Christian antiquities -- Great Britain; Folklore -- Great Britain; Great Britain -- Social life and customs; Manners and customs
The list of weapons, etc., employed by the murderers is as under:--
Indefinite, 12; Armicudium, 1; Arrow, 5; Baselard 3; Bastard-sword, 1;
Bill, 3; Carlisle Axe, 3; Club-staff, 11; Crabtree-staff, 1; Dagger, 56;
Dicker, 1; Egelome, 1; Forest-bill, 1; Halbarde, 2; Hanging, 1; Hynger, 3;
Iron-fork Shaft, 1; Kendal-club, 2; Lance, 10; Lance-staff, 4; Lang
Pike-staff, 1; Long Plane-staff, 1; Pike-staff, 12; Plane-staff, 1;
Pychyng-staff, 1; Pugio (a dagger), 1; Scotch Axe, 2; Small-staff, 1;
Spear-staff, 2; Staff, 14; Staff, with a pummel, 1; Stone, 2; Sword, 21;
Trodden to death, 1; Turf-spade, 1; Welsh-bill, 6; Whynyard (a short
dagger), 6; Wood-axe, 3; Wood-knife, 1.
The right of sanctuary was granted to the church of St. John, Beverley, by
Athelstan, and near the altar was placed a Fridstol, or chair of peace,
denoting that here the refugee might find peace. According to Camden and
Leland, the chair once bore a Latin inscription which has been translated
thus: "This stone chair is called the Freed Stool, _i.e._, the Chair of
Peace, to which what criminal soever flies hath full protection." There is
not at the present time any trace of an inscription on it. We only know of
two sanctuary chairs which are still preserved in England, namely, one at
Beverley and the other at Hexham.
[Illustration: BEVERLY SANCTUARY CHAIR.]
The extent of the Beverley sanctuary was a circle round the church having
a radius of about a mile, with the church as a centre, marked by stone
crosses erected on the four principal roads leading to the town. "If a
malefactor," says Oliver, in his "History of Beverley," "flying for refuge
was taken or apprehended within the crosses, the party that took or had
hold of him there, did forfeit two hundreth; if he took him within the
town, then he forfeited four hundreth; if within the walls of the
churchyard, then six hundreth; if within the church, then twelve hundreth;
if within the doors of the quire, then eighteen hundreth, besides penance,
as in case of sacrilege; but if he presumed to take him out of the stone
chair near the altar, called Fridstol, or from among the holy relics
behind the altar, the offence was not redeemable with any sum, but was
then become _sine emendatione, boteles_, and nothing but the utmost
severity of the offended church was to be expected, by a dreadful
excommunication, besides what secular power would impose for the
presumptuous misdemeanor." There is a foot-note in Oliver's book, on the
authority of Richard Prior, of Hagulstad, saying that "the hundreth
contained eight pounds; so that the last penalty was most immense, nearly
as much as the weregild for killing a crowned head in Wales; and, indeed,
every act of violence committed against the right of sanctuary was
esteemed a breach of the churches' peace, a high crime, and a species of
sacrilege."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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