The second objection: who deserves refuge; debtors, the forty days and Westminster; the third objection begun

Second, it is objected, by appeal toobicitur per: it is objected, by appeal to this: that according to this teachingsentencia: CONTEXTUAL: teaching / sentence the liberty of the privilegeprivilegium / privilegiare / privilegiacio: privilege / to privilege / privileging would be excluded, since no one would know who were worthy or unworthy, who were to be punished or who released, or of what kind or how great the remission ought to be. In the enlarging of the privilege, therefore, lies the safer way.¹ To this the answer isdicitur multipliciter: is said in many ways by denying the assumptionassumptum: the assumption and the inferenceconsequencia: inference that follows; for the place can know with probability, from the effect, which fugitives are fruitfully penitent, and only such, though formerly criminals, ought by God’s law and the lawius: right / law of the churchecclesia: church to have refuge in it. For those who flee there with another’s money and refuse restitution, however much they abound, show themselves incapable of refuge; and so of all those guilty of misdeedfacinus: misdeed who do not dispose themselves to amendment as far as they are able.² And if it is objected that 243from such perceptiblesensibilis: perceptible signs no demonstration is made, since there can be illusion of the sense or deception from elsewhere, the answer is that the objection is useless, since such infallible knowledge is not required for giving almselemosina: alms. For then all correction, and all pronouncing of sentence according to human laws, and all almsgiving would perish, since a man would equally doubt whether the one to whom he gave alms were a devil incarnate or a membermembrum: member of the devil; and the defence of such a one would be against the will of God, tending to the disturbance of the church.³

Hence, since such an extension would be not an enlarging of the privilege but a perversion of the privilege, the safer part should be held, relying on the common law, in whose execution injury is excluded on every side. Further, if it is asked about the limitslimitare; limites: to assign (an office); limits of the remission of such refugees, it seems to me that it would be pious, as regards a debt of money, once it is shown that the fugitives are by mischance unable [to pay] without demerit of their own, as from shipwreck, fire or robbery, that they be released free by their creditors, and especially by the rich of the world and by clerics, either wholly or in part; and to needy creditors they should make satisfaction by their labour, little by little.⁴ Hence many wonder how the sense of the privilege was wrested to a debt of money, since before the twenty-fifth year of Edward III there was no fleeing to a church for such a debt; and those who privilegedprivilegium / privilegiare / privilegiacio: privilege / to privilege / privileging, for many years before that time, had not intended, as neither could they, that no debtor fleeing there should be bound to satisfy his creditor.⁵ For in C. 11 q. 3, on the authority of blessed Isidore, it is had thus: "He who consents to sinners and defends anyone offending will be cursed before God and men, and will be rebuked with the severest reproof." Hence also a certain most holy 244father says: "If anyone defends a sinner, let him be coerced more sharply than he who sinned." Hence also another father says: "If anyone consents to another’s error, let him know that he is to be judged culpable in like manner with him." Their own sin, therefore, is enough for superiorsprepositi: superiors, even if they do not heap up another’s.⁶ Moreover, it is another marvel how a wicked sense has been wrested from the said privilege: that the most criminal may lie there in their crime, without penal correction, for their whole term, since not even the words of the privilege granted that. For it would be wrested above all from this word: that they have there liberty of every kind. But in truth the opposite is plainly inferred from these words, since a liberty to rest in sins would not be liberty, because then the infernal spirits would be the most free. And if it is asked how much liberty they will have there, the answer is that a great liberty has been granted by the kings to the English church, beyond what other kingdoms have or the canon laws express: namely, that every fugitive to any church in England for any felony has a period of forty days there, like the Ninevites and the penitents in Lent, to whom so long a time of penance has been granted.⁷ For that place, however, the privilege exceeds this in two things: first in this, that whereas in other places the site is restricted to the basilica or a few paces outside the church, there they can rest secure through the whole precinct of Westminster; [second, that] whereas in other churches also the cause of flight is limitedlimitare; limites: to assign (an office); limits to felony, there it is extended to any misdeed or offence whatever with which the prosperity of the kingdom and the integrity of the regalityregalia: regality can stand. If, however, it should please the king and his council to grant the fugitives of that place a greater liberty, I would rejoice and would assiduously procure it; but (if I am not mistaken) no one can prove a more ample one from the due sense of the words of the privilege.⁸ 245And if it is argued that the privilege of immunity of the English church conflicts with the canon laws mentioned above, the answer is that it does not, because all those laws are local, binding only those who accept them, both in matter and in form. But England, because it earlier had a customconsuetudo: custom that gave the church liberty more mercifully: therefore, the martyring of its people being set aside, the coroner comes to the fugitive, asking the cause of his flight; and if he has fled for another offence than felony, the liberty of the church [does] not [extend] to him. But if for felony, provided only that it does not conflict with the provident state of the kingdom, he may rest freely there for forty days and at the end choose one of three [things]: either to leave the province by the king’s highway as one going into exile; or to come out publicly, standing to the law of the kingdom as a native; or, third, to remain within the basilica, without being further sustained from the victuals of the province.⁹ And (as it seems to me) that privilege would be more merciful and more reasonable than the privilege which marks out cases in which men who were to be saved in England have been dragged out elsewhere and killed. Therefore let us praise our princes, who do not lay claim by a foreign law, which the custom of England does not permit; for foreign privileges that may be allegedallegare / allegacio: allege / allegation do not bind England, but the fruit of the further privilege suffices us, nor is there any law that can be founded for both.¹⁰

Third, it is argued principally against what was said about the definitiondescripcio: definition of privilege: for it seems, first, that every law is a privilege, since every individual law is a private law, granted for the benefit of the church or of a person. It seems, second, that it does not lie within the power of temporal lordstemporales domini: temporal lords to establish the church in the privileges which Christ instituted, because those were gifts of grace which it is God’s alone to grant.¹¹

Third, it seems that every infirmity or sin is a privilege, because it tends to the benefit of holy mother church. To this the answer is by denying the assumption, because the most common law is not a privilege, unless, by equivocating in predication according to essence, everything that objectively terminates a private benefit should be called [a privilege], or [whatever] privileges the one bettered [by it], as God is called the joy and reward of the blessed.¹² But speaking formally of privilege, the definition given above is clear in canon law; for in C. 25 q. 1, Ideo permittente domino, the genus of privilege stated above is expressed in these words: "For privileges are so called as being private laws, because they produce a private law for individuals." Hinting at this definition Gregory says: "If you claim this neither by general custom nor by special privilege, it remains that you have usurped what you did."¹³ And the genus of privilege stated above is clear from canon law. I also added, for fuller explanation, the differencedifferencia: difference (logical differentia): that it is granted by a prince for the benefit of the church or of a person; and this difference can pertinently be taken from canon law, C. 19 q. 2, Due sunt, where, distinguishing between public and private law, it says that private law is that which is written in the heart by the prompting of the Holy Spirit, as the Apostle speaks of some: "Who have the law of God written in their hearts."¹⁴