“We moreover ordain, that if any of the liberties and privileges contained in this our charter shall happen to have been disused for a length of time, such disuse shall in no respect prejudice the right, but such liberty or privilege may be again exercised without contradiction, notwithstanding that it may have been discontinued and disused as aforesaid. And all the aforesaid things, and all other secular services and customs which are not included in this present writing, we, through love of God, and for the good of the soul of the lord king John, our father, and for the good of the souls of all our predecessors and successors, grant and confirm to them, as a perpetual alms-gift, with all liberties and free customs, as fully, freely, and effectually as the royal power can confer them upon any religious house. And we prohibit all persons, on pain of forfeiture, from proceeding against them or their men contrary to this our charter, for we have taken the aforesaid brethren, and all their goods, and possessions, and all their men, under our especial guardianship and protection. As witness the king, at Westminster, the 9th day of February, in the eleventh year of our reign.”[114] By the royal grant of _soc_ and _sac_, _tol_ and _theam_, &c. &c, the Templars were clothed with the power of holding courts to impose and levy fines and amerciaments upon their tenants, to judge and punish their villeins and vassals--to take cognizance of quarrels and controversies that arose amongst them--to try thieves and malefactors belonging to their manors, and all foreign thieves taken within the precincts thereof--to try and punish trespasses and breaches of the peace, and all unlawful entries into the houses of their tenants--to impose and levy amerciaments for cutting and maiming, and for bloodshed--to judge and punish by fine or imprisonment the seducers of their bond women, and all persons who committed adultery and fornication within their manors. They had the power of trying criminals by ordeal, or the terrible test of fire and water; and they had, lastly, the tremendous privilege of pit or gallows, i. e. the power of putting convicted thieves to death, by hanging them if they were men, and drowning them if they were women! By the royal charter, the Templars were, in the next place, freed from the fine of right payable to the king for the hanging of thieves without a formal trial and judgment according to law; they were exempted from the taxes on pasture-lands, and plough-lands, and horned cattle; from the Danish tribute, and from all military services, and from all the ordinary feudal burthens.[115] CHAPTER VI.