Right of asylum

The right of asylum (sometimes called right of political asylum, from the ancient Greek word ἄσυλον) is an ancient juridical concept, under which a person persecuted by their own country may be protected by another sovereign authority, such as another country or church official, who in medieval times could offer sanctuary. This right was already recognized by the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Hebrews, from whom it was adopted into Western tradition. René Descartes fled to the Netherlands, Voltaire to England, and Hobbes to France, because each state offered protection to persecuted foreigners.

The Egyptians, Greeks, and Hebrews recognized a religious "right of asylum," protecting criminals (or those accused of crime) from legal action to some extent. This principle was later adopted by the established Christian church, and various rules were developed that detailed how to qualify for protection and what degree of protection one would receive.

The Council of Orleans decided in 511, in the presence of Clovis I, that asylum could be granted to anyone who took refuge in a church or on church property, or at the home of a bishop. This protection was extended to murderers, thieves and adulterers alike.

In England, King Æthelberht of Kent proclaimed the first Anglo-Saxon laws on sanctuary in about 600 CE. However Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniae (c. 1136) says that the legendary pre-Saxon king Dunvallo Molmutius (4th/5th century BCE) enacted sanctuary laws among the Molmutine Laws as recorded by Gildas (c. 500–570). The laws of king Ethelred used the term . By the Norman era that followed 1066, two kinds of sanctuary had evolved: all churches had the lower-level powers and could grant sanctuary within the church proper, but the broader powers of churches licensed by royal charter extended sanctuary to a zone around the church. At least twenty-two churches had charters for this broader sanctuary, including

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