In 1458, six sanctuary men (“gyrthmanii”) at Ripon Minster in Yorkshire were censured for not participating in the minster’s Rogation procession, in which parishioners ritually paraded around a parish’s boundaries to mark them out. The “Girthmen” T. Plumer, R. Morton, E. Skathlok, J. Skathlok, H. Jonson, and W. Topshawe – probably all debtors – explainedContinue reading ““Girthmen,” religious processions, and sanctuary at Ripon”
Tag Archives: Ripon
Just in time
Today a quite ordinary sanctuary seeker, whose case is interesting because he’s one of the last to use the old system before it changed mid-1540: he snuck under the wire. The story of John Porter, a labourer of Fewston, Yorkshire, had begun much earlier, in 1528. In that year Porter had been at Lancaster (someContinue reading “Just in time”
Sanctuary Seekers in England, 1394-1557 