Christianity, coming into England out of the bosom of the Roman Empire, brought along with it all those ideas of immunity. The first trace we can find of this exemption from lay jurisdiction in England is in the laws of Ethelred;[79] it is more fully established in those of Canute;[80] but in the code of Henry I. it is twice distinctly affirmed.[81] This immunity from the secular jurisdiction, whilst it seemed to encourage acts of violence in the clergy towards others, encouraged also the violence of others against them. The murder of a clerk could not be punished at this time by death; it was against a spiritual person, an offence wholly spiritual, of which the secular courts took no sort of cognizance. In the Saxon times two circumstances made such an exemption less a cause of jealousy: the sheriff sat with the bishop, and the spiritual jurisdiction was, if not under the control, at least under the inspection of the lay officer; and then, as neither laity nor clergy were capitally punished for any offence, this privilege did not create so invidious and glaring a distinction between them. Such was the power of the clergy, and such the immunities, which the king proposed to diminish. [Sidenote: A.D. 1164.] Becket, who had punished the ecclesiastic for his crime by ecclesiastical law, refused to deliver him over to the secular judges for farther punishment, on the principle of law, that no man ought to be twice questioned for the same offence. The king, provoked at this opposition, summoned a council of the barons and bishops at Clarendon; and here, amongst others of less moment, the following were unanimously declared to be the ancient prerogatives of the crown. And it is something remarkable, and certainly makes much for the honor of their moderation, that the bishops and abbots who must have composed so large and weighty a part of the great council seem not only to have made no opposition to regulations which so remarkably contracted their jurisdiction, but even seem to have forwarded them. 1st. A clerk accused of any crime shall appear in the king's court, that it may be judged whether he belongs to ecclesiastical or secular cognizance. If to the former, a deputy shall go into the bishop's court to observe the trial; if the clerk be convicted, he shall be delivered over to the king's justiciary to be punished. 2nd. All causes concerning presentation, all causes concerning Frankalmoign, all actions concerning breach of faith, shall be tried in the king's court. 3rd. The king's tenant _in capite_ shall not be excommunicated without the king's license. 4th. No clerk shall go out of the kingdom without giving security that he will do nothing to the prejudice of the king or nation. And all appeals shall be tried at home.