 Published by Prof. Paul Meyer in the Revue Critique (1870), vol. x. p. 373.
144 “Bon souper, bon gîte, et le reste” (La Fontaine).
145 Riley’s “Memorials of London,” p. 386.
146 Ed. Barack, Nurenberg, 1858; Fr. translation by Magnin, Paris, 1845.
147 F. Michel and E. Fournier, “La Grande Bohème” I, pp. 200 ff.
148 Furnivall, “Tale of Beryn,” Early English Text Society, 1887, p. viii., or Arber, “English Garner,” vi. 84.
Prologue to the “Tale of Beryn.” E.E.T.S., 1909, p. 1.
150 Statutes for the City of London, 13 Ed. I, “Statutes of the Realm,” vol. i. p. 102, A.D. 1285.
151 Articles of the View of Frankpledge, of probably 18 Ed. II, “Statutes,” vol. i. p. 246 (French text).
152 Hugh the needle-seller.
153 “Piers the Plowman,” Skeat’s edition, Text C, passus vii. ll. 364–370, 394.
“Le Livre de la mutacion de fortune,” Bk. iii, MS. Fr. 603, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Christine de Pisan’s “Œuvres poétiques,” are being published by the “Société de Anciens textes Français,” ed. Maurice Roy, 1886 ff.
155 “Elynour Rummynge.” “Poetical Works of John Skelton,” ed. Dyce, 1843, vol. i. p. 95.
156 Jurors find in 1375 that the bridge in the midst of the causey between Brant Broughton and Lincoln was primarily made “by a certain hermit after the first pestilence,” and consisted “in a board placed above the ford” which had to be waded through: “Jurati dicunt supra sacramentum suum . . . quod pons predictus post primam pestilenciam ibidem primo per quendam heremitum factus fuit, ponendo tabulam ultra quoddam vadum in medio calceti predicti.” Complete text in C. T. Flower, “Public Works in Mediæval Law,” Selden Society, 1915, i. 263.
157 “Roman de Renart,” Branch viii. ed. Martin i. p. 267. On the outcome of this confession, see further, Part iii. chap. iii.
158 The son of a mayor of York; d. about 1235. Miracles are said to have been worked at the Knaresborough hermitage, Yorkshire, where he had lived and was buried.
159 “English Prose Treaties,” ed. Perry, E.E.T.S., 1866, pp. xv, xvi. Rolle died in 1349.
160 Ibid. p. 5.
161 Another example still in existence is the hermitage at Warkworth, Northumberland, partly of masonry and partly scooped out of the rock. It was apparently enlarged by its successive inhabitants, but seems from the style of the windows and carvings to belong mostly to the fourteenth century.
162 “The Metrical Life of Saint Robert of Knaresborough,” ed. Haslewood and Douce, Roxburghe Club, 1824, p. 36. Cf. “Rotuli Chartarum in Turri Londinensi asservati,” ed. T. D. Hardy, 1837, p. 158, where King John is seen bestowing on one Robert, in 1205, “locum in quo heremitorium sancte Wereburge sedet” (the famous St. Werburga, abbess of Ely, seventh century). He does so “pro amore Dei et pro salute anime nostre.” He grants, “in puram et perpetuam elemosinam,” the “heremitorium de Godeland” to the monks of Whitby, Oct. 26, 1205, ibid, p. 159.
163 Both sorts generally lived by themselves, but the recluse never left his cell while the hermit could roam about. “Issue Roll of Thomas de Brantingham,” ed. Devon, p. 393, 44 Ed. III; the same king gives also 20s. “in aid of her support” to “Alice de Latimer a recluse anchorite,” ibid. p. xxxvi.
164 “Teste Rege, apud Westmonasterium, 1º die Octobris [1399].” Rymer’s “Fœdera.”
165 See, for an example of a hermit settled at the corner of a bridge, an Act of resumption which formally excepts a grant of 14s. yearly to the “Heremyte of the Brigge of Loyne and his successours,” 4 Ed. IV, “Rolls of Parliament,” v. p. 546. Another example is to be found in J. Britton, “On Ancient Gate-houses,” “Memoirs illustrative of the History of Norfolk,” London, Archæological Institute, 1851, p. 137, where hermits are mentioned who lived on Bishop’s Bridge, Norwich, in the thirteenth century and after.
167 See above as to the part taken by the clergy in the collection of offerings, and in the care and maintenance of bridges, chap. i.
168 12 Rich. II, chap. vii, “Statutes of the Realm.” A sample of a hermit’s vow, with an analysis of a fourteenth-century text describing the ceremony for the consecration of a hermit, is in E. L. Cutts, “Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages,” 1872, pp. 98, 99. A list is given, p. 111, of the still subsisting English hermitages.
169 “Piers Plowman,” Skeat’s edition, Text C, passus i. l. 30; passus x. l. 195.
170 Ibid., passus x. l. 188.
171 Look humbly to gain alms.
172 “Piers Plowman,” Skeat’s edition, Text C, passus x. ll. 140–152.
173 Text C, passus x. ll. 251–256.
Le Dit de frère Denise. “Œuvres complètes de Rutebeuf,” ed. Jubinal, Paris, 1874, vol. ii. p. 63.
175 Printed in the “Archæological Journal,” vol. iv. p. 69.
176 “E, sire, les avant ditz William e Richart e plusours gentz de la ville de Lichfield sount menacé des ditz larons e lour maintenours qu’ils n’osent nule part aler hors de la dite ville.”
177 Richard II had several times to renew and confirm them, but without effect. In his first statute upon this subject he condemns the superabundance of retainers which many men, though of indifferent means, delight in; he declares “that divers people of small revenue of land, rent, or other possessions, do make great retinue of people, as well of esquires as of other, in many parts of the realm” (1 Richard II, cap. 7, A.D. 1377). The third statute of 13 Richard II, that of his 16th year (cap. 4), that of his 20th year (cap. 1 and 2), are likewise directed against the abuse of liveries and the number of retainers of the “lords spiritual and temporal.” Henry VI renewed these statutes, also without result.
178 10 Ed. III, year 1336.
179 Those who divided among themselves the prospective profit of a lawsuit “maintained” in this way, were called “champertors,” campi participes, which was forbidden by numerous statutes. See e.g. the “Ordinacio de Conspiratoribus,” 33 Ed. I, year 1305.
180 4 Ed. III, chap. 2, year 1330.
181 20 Ed. III, chap. 4, 5, 6, year 1346.
182 “Le Roi désire que commun droit soit fait à toutz, auxibien à povres come à riches.” 1 Ed. III, stat. ii, ch. 14.
183 In the petition to the Good Parliament, 1376, she is included among “les femmes qui ont pursuys en les Courtz du Roi diverses busoignes et quereles par voie de maintenance et pur lower (gain) et part avoir.”
184 Statute 2 Richard II, stat. i. cap. 6, A.D. 1378.
185 The picture in this statute is so complete that there is scarcely need to quote other texts; they are, however, numerous. In the petitions to parliament will be found many complaints by private people for acts of violence of which they had been victims, for imprisonment by their enemies, robberies, arson, destruction of game or fish in the parks. Examples: petition of Agnes Atte Wode, she and her son beaten and robbed (ibid. i. p. 372); of Agnes of Aldenby, beaten by malefactors (“Rolls of Parliament,” i. p. 375); of the inhabitants of several towns of the county of Hertford, who have been imprisoned and forced to pay ransom by the knight John of Patmer (i. p. 389); of John of Grey, who was attacked by fifteen malefactors so resolute as to set fire to a town and storm a castle (i. p. 397); of Robert Power, who is robbed and his mansion sacked, his people beaten, by “men all armed as men of war” (i. p. 410); of Ralph le Botiller, who has seen his mansion pillaged and burnt by eighty men, who came with arms and baggage, bringing ropes and hatchets on carts (ii. p. 88), etc. In France, it is well known, the misdeeds of this kind were still more numerous but then a continual state of war was raging there.
186 “Rolls of Parliament,” ii. p. 351.
187 One founded with that object by Matthew of Dunstable in 1295, and “known as the chantry of Biddenham bridge in Bromham parish.” “Victoria History of the Counties of England,” Bedfordshire, vol. iii. p. 49.
188 “Statutes of the Realm,” year 1285.
189 “Chronica Monasterii de Melsa,” Rolls Series, ii. 275.
190 “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. ii. p. 201 (22 E. III, 1348).
191 Ibid., vol. ii. p. 165.
192 Earliest reference in England: that in the laws of Ethelbert, King of Kent, later part of the sixth century, where it is said that “the penalty for violation of church frith is to be twice that exacted for an ordinary breach of peace.” Trenholme, “The Right of Sanctuary in England,” University of Missouri Studies, 1903, p. 11.
193 Trenholme, as above, p. 48.
194 R. W. Billings, “Architectural Illustrations . . . of the Church at Durham,” London, 1843, p. 20.
195 “Erant hujusmodi cathedrarum multæ in Anglia . . . Beverlaci autem celeberrima, quæ priscorum regum benignitate (puta Æthelstani vel alterius cujuspiam) asyli nacta privilegium, tali honestabatur inscriptione: ‘Hæc sedes lapidea Freedstoll dicitur, i.e. pacis cathedra, ad quam reus fugiendo perveniens, omnimodam habet securitatem.’” H. Spelman, “Glossarium Archaiologicum,” 3rd ed., London, 1687, p. 248.
196 Though every consecrated place was a sanctuary, some of them afforded far more safety than others, the penalties for abductors being much greater. A list of the safest of the English sanctuaries is in S. Pegge, “A Sketch of the History of the Asylum or Sanctuary,” in “Archæologia,” 1787, vol. viii. p. 41.
197 “Brevis annotatio Ricardi, prioris Hagustaldensis ecclesiæ de antiquo et moderno statu ejusdem ecclesiæ,” ed. Raine, “The priory of Hexham,” Surtees Society, 1864–5, 2 vols. illustrated, i. 62. The prior has also a chapter v, “De pace inviolabili per unum milliare circumquaque ipsius ecclesiæ,” p. 19, and a chapter xiv on the privileges, granted by the king, to the Hexham Sanctuary, p. 61.
198 Raine, as above, II, p. lxiv. Wright’s “Essay” appeared in 1823.
199 Usually worn by the accused, but the law officer’s intrusion would have made him a guilty man. “Carcannum,” says Du Cange, “collistrigium, vinculum quo rei collum stringitur, nostris, carcan.”
200 J. Raine, “Sanctuarium Dunelmense et Sanctuarium Beverlacense,” London, Surtees Society, 1827, p. xxv.
202 “Sanctuarium Dunelmense et Sanctuarium Beverlacense,” p. 111.
203 Penance of this kind was not applied only to men. Women of all ranks were obliged to submit to it. In the same Register Palatine of Durham may be seen the case of Isabella of Murley, condemned for adultery with her sister’s husband, John d’Amundeville, to receive publicly “six whippings around the market of Durham” (vol. ii. p. 695). The case was not one of people of the lower sort; the Amundeville family was powerful and old-established in the county. Particulars about them from the thirteenth century may be found in Surtees, “History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham,” London, 1823, vol. iii. p. 270. Another example is in the “Constitutiones . . . Walteri de Cantilupo” (Bishop of Worcester), A.D. 1240; Wilkins’ “Concilia Magnæ Britanniæ et Hiberniæ,” London, 1757, vol. i. p. 668.
204 “Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense,” ed. Sir T. D. Hardy, London, 1875, vol. i. p. 315, A.D. 1313.
205 Henry IV or Henry V. Raine, “Sanctuarium Dunelmense,” p. xvii.
206 “Historical Notices of the Collegiate Church or Royal free Chapel and Sanctuary of St. Martin le Grand, London,” by A. J. Kempe, London, 1825, p. 136.
207 “Croniques de London,” edited by G. J. Aungier, Camden Society, 1844, p. 48; written by a contemporary of the events.
208 “Articuli cleri,” statute 9 E. II, cap. 10.
209 He forbids those on guard to stay in the cemetery, unless there is imminent danger of flight. The felon may have the “necessaries of life” in the sanctuary.
210 “Statutes of the Realm,” i. p. 250, text of uncertain date, but probably of the reign of Edward II. All this was classified as “Abuses” by the not very trustworthy author of the “Mirror for Justices” (Andrew Horne?), early fourteenth century, ed. Whittaker and Maitland, Selden Soc., 1895, p. 158. At all events it was the law. According to “Fleta,” lib. i. cap. xxix, at the end of forty days in sanctuary, if the malefactors have not abjured the kingdom, food must be refused to them, and they will no longer be allowed to emigrate. On the road to the port, according to the same, the felon wore a garb which would cause him to be recognized, being “ungirt, un-shod, bare-headed, in his bare shirt, as if he were to be hanged on the gallows, having received a cross in his hands,” “discinctus et discalceatus, capite discooperto, in pura tunica, tanquam in patibulo suspendendus, accepta cruce in manibus.” “Fleta” stated that he must try to cross, till he got into water, not up to the knees, but up to the neck. On the “Abjuratio Regni,” see the capital article, with a complete bibliography of the subject by André Réville, in the “Revue Historique,” Sept. 1892.
211 “The Sanctuaries and Sanctuary Seekers of Mediæval England,” by the Rev. J. Charles Cox, quoting a coroner’s roll of the time of Edward III. London, 1911, p. 28.
212 Statute 2 Rich. II, stat. 2, chap. 3. These frauds had been already complained of under Edward III. A petition of the Commons in the parliament of 1376–77 (“Rolls of Parliament,” ii. p. 369), declares that certain people, after having received money or merchandise on loan, and having made a pretended gift of all their property to friends, “flee to Westminster, St. Martin’s, or other such privileged places, and lie there a long time, . . . so long that the said creditors are only too pleased to take a small part of their debt and release the rest.” Then the debtors return home, and their friends give them back their property.
214 A. J. Kempe, “Historical Notices of . . . St. Martin le Grand,” London, 1825, p. 135.
215 Statute 9 Ed. II, cap. 15.
216 “Croniques de London,” Camden Society, 1884, p. 42.
217 See Appendix X.
218 “Croniques de London,” Camden Society, 1844, p. 52.
219 “The History of King Richard the Thirde (unfinished), writen by Master Thomas More, than one of the Under Sherriffs of London: about the yeare of our Lorde, 1513,” “Workes,” London, 1557. Reprinted by S. W. Singer, Chiswick, 1821, p. 55.
220 “The History of King Richard the Thirde,” pp. 44, 45. A list of the “contents” of the same Westminster sanctuary, in 1532, has been printed by the Rev. J. C. Cox, showing that “there were then fifty fugitives, including one woman under the protection of the abbey, as life prisoners, one of whom had been there for twenty years. Sixteen were there for felonies, probably all robberies, eleven for murder or homicide, eighteen for debt, and two for sacrilege,” the church having particular merit in protecting the latter. One was a priest: “Sir James Whytakere, preste, for murdre”; some were there for a matter so small as to inspire pity: “John ap Howell for felony; a poore mane, for stellynge of herrings.” “Sanctuaries,” 1911, pp. 72 ff.
221 “History of the reign of King Henry VII,” Ellis and Spedding’s edition of Bacon’s Works, vol. vi. p. 43. Bacon says that Henry “was tender in the privilege of sanctuaries, though they wrought him much mischief” (p. 238).
222 21 James I, cap. 28, § 7; “Statutes,” vol. iv. part ii. p. 1237.
223 “Rolls of Parliament,” 21 Ed. III, vol. ii. p. 178. See also the petition of the Commons in 1350–51, 25 Ed. III, vol. ii. p. 229.
224 “Our lord the king by untrue recommendations has several times granted his charter of pardon to notorious robbers and to common murderers, when it is given him to understand that they are staying for his wars beyond the sea, whence they suddenly return into their country to persevere in their misdeeds.” The king orders that on the charter shall be written “the name of him who made the recommendation to the king;” the judges before whom this charter shall be presented by the felon to have his liberty shall have the power to make inquiry, and if they find that the recommendation is not well founded, they shall hold the charter of non effect. “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. ii. p. 253, A.D. 1353.
225 Regulations of 1313. “Munimenta Academica; or documents illustrative of academical life and studies at Oxford,” edited by H. Anstey, London, 1868, Rolls Series, vol. i. p. 91. The penalty was prison and the loss of the weapons.
226 5 Edward III, cap. 14.