What It Was Like to Seek Asylum in Medieval England

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-it-was-like-to-seek-asylum-in-medieval-england

by Thevet • 11 years ago

106 65 11 years ago

atlasobscura.com

benihana• 11 years ago

Before the content even loaded there was a light box that blacked out the content behind it asking for my email.

qmalxp• 11 years ago

There's a big 'X' in the upper right corner of the box you can click to make it go away.

phaemon• 11 years ago

Sbepvat crbcyr gb gnxr rkgen fgrcf gb ernq jung lbh'ir jevggra vf fghcvq.

pflanze3• 11 years ago

Do like me and turn off JavaScript by default.

The more people we are, the greater the chances that the web remains usable without JavaScript.

EC1• 11 years ago

I can't remember the last time the teams I've worked on ever mentioned making the site usable for people without JS and people with disabilities. "It's not in the scope!" Ugh.

bane9• 11 years ago

That's like saying "turn off the ability to execute programs on your computer". Nobody's going to seriously start gearing web-dev towards a no-javascript world.

dredmorbius• 11 years ago

Stylebot or Stylish (Chrome/Firefox) and nuking such interstitials helps.

I've started adding same to my default stylesheet as block elements.

This covers a lot of sins:

    [class*="modal"], [class*="popup"], [class*="overlay"],
    [class*="interstitial"], [class*="social"], [class*="cookie"],
    [class*="flyout"], [class*="colorbox"], [class*="Modal"], 
    [class*="Popup"], [class*="Overlay"], [class*="Interstitial"],
    [class*="Social"], [class*="Cookie"], [class*="Flyout"],
    [class*="Colorbox"], [id*="modal"], [id*="popup"], [id*="overlay"],
    [id*="interstitial"], [id*="social"], [id*="cookie"],
    [id*="flyout"], [id*="colorbox"], [id*="Modal"], [id*="Popup"],
    [id*="Overlay"], [id*="Interstitial"], [id*="Social"],
    [id*="Cookie"], [id*="Flyout"], [id*="Colorbox"] { 
        display: none; 
    }

(Though it may also have false positives.)

joosters• 11 years ago

As well as being annoying, I just don't get the logic.

Why on earth is anyone going to sign up for your mailing list when at this point, they haven't yet had a chance to read anything on your site?

If you must insist on a sign up box, put it at the end of the article (and preferably after the article, not hiding the text).

jbuzbee2• 11 years ago

> [Church Asylum] surprisingly survived (in a much changed form) into the 17th century.

Longer than that. There was a case this year in Denver where an illegal alien was given sanctuary in a church to prevent his deportation. After nine months, a deal was worked out and he was allowed to leave without fear of deportation.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_26803443/man-facing-deport...

And of course the other big Asylum story is the recent case where a criminal was given "sanctuary" in San Francisco where he proceeded to randomly murder a tourist taking a stroll. Maybe there was reason that the practice was formally dropped in Europe centuries ago...

[edit for typo]

mtviewdave3• 11 years ago

"Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

jbuzbee2• 11 years ago

The point is that the article claims that practice petered out in the 17th century. I show otherwise. The article also states that one reason the practice was abolished was due to criminals leaving their sanctuary to commit more crimes.

'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' George Santayana

peterfirefly2• 11 years ago

It is also apparently a de facto right in Germany (but not a de jure right).

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirchenasyl

We (Denmark) also had a case in 1991/1992 where hundreds of (criminal) rejected asylum seekers occupied a church for a long time, in full cooperation with the priest and plenty of left-wing politicians and musicians. It ended with a special law that granted them asylum -- whereupon most of them continued to inflict crimes upon the natives and so did many of their children.

https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pal%C3%A6stinenserloven

The extreme left tried to repeat the "success" in 2009 and a new batch of (criminal) rejected asylum seekers and other (criminal) foreigners who had been banned from the country. This time they didn't succeed, despite ready displays of violence from violent blackshirts ( https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifascistisk_Aktion ) and widespread support from the media.

llamataboot• 11 years ago

hmmm...I think calling anti-fascists that are trying to protect migrants from fascist violence is a pretty large inversion of terms given the original black and brown shirts.

pdabbadabba3• 11 years ago

I suspect you're just trading on the multiple meanings of "sanctuary" to inject your political views into this conversation. The modern practice bears only superficial similarities with the medieval practice.

Yes, people use the word "sanctuary" to describe the practice explained in the article, and also to describe modern U.S. localities' policies of selectively enforcing federal immigration laws. (I say "selectively" because sanctuary cities will typically hand over known criminals for deportation.) But the modern practice, based in the differing jurisdictions and legal obligations of various levels of government in the U.S. federal system, does not have a lot to do with medieval sanctuary laws. Medieval sanctuary practices, as described in the article, largely took the place of (or served as) criminal punishment, at every level of government, due to an interesting commingling of church and secular law to which there is little analog in the U.S. Sanctuary cities also, of course, only decline to enforce immigration laws, not other criminal laws as was the case in medieval England.

And while I suppose it is slightly interesting to ponder the difference, I'm not sure this slight relevance justifies injecting this flame-war inducing topic (especially in such glib terms as "a criminal was given 'sanctuary' in San Francisco where he proceeded to randomly murder a tourist taking a stroll").

javert3• 11 years ago

To point out that there is a modern practice that is similar is relevant to the conversation and not particularly inflammatory.

The proper way to converse on HN is to address the content of the comment, not complain that it exists, like speech police. Unless the comment is clearly WAY over the line, like if it were full of racial slurs. This case is not at all like that.

These kinds of speech police comments---and there is more than just this one---are what is turning this thread into a flame war.

Only a very small part of the political specturm would interpret the comment in question as contra their political views and thus "inflammatory," and I'll leave it to implication which part that is. Hint: It's the part that is the usual culprit for wanting to restrict speech.

wtbob3• 11 years ago

The modern practice bears only superficial similarities with the medieval practice.

The Denver church instance bears a very strong resemblance to the mediæval practice, as did the time when the Vatican gave sanctuary to Manuel Noriega.

pbhjpbhj• 11 years ago

reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/24aibx/how_historical_is_the_idea_that_a_church_could/

reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3e3etn/what_were_the_rules_for_claiming_sanctuary_in_a/

... and probably many others from the same subreddit?

Durham's sanctuary knocker is pictured and mentioned briefly in http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20191/20191-h/20191-h.htm#ima... (which disagrees factually with the OP). Which seems to be based on the Rites of Durham - https://ia802205.us.archive.org/2/items/ritesofdurhambei00ca... (cf. pp 41-42).

gus_massa• 11 years ago

[Remember to add the http://www to trigger the URL link detector.

Edit: for the lazy

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/24aibx/how_hi...

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3e3etn/what_w... ]

lionhearted• 11 years ago

In his biography of Charlemagne, historian Richard Winston advanced the idea of sanctuary and similar privileges being granted to the clergy to give them a useful function to native Pagan populations (Frankish -- modern day France and Germany) that would otherwise be hostile to clergy.

Charlemagne also used monks and priests in something that looks like a proto-civil service role... the registry of births, deaths, sacraments (marriage, etc) could be used for taxation, sorting out property, etc.

It's an interesting book. Charlemagne comes across as very realpolitik-ish despite the outward shows of piety, and also an excellent administrator.

agumonkey2• 11 years ago

Interesting, I'm very curious about the politics of structures (kingdoms and such) before the revolution/democracy era. Pardon the cynicism, but many times I end up doubting today's democracy is pragmatic enough, instead becomes a thin cult absolving the need for good sense by trusting the 'public choice every N years' system. Like believing the invisible hand of the free market will balance things out gracefully.

pointym5• 11 years ago

The first image in that article is labeled Notre Dame, but that's the title for lots of cathedrals in France. That particular one is Notre Dame de Reims. The reproduced old image towards the bottom is jokingly called "Notre Dame back in the notre day", but that is clearly Westminster Abbey.

nsajko• 11 years ago

To add to your comment: Notre Dame simply means Our Lady. I think it's clear that that by itself is quite ambiguous.

chnx• 11 years ago

There's even a source under the image that links to, "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Westminster_Abbey_-_...

ars• 11 years ago

The author clearly knows more about the Christian practice than the Hebrew (Jewish) one.

while Hebraic tradition went bigger, declaring six whole cities as places where criminals could take refuge

This is not true. The only sanctuary offered in those cities was if someone accidentally or via negligence killed someone. The relatives were not able to extract blood vengeance in those cities.

That's it. It was not for criminals. It was a way of discouraging blood vengeance, while also punishing the perpetrator.

The perpetrator would also be required to be tried in court after claiming refuge.

These early asylums were established under the belief that the gods (or god) were inviolable, and thus their temples and holy sites shared this untouchable aspect.

Absolutely not true. If someone committed murder he could be dragged away from the holy of holies if necessary.

kijin• 11 years ago

You're right. There was no sanctuary for cold-blooded killers and traitors.

Example: In 1 Kings, Chapter 2, Joab flees to the tent of God and grabs the horn of the altar. He had participated in Adonijah's failed coup d'etat and killed two commanders of the Israeli army.

King Solomon doesn't even bother to drag him away from the altar before killing him.

tempodox• 11 years ago

The article mentions “capitol crimes”. Do they need smarter spell checkers or have I missed something?

What It Was Like to Seek Asylum in Medieval England

Related Stories