The Sanctuary Seeker

Glossary

ABJURER

A criminal who sought sanctuary in a church and elected to ‘abjure’ by confessing his sin to the coroner and leaving the realm of England for ever, to avoid being hanged.

ACRE

City on the north coast of Palestine, where Richard the Lionheart landed in June 1191 during the Third Crusade. A two-year siege by other crusaders had failed to dislodge the Saracens, but Richard succeeded within a month, much to the chagrin of his French and German allies.

AMERCE

To impose a financial penalty (fine) on a person or village. The coroner (q.v.) would not collect it straight away, but record the amercement on his parchment rolls to present to the King’s justices when they came; they would confirm or cancel the fine.

ARCHDEACON

A senior clergyman, responsible for the administration of areas within a diocese. Bishops in Norman times were rarely resident and their archdeacons ran affairs for them. In the diocese of Devon and Cornwall, there were three Archdeacons, one responsible for Exeter.

ASSART

A new piece of arable land cut from the forest, to enlarge the holdings of a village.

BAILIFF

Overseer of a manor or estate, directing the farming and other outside work. A steward or seneschal (q.v.) might be above him in a large establishment; he would have reeves working under him.

BALDRIC

A diagonal strap over the right shoulder of a Norman warrior to suspend his sword scabbard on the left hip.

CANON

A member of the cathedral chapter (see Prebendary).

BURGAGE

A town property, usually a house on a plot, occupied by a burgess.

BURGESS

A freeman of substance in a town, usually a merchant or craftsman. A group of burgesses ran the town administration and elected the portreeves or later a mayor.

CAPUCIN

Medieval headgear, consisting of a long length of cloth wound round the head rather like a turban, the free end hanging down to one shoulder.

CHAPTER

The administrative body of a cathedral, composed of the canons (or prebendaries) and the senior clergy. They met in the chapter house, usually attached to the cathedral. The name derived from the reading of a chapter of the gospels before each meeting.

CONSISTORY COURTS

The ecclesiastical courts, which had the right to try clerics, rather than the secular courts. Anyone who could read and write could claim to be tried by this court, as literacy was virtually confined to the clergy.

CONSTABLE

Has many meanings, but in the twelfth-century context, a senior military commander, often the custodian of a castle, alternatively called a castellan.

CORONER

Senior law officer in a county, after the sheriff, first officially appointed in September 1194, though there is a mention of a coroner in Saxon times. The name derives from the Latin custos placitorum coronae, meaning Keeper of the Pleas of the Crown, as he recorded all crimes and legal events for the King’s justices.

CROFT

A small area of land around a village house (toft), for vegetables and a few livestock, used by the occupier (cottar), who was either a freeman or a bondsman (villein or serf).

CUIRASS

A breastplate or short tunic, originally of thick leather but later of metal, to protect the chest in combat.

DEODAND

Literally ‘a gift from God’, it was the forfeiture of anything that had caused a death, such a sword, a cart or even a mill-wheel. It was confiscated by the coroner for the King, or sometimes given as compensation to the victim’s family.

EYRE

A meeting of the King’s judges to decide legal cases; the General Eyre was introduced by Henry II to bring justice to the people by the judges moving from county to county to try cases. Later these became the Assizes (‘sittings’) and in modern times, the Crown Courts.

HAUBERK (OR BYRNIE)

A chain-mail tunic to armour the wearer from neck to knees; often had a hood extension (aventail) to reach under the helmet and sleeves to the elbow.

HONOUR

A holding of land from the King, Baron or Church. It might be a large estate or a single manor. A manor might be one village or several, under the same lord. Some large villages were split between manors. The administration of a manor was run by a steward and one or more bailiffs, under whom were the manor reeves (q.v.)

JURY

Unlike modern juries, the medieval jury were witnesses, local people who were obliged to gather to tell what they knew of a crime or dispute. The coroner’s jury was supposed to be all men over twelve years of age from the four nearest villages, though this was often a practical impossibility.

JUSTICIAR

The chief minister in Norman times, a great noble or churchman appointed by the king. In the reign of Richard I, there were several justiciars, the most effective being Hubert Walter, who was Richard’s military second-in-command in Palestine before returning home during the king’s imprisonment in Austria to help raise his ransom. Richard made him Archbishop of Canterbury and Chief Justiciar, and he virtually ruled the country after Richard’s permanent departure from England only two months after returning from captivity.

MANOR REEVE

A foreman appointed in each village by the lord of a manor to oversee the daily routine. He would allot the farming work to the freemen and serfs and, though illiterate, by means of memory and tally-sticks (marks cut on sticks to check numbers), he would keep a record of crop rotation, harvest yields and tithes, etc.

MURDRUM FINE

A fine or amercement (q.v.) levied on a village by the coroner when a person is found slain and the locals cannot ‘present Englishry’, thus raising the presumption that they had murdered a Norman.

ORDEAL

An ancient ritual, abolished by the Vatican in 1215, where suspects were subjected to painful or potentially fatal ordeals, such as walking across nine red-hot ploughshares, carrying a red-hot iron bar nine paces, picking a stone from a barrel of boiling water or molten lead, licking white-hot iron, etc. If they suffered no injury, they were judged innocent; another ordeal was to be thrown bound into deep water – if they floated they were guilty, if they sank, innocent!

OUTLAW

Literally, anyone outside the law, usually an escaped criminal or a fugitive. They often lurked in the forests and any person was entitled to kill them on sight to collect a bounty, as they were ‘as the wolf’s head’.

OUTREMER

The four Christian kingdoms in the Levant at the time of the Crusades, including the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

PHTHISIS

Tuberculosis.

PORTREEVE

One of the senior officials in a town, elected by the other burgesses. There were usually two portreeves, later superseded by a mayor. The first mayor in Exeter took office in 1208.

PREBENDARY

A canon of a cathedral. A priest who is granted a prebend, the income of a church in the diocese to support him. Many canons employed a vicar to look after their parish, while they stayed in the cathedral.

PRECENTOR

A senior cleric in a cathedral, responsible for organising the religious services, singing, etc.

PRESENTMENT OF ENGLISHRY

Following the 1066 Conquest, many Normans were killed by aggrieved locals, so the law decreed that anyone found dead was Norman and the locals punished by a murdrum fine (q.v.) unless they could prove the deceased was English (or Welsh). The presentment of Englishry by relatives of murdered people continued for several hundred years, as even though it became meaningless it was good source of revenue.

SANCTUARY

An ancient religious offer of mercy, where a fugitive from pursuit or a gaol-breaker could claim forty days immunity from the law if he reached a church or even the precincts of a church. This was not available for crimes of sacrilege.

SENESCHAL

The senior steward or head of the staff of a great household.

SHERIFF

A ‘shire-reeve’, the King’s representative in a county, responsible for law and order and the collection of royal taxes.

TITHE

A tenth part of the harvest, demanded by the church.

UNDERCROFT

The ground floor of a fortified building. The entrance to the rest of the building was on the floor above, which had no communication with the undercroft. Removable wooden steps prevented attackers from being able to storm the main door.