It has been stated that all churches, parochial, collegiate, and cathedral, were sanctuaries; but there were in different parts of England about thirty supreme sanctuaries, of which Westminster, York, Durham, Glastonbury, Ely, Ripon, and Beverley may be taken as types. They owed this pre-eminence to the possession of relics and stories of miracles wrought by the tutelar saint for the protection of suppliants or the chastisement of those who violated the shrine. The origin of the civil sanction is most obscure. Individual churches attributed their franchise to the favour of ancient kings--Hexham to Ecfrith, King of Northumbria; Ripon and Beverley to Athelstan, and York to Edward the Confessor. Tradition affirms that in primitive times the term of protection at Durham was thirty-seven days and at Beverley thirty days on the first and second occasions, and if the fugitive resorted thither a third time, he had to become _serviens ecclesiae imperpetuum_. These intimations, if true, point to a process of evolution from small beginnings represented by the three nights' protection to which the sanctuary rights of an ordinary church were limited by the laws of Alfred (887) to the extraordinary privileges which, if we accept Mr. R. H. Forster's conclusions, existed at Durham. These concerned both the area and the duration of the immunity. At other places the right of sanctuary comprised the precinct as well as the church itself. For instance, at Beverley, the story goes that Athelstan, on his return from a victorious campaign against King Constantine, conferred the privilege on the church of St. John and a portion of the surrounding country. The bounds were indicated by crosses. The base and part of the shaft of one of them is, or was lately, to be seen in a hedge on the road to Skidby. Others were erected at Molescroft, on the road towards Cherry or North Burton, and near Killingwoldgrove, on the Bishop's Burton road. At Durham, however, if we follow Mr. Forster--and he makes out an excellent case--the precinct included the whole of the County Palatine, and the term of protection, instead of being confined to the ordinary period of forty days, was perpetual. At York, Beverley, and Hexham there was what may be termed an outermost precinct and various inner precincts, the relative sanctity of which is shown by the scale of punishments inflicted for violation. In Prior Richard's history of Hexham it is stated that there were at that place four crosses, each of them erected at a distance of one mile from the church, and in a different direction. Anyone who arrested a fugitive within these limits was fined two _hundreth_, or sixteen pounds. For an arrest "infra villam" the penalty was twofold. If the person were seized "infra muros atrii ecclesiae," it was threefold; and if within the church itself, sixfold, to which was added penance "sicut de sacrilegiis." Supposing, however, that anyone, "vesano spiritu agitatus diabolico ausu quemquam