One very interesting practice in connection with the mediæval system of law and policing was the use of the right of sanctuary. The monasteries, the Minster, and all churches had this right of giving a sacrosanct safety to criminals and others flying from their pursuers, whether officers of the law or the general mob, whose right, be it noted, it was to join in the chase after offenders (the "hue and cry") and help to arrest them. Provided the pursued reached the prescribed area, which, in some cases, as at the nationally famous sanctuary of St. John of Beverley, prevailed for some distance from the church itself, he was safe from his pursuers. Hexham Abbey and Beverley Minster still exhibit their sanctuary chairs or frith-stools. In the north door of Durham Cathedral there is an ancient, massive knocker, the rapper, of the form of a ring, being held in the mouth of a grotesque head. The frith-stool, to which the seeker went at once, stood near the high altar at which he made his declarations on oath. His case was carefully investigated and often sanctuary-seekers were allowed to exile themselves from the kingdom. The coroner was the public officer of inquiry. The Church took every care that the crime of breaking the sanctuary so granted was regarded not at all lightly. The right of sanctuary, after being changed to apply to certain towns only--among them York--continued till it was ended by law in the reign of James I. Condemned heretics were burnt[2] at Tyburn, the site of local executions, some way from Micklegate Bar along the main south road. B. PARLIAMENTARY AND NATIONAL LIFE According to the general principle, the King was the ultimate and absolute owner and ruler of the land and people. The rights, liberties, customs, and powers possessed by individuals and corporate bodies were specified parts of the royal power which the King had granted on some consideration or other. Thus, knights, archbishops, and nobles received lands and rights in return for the provision, when required, of military service by themselves and a certain force of their retainers, except that no personal military service was required from the archbishop from the very nature of his calling. The monasteries and other Church institutions had many possessions and rights. The Church, which was established in the realm before Parliament, was a very great owner of land. The authorities of cities, with their trade-guilds, received the right of trading, or holding markets, and of levying tolls or municipal taxes. They received also the right of making their own local laws or bye-laws. These authorities, whether individuals or corporate bodies, to whom rights and liberties were granted, had their own officers and laws controlling their liberties. Besides the King's peace, there were, therefore, the jurisdictions of these various rights granted from the supreme royal authority. [Illustration: KNIGHTS DOING PENANCE AT A SHRINE. _From a Fifteenth-Century Manuscript._]