SANCTUARY, a sacred or consecrated place, particularly one affording refuge, protection or right of asylum. The word is also applied to the privilege itself, the right of safe refuge, and even to places of refuge for animals, such as a "bird sanctuary." In Egyptian, Greek or Roman temples it was applied to the cella in which stood the statue of the god, and the Latin word for altar, ara, was used for protection as well. In Roman Catholic usage sanctuary is sometimes applied to the whole church, as a consecrated building, but is generally limited to the choir. The idea that such places afforded refuge to criminals or refugees is founded upon the primitive and universal belief in the contagion of holiness. Hence it was sacrilege to remove the man who had gained the holy precincts ; he was henceforth invested with a part of the sacredness of the place, and was inviolable so long as he remained there. The story of the death of Demosthenes (q.v.) is a famous instance. Not all Greek and Roman temples, however, had the right of sanctuary. But where it existed, the action of the Roman civil law was suspended, and in imperial times the statues and pictures of the emperors were a protection against. pursuit. Roman law did not recognize the use of Christian sanc tuaries until toward the end of the 4th century, but the growing recognition of the office of bishop as intercessor helped much to develop it. In 399 the right of Christian sanctuary was finally and definitely recognized, and in 419 the privilege was extended in the western empire to so paces from the church door. In 431, by an edict of Theodosius and Valentinian it was extended to include the church court-yard and whatever stood therein, in order to provide some other place than the church for the fugitives to eat and sleep. Justinian in a Novel of the year 535 limited the privilege to those not guilty of the grosser crimes. In the new Germanic kingdoms, while violent molestation of the right of sanctuary was forbidden, the fugitive was given up after an oath had been taken not to put him to death. This legislation was copied by the Church at the council of Orleans in si ; the penalty of penance was added, and the whole decree backed by the threat of excom munication. Thus it passed into Gratian's Decretum, but histo rians like Gregory of Tours have many tales to tell showing how frequently it was violated.
The earliest extant mention of the right of sanctuary in Eng land is contained in the code of laws issued by the Anglo-Saxon king Aethelberht in A.D. 600. By these he who infringed the church's privilege was to pay twice the fine attaching to an or dinary breach of the peace. Crosses inscribed with the word "Sanctuarium," were common on the highways, serving probably as sign-posts to guide fugitives to neighbouring sanctuaries. The canon law allowed the protection of sanctuary to those guilty of crimes of violence for a limited time only, in order that some compensation (wergild) should be made, or to check blood vengeance. The procedure, upon seeking sanctuary, was regulated in the minutest detail. The fugitive had to make confession of his crime to one of the clergy, to surrender his arms, swear to observe the rules and regulations of the religious houses, pay an admission fee, give, under oath, fullest details of his crime (the instrument used, the name of the victim, etc.), and at Durham he had to toll a special bell as a formal signal that he prayed sanctuary, and put on a gown of black cloth on the left shoulder of which was embroidered a St. Cuthbert's cross. The protection
afforded by a sanctuary at common law was this: a person accused of felony might fly for safeguard of his life to sanctuary, and there, within 4o days, go, clothed in sack-cloth, before the coroner, confess the felony and take an oath of abjuration of the realm, whereby he undertook to quit the kingdom, and not return without the king's leave. Upon confession he was, ipso facto, convicted of the felony, suffered attainder of blood and forfeited all his goods, but had time allowed him to fulfil his oath. The abjurer started forth on his journey, armed only with a wooden cross, bareheaded and clothed in a long white robe, which made him conspicuous among mediaeval wayfarers. He had to keep to the king's high way, was not allowed to remain more than two nights in any one place, and must make his way to the coast quickly. The time allowed for his journey was not long. In Edward III.'s reign only nine days were given an abjurer to walk from Yorkshire to Dover. Under the Norman kings there appear to have been two kinds of sanctuary; one general, which belonged to every church, and another peculiar, which had its force in a grant by charter from the king. This latter type could not be claimed by prescription, and had to be supported by usage within legal memory. General sanctuaries protected only those guilty of felonies, while those by special grant gave immunity even to those accused of high or petty treason, not for a time only but apparently for life. Of chartered sanctuaries there were at least 2 2 : Abingdon, Armath waite, Beaulieu, Battle Abbey, Beverley, Colchester, Derby, Dur ham, Dover, Hexham, Lancaster, St. Mary le Bow (London), St. Martin's le Grand (London), Merton Priory, Northampton, Nor wich, Ripon, Ramsey, Wells, Westminster, Winchester, York. At the Reformation general and peculiar sanctuaries both suffered drastic curtailment of their privileges, but the great chartered ones suffered most. By the reforming act of 1540 Henry VIII. established seven cities as peculiar sanctuaries. These were Wells, Westminster, Northampton, Manchester (afterwards transferred to Chester), York, Derby and Launceston. By an act of James I. (1623), sanctuary, as far as crime was concerned, was abolished throughout the kingdom. The privilege lingered on for civil processes in certain districts which had been the site of former sanctuaries and which became the haunts of criminals who there resisted arrest—a notable example being that known as White friars between Fleet Street and the Thames, east of the Temple. This locality was nicknamed Alsatia (the name first occurs in Shadwell's plays in Charles II.'s reign), and there criminals were able to a large extent to defy the law, arrests only being possible under writs of the lord chief justice. So flagrant became the abuses that in 1697 the "Escape from Prison Act," finally abolished all such alleged privileges. A further amending act of '723 completed the work of destruction. The privileged places named in the two acts were the Minories, Salisbury Court, Whitefriars, Fulwood's Rents, Mitre Court, Baldwin's Gardens, The Savoy, The Clink, Deadman's Place, Montague Close, The Mint and Stepney.