As late as the fifteenth century, criminals on the run could find refuge in the precincts of England’s great churches.
From at least the time of King Ine of Wessex in 693, criminal first offenders fleeing to the protection of the Church could expect at least safe conduct out of the kingdom, and even a pardon. The custom persisted at Durham long into the fifteenth century, but was increasingly abused and records ended abruptly in 1503, during Henry VII’s reign.
Following the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, King Henry V instructed the Church of York to recognise the contribution of one of her eighth-century bishops.
Anyone who has watched William Shakespeare’s play Henry V knows that England’s unlikely victory at Agincourt on October 25th, 1415, came on the feast day of St Crispin and St Crispianus. What is less well known is that it was also a feast of St John of Beverley in Yorkshire, and that owing to a remarkable miracle the King himself instructed the Church of York to keep the day ever after with especial magnificence.
One week into a Lenten retreat with the Bishop of Hexham, a boy’s miserable life is turned right around.
Bishop John of Hexham (?-721) is better known today as St John of Beverley, as he had been Abbot of the monastery in Beverley, North Yorkshire, before being elevated to the See of Hexham. His contemporary Bede was a great admirer, and told this story of him.