Early sanctuary

A diversion into the realms of medieval sanctuary laws today.

To begin with, I’m sure you’re all familiar with the concept of sanctuary:

Sanctuary was a tricky issue for law makers over the centuries and even the Romans attempted to control who could claim it in the 390s. The introduction of churches and more permanent sacral spaces, as opposed to groves and temples, seems to have brought the problem to the fore. Yet in the Aeneid, Vergil recounts outrage at the use of a temple of Juno by Roman soldiers to store captives and loot as the temple was a refuge “from which no one can be dragged out to punishment”.

For the early Christians, the right of the clergy to intercede in matters (in return for penance) was understood. Yet the ascribing of this right to a particular space took hold rather slowly as fixed locations were still associated with pagan worship (temples, groves etc.). By the fifth century however, the church had become associated with the protection of sanctuary.

This right was restricted by various laws and attempts to control it over the centuries. Following the Roman examples, the protection of debtors and slaves formed the basis of medieval sanctuary rules across Europe. This led pursuers of sanctuary seekers to seek other ways to wriggle around the right of sanctuary.

In the sixth century, Gregory of Tours recalls the case of a male and female slave who had run away and sought sanctuary, and marriage, in a church. Their  lords demanded the return of the slaves and the priest informed him: 

“You know the respect due to the Church….You will not be able to receive your slaves back unless you give faith regarding the permanence of their union”

They were also not to be punished upon their return. Their lord swore that this would be so and that the slaves would not be parted. 

What their lord actually did however was:

“(He) returned to his house, and straightway ordered a tree to be cut down. Then he ordered the trunk to be opened with wedges and hollowed out, and a hole to be made in the ground to the depth of three or four feet, and the trunk to be placed therein. Then placing the girl as if she were dead, he ordered the slave to be thrown on top of her. And when the cover had been placed upon the trunk he filled the grave and buried them both alive, saying, "I have not broken my oath and I have not separated them.”

Not a nice chap. 

 

Notes

Aenidos Librorum I-V Commentarii, ed. G. Thilo and H. Hagen (Hildesheim: George Olms, 1961), books 2, line 761

Gregory of Tours extract:

http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/source/575Rauching.asp

Shoemaker, Karl, Sanctuary and crime in the European middle ages, 400-1500 (Ashland, Ohio: Fordham University Press, 2011)