The Church in the Middle Ages had a tremendous hold over people’s minds, and this was largely due to the power which it wielded over their bodies. Foremost amongst the rights then possessed by it was the right of ‘Sanctuary,’ by which the poor and injured could gain safety from the attacks of their oppressors, and one who had unwittingly committed a crime might save himself from a criminal’s death. This right belonged, in greater or less degree, to all the churches scattered up and down the country.

Let us imagine a by-no-means uncommon event in the years just after the Black Death. A husbandman is working for his master as a free labourer and small cottager. His father before him had also been a free labourer, but his grandfather had in his youth been a serf of the lord of a neighbouring manor. This grandfather of his, because the serfs had increased beyond their lord’s requirements, had been allowed with others to go free; and taking advantage of his freedom he had sought and obtained work as a free labourer under a new master. But now, after the Black Death, labourers are scarce; and the present lord of the manor is causing to be looked up all the descendants of those serfs whom his ancestor had set free. Thus the lord’s bailiff has been making enquiries about our freeman, and has sent two servants to arrest him and take him back to the serfdom that his grandfather had once suffered.

But our freeman is a man of spirit, and will not be taken without resistance. Knives are drawn, and he defends himself. In the scuffle one of his assailants stumbles and falls, and unluckily for himself and for our freeman, he happens to fall upon his own weapon, which pierces his body and so causes his death. His comrade, chicken-hearted, fears to continue the struggle alone, and makes off to the village for help.

What is our freeman to do? If he remains where he is and allows himself to be taken, not only will he be claimed as a serf by the lord of the neighbouring manor, but he will also be charged with causing the death of the lord’s servant.

Little chance is there of his proving himself innocent of his assailant’s death; for the dead man’s companion will not fail to swear that the death-blow was struck by him. In any case he will be thrown into the town jail for an indefinite length of time, perhaps not to come out alive, or to come out maimed for life. Were not three prisoners, two men and a woman, thrown into the jail last year on suspicion of having been concerned in a murder, and were they not kept there till one of the men died, the other lost a foot, and the woman lost both feet, from disease produced by the foul condition of the cell into which they were cast?

So thinks our freeman to himself. It is little comfort to him to remember that when the two prisoners who remained alive were eventually tried, they were found ‘not guilty’ of the charge laid against them, and were told by the justices that they could depart.

What can our freeman do? In a short while the lord of the manor’s other servant will come up with help against him, and he must then be overpowered. He can only flee. But whither? In the distance he can just distinguish the outline of the great church of St. John of Beverley. If he can only reach that church and knock on the small door that holds the sanctuary knocker he will be safe.

So off he sets on a six-mile run, with life before him and death behind. He has a good start over his pursuers, whom he can just make out half-a-mile or so away, but will he be able to hold out till he reaches the goal set before him? Nearer and nearer becomes the church, and although his pursuers are gaining on him, yet his heart is cheered by the sight of the boundary cross which tells him he has little more than a mile now to run, and which in itself gives him a certain amount of protection. For should he now be taken, he is under the protection of St. John, and his pursuers will lay hands on him at the risk of a fine of eight pounds payable to the Church.

Spurred on by fresh hope he reaches his goal, and has just sufficient strength to clang the knocker before he falls heavily against the heavy door. ‘Oh that the door may be opened quickly!’ His prayer is answered; for a watching priest has seen the pursuit. He draws back the bolt, drags in the senseless form, and clangs to the door again just as the pursuers reach it.

For a space of thirty days our freeman will now be safe, and during these thirty days he will be fed and lodged by the canons of the Minster. But first he will be required, with his hand placed on the great written copy of the Bible possessed by the Minster, to take an oath read out to him by the Coroner in the following words:—

‘Sir, take hede on your oth—

Ye shalbe trew and feythfull to my Lord Archbisshop of York, Lord off this towne....

Also ye shall bere gude hert to the Baillie and xij governars of this town....

Also ye shall bere no poynted wepen, dagger, knyfe, ne none other wapen, ayenst the Kynges pece.

Also ye shalbe redy at all your power, if ther be any debate or stryf, or oder sothan case of fyre within the towne, to help to surcess it.

Also ye shalbe redy at the obite^[35] of Kyng Adelstan ... at the warnyng of the belman of the towne, and doe your dewte in ryngyng....’ryngyng....’

Then having taken the oath he will be required to ‘kysse the book.’

But in the eyes of the law our freeman is a felon—a man over whose head there hangs a charge of murder, and who will have little chance of proving his innocence of this charge. He must avail himself of the law established of old and confirmed by King Edward II.—

Let the felon be brought to the church door, and there be assigned unto him a port, near or far off, and a time appointed to him to go out of the realm, so that in going towards that port he carry a cross in his hand, and that he go not out of the King’s highway, neither on the right hand nor on the left, but that he keep it always until he shall be gone out of the land; and that he shall not return without special grace of our lord the King.

Such were the rights of sanctuary possessed by the Minster at Beverley. For the space of a mile around the church in every direction the peace of St. John extended, and within this circle—the boundaries of which were marked by the erection of a ‘sanctuary cross’ on each of the roads entering Beverley—partial safety was assured to all fugitives. But the nearer a fugitive got to the high altar of the Minster the safer he became. Seated in the Frith-Stool that stood by the side of the altar he was absolutely safe; for none—not even the King himself—dare violate its sacred peace.

The Beverley frith-stool now stands in the chancel near the north-east transept. A plain, massive seat of stone it is, so massive and so simple in design that its age seems greater than that of the Minster itself. Possibly it dates back to the days of the Saxon King Aethelstan. It was once engraved, we know, with a Latin inscription, the translation of which ran thus:

This stone seat is called FREEDSTOLL, that is, chair of peace, on reaching which a fugitive criminal enjoys complete safety.

A frith-stool very similar to the Beverley one exists at Hexham Abbey in Northumberland, and in the village church of Halsham in our East Riding there is what is thought to be another. Here, however, the ‘chair of peace’ is built into the wall of the chancel between the sedilia and the priests’ door. No other examples are known in Yorkshire.

Of sanctuary knockers still existing the finest is the Norman one on the north door of Durham Cathedral, but nearer home there is a good example on a door of All Saints’ Church at York. That which once existed, and which was so freely used, on a door of Beverley Minster has long ago disappeared, nor is there any known example in the East Riding.

As an instance of the protection afforded to the people by the existence of this right of sanctuary, and of the power of the Church over the minds of even such Kings as William the Conqueror, may be given the story told by Alured,^[36] a priest of the Minster of St. John in the reign of William’s son, Henry I.:—

At the time when William was engaged on his ‘Wasting of the North’ he had once pitched his camp seven miles from Beverley, and had caused all the people of the district to flee to the church for protection. Certain soldiers coming up intent on plunder made their way to the church, and their leader, Toustain by name, did not hesitate to spur his horse within its open door. But the vengeance of St. John came down upon him for his impious deed, his horse stumbled on the threshold, and Toustain fell with broken neck. Moreover, when his men picked him up, his head was found to be twisted towards his back, and his feet and hands were distorted like those of a mis-shapen monster. Fear came upon all the Norman soldiers, and when William was informed of the miracle that had happened, fear came also upon him; so that he confirmed all the privileges of the church, gave it a grant of lands at Sigglesthorne, and decreed that the lands of the blessed Saint John should be everywhere spared from the ‘Wasting.’

In affording protection to the innocent, the injured, and the oppressed, the Church was carrying on a good work. But we must remember that the same protection was afforded to those actually guilty of all possible crimes. The registers kept at Beverley show that during a space of sixty years in the reigns of King Edward IV., Richard III., Henry VII. and Henry VIII., those who claimed the right of sanctuary included:—

In the Beverley registers there are 469 entries, of which all but a few are written in Latin. One of the English entries will give an idea of the kind of record kept:—

Memorandum, that John Spret, of Barton upon Umber, in the Counte of Lyncoln, gentilman, com to Beverlay, the ferst day of October, the vij yer of the reen of Keing Herry the vij, and asked the lybertes of Saint John of Beverlay, for the dethe of John Welton, husbondman, of the same town, and knawleg^[37] hymselff to be at the kyllyng of the saym John with a dagarth,^[38] the xv day of August.

It is evident from these 469 entries that the Beverley Sanctuary must have been of special repute. For the criminals who asked the liberties of Saint John of Beverley came from parts of Britain as wide apart as Lowestoft, Honiton, Haverfordwest, Anglesey, and Durham. No fewer than thirty came from London, Beverley itself provided five, Preston in Holdernes three, and Kyngestone super Hull ten; while others came from Heydon, Hezell, Hoton Cransewik, Hogett super le Wolde, Otteryngham, Wetherwyk, and fifty other towns and villages in the East Riding.

All ranks and conditions of life are represented among these entries, from the armiger or knight, and generosus or person of noble birth, down to the common laborer. The goldsmyth, the surgyon, the grosiar—an alderman of London—the yoman, the chapman, the shepard, and the husbondman are there. So, sad to relate, is the capellanus, or chaplain; and among the tradesmen there are the berbrower, bocher, bowyer, brykemaker, capper, coke, flecher,^[39] fysshemonger, payntour, pewterer, plommer, pursor, pynner, saddiler, salter, syngyngman, and tawlowchaunler.