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Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 20, 12 September 1905, Page 4

* Benefit of clergy (privilegium cle.icale), arose m the regard paid by Christian printes to the Church, and consisted of : Ist, an exemption of places consecrated to religious duties from criminal arrests, which was the foundation of " sanctuaries ;" 2nd, exdmpof the persons of clergymen from criminal process before the secular judge, m particular cases, which was the original meaning of the privilegium clericale. The " benefit of clergy " was afterwards extended to everyone who could read ; and it wis enacted that there should be a prerogative allowed to the clergy, that if any man who cou'd read were to be condemned to death, the bishop of the diocese might, if ho would, olaim him as a clerk, and dispose of him m some places of the clergy, as he might deem meet. The ordinary gave the prisoner at the bar a Latin book, m a black Gothic character, from which to read a veiS9 or two ; and if the ordinary paid 11 Ic^it ut cl ricus " (" He reads like aalerk "), the offender wis only burnt m thj hand ; o'herwise, he suffered death. This was m the time of Eiiward f. (1271). In 1483 the privilege wis r stricted by Henry VII ; and abolished, with respect to murderers and other great crim'nals, by Henry VIII, m 1512. The reading wis discontinued m 1706 (5 Anne, c. 6) ; and B-nefit of Clergy was wholly repealed m 1827, by 7 and 8 George IV, q 28.