36 A MEDIEVAL CITY

their sanctuary chairs or frith-stools. In the north
door of Durham Cathedral there is an ancient,
massive knocker, the rapper, of the form of a ring,
being held in the mouth of a grotesque head. The
frith-stool, to which the seeker went at once, stood
near the high altar at which he made his declarations
on oath. His case was carefully investigated and
often sanctuary-seekers wrere allowed to exile them-
selves from the kingdom. The coroner was the
public officer of inquiry. The Church took every
care that the crime of breaking the sanctuary so
granted was regarded not at all lightly. The right
of sanctuary, after being changed to apply to certain
towns only—among them York—continued till it
was ended by law in the reign of James I.

Condemned heretics were burnt1 at Tyburn, the
site of local executions, some "way from Micklegate
Bar along the main south road.

B. PARLIAMENTARY AND NATIONAL

According to the general principle, the King was
the ultimate and absolute owner and ruler of the
land and people. The rights, liberties, customs, and
powers possessed by individuals and corporate
bodies were specified parts of the royal power which
the King had granted on some consideration or other.
Thus, knights, archbishops, and nobles received lands
and rights in return for the provision, when required,
of military service by themselves and a certain force
of their retainers, except that no personal military
service was required from the archbishop from the

1 De heretico comburendo, 1401. In 1539 Valentine Freez,
a freeman, and his wife, were burnt at the stake on Knavesmire
for heresy. Frederick Freez, Valentine's father, was a book-
printer and a freeman (1497).