1906, p. 85), “the real meaning of all law is that, unless acts conform to the course prescribed by it, the state will not only ignore and render no aid to them, but will also, either of its own accord or if called upon, intervene to cancel their effects. This intervention of the state is what is called the ‘ sanction ’ of law.” So Justinian (Inst. ii. 1, 10), “ Legum eas partes quibus poenas constituimus adversus eos qui contra leges fecerint, sanction es vocamus.” In general use, the word signifies approval or confirmation.
SANCTIS, FRANCESCO DE (1817–1883), Italian publicist,
was born at Morra Irpino, and educated at the institute of the
Marchese Basilio Puoti. Becoming a teacher in a private
school of his own, he made a name as profound student of
literature; and after the troubles of the ’48, when he held office
under the revolutionary government and was imprisoned for
three years at Naples, his reputation as a lecturer on Dante
at Turin brought him the appointment of professor at Zurich
in 1856. He returned to Naples as minister of public instruction
in 1860, and filled the same post under the Italian monarchy
in 1861, 1878 and 1879, having in 1861 become a deputy in the
Italian chamber. In 1871 he became professor at Naples University.
As a literary critic, De Sanctis took a very high place,
notably with his Storia della letteratura italiana (2nd ed., 1873)
and with his critical studies, published in several volumes,
some of them since his death at Naples in 1883.
SANCTI SPIRITUS, an old Cuban city in Santa Clara province,
situated on a sandy plain in an angle of the Yayabo river, which
winds through the city. Pop. (1907) 17,440. It is connected
by railway with Zaza del Medio, on the main railway line of the
island, and with its port, Tunas de Zaza, 30 m. (by rail) to the
S. The hill called Pan de Azucar (Sugar-loaf) is S.W. of the
city. One church is said to be as old as the city, and others
date from 1699, 1716, 1717, &c. The surrounding country is
devoted principally to grazing. Sancti Spiritus was one of the
seven cities founded by Diego Valasquez. Its settlement was
ordered in 1514 and accomplished in 1516, and it is the fifth
town of the island in age. The present city is about two leagues
from the original site (Pueblo Viejo). In 1518, as a result of
the war of the Comunidades of Castille, a mimic war broke out
in Sancti Spiritus among its two score villagers. The place
was sacked by French and English corsairs in 1719. Illicit
trade with Jamaica was the basis of local prosperity in the
18th century.
SANCTUARY (from the late Lat. sanctuarium, a sacred place),
a sacred or consecrated place, particularly one affording refuge,
protection or right of asylum; also applied to the privilege
itself, the right of safe refuge. In Egyptian, Greek or Roman
temples it was applied to the cella in which stood the statue
of the god, and the Latin word for altar, ara, was used for protection
as well. In Roman Catholic usage sanctuary is sometimes
applied to the whole church, as a consecrated building, but is
generally limited to the choir. The idea that such places afforded
refuge to criminals or refugees is founded upon the primitive
and universal belief in the contagion of holiness. Hence it was
sacrilege to remove the man who had gained the holy precincts;
he was henceforth invested with a part of the sacredness of the
place, and was inviolable so long as he remained there. Some
temples had peculiar privileges in this regard. That of Diana
at Ephesus extended its inviolability for a perimeter of two
stadia, until its right of sanctuary was refused by the Romans.
Not all Greek and Roman temples, however, had the right in
an equal degree. But where it existed, the action of the Roman
civil law was suspended, and in imperial times the statues and
pictures of the emperors were a protection against pursuit.
Tacitus says that the ancient Germans held woods, even lakes
and fountains, sacred; and the Anglo-Saxons seem to have
regarded several woods as holy and to have made sanctuaries
of them, one of these being at Leek in Staffordshire.
The use of Christian churches as sanctuaries was not based upon the Hebrew cities of refuge, as is sometimes stated. It is part of the general religious fact of the inviolability attaching to things sacred. The Roman law did not recognize the use of Christian sanctuaries until toward the end of the 4th century, but the growing recognition of the office of bishop as intercessor helped much to develop it. By 392 it had been abused to such an extent that Theodosius the Great was obliged to limit its application, refusing it to the publici debitores. Further evidence of its progress is given by the provision in 397 forbidding the reception of refugee Jews pretending conversion in order to escape the payment of debts or just punishment. In 398, according to contemporary historians, the right of sanctuary was completely abolished, though the law as we have it is not so sweeping. But next year the right was finally and definitely recognized, and in 419 the privilege was extended in the western empire to fifty paces from the church door. In 431, by an edict of Theodosius and Valentinian it was extended to include the church court-yard and whatever stood therein, in order to provide some other place than the church for the fugitives to eat and sleep. They were to leave all arms outside, and if they refused to give them up they could be seized in the church. Capital punishment was to be meted out to all who violated the right of sanctuary. Justinian’s code repeats the regulation of sanctuary by Leo I. in 466, but Justinian himself in a Novel of the year 535 limited the privilege to those not guilty of the grosser crimes. In the new Germanic kingdoms, while violent molestation of the right of sanctuary was forbidden, the fugitive was given up after an oath had been taken not to put him to death (Lex. Rom. Burgund. tit. 2, § 5; Lex. Visigoth vi. tit. 5, c. 16). This legislation was copied by the church at the council of Orleans in 511; the penalty of penance was added, and the whole decree backed by the threat of excommunication. Thus it passed into Gratian’s Decretum. It also formed the basis of legislation by the Frankish king Clotaire (511–588), who, however, assigned no penalty for its violation. Historians like Gregory of Tours have many tales to tell showing how frequently it was violated. The Carolingians denied the right of sanctuary to criminals already condemned to death.
The earliest extant mention of the right of sanctuary in England is contained in the code of laws issued by the Anglo-Saxon king Æthelberht in A.D. 600. By these he who infringed the church’s privilege was to pay twice the fine attaching to an ordinary breach of the peace. At Beverley and Hexham 1 m. in every direction was sacred territory. The boundaries of the church frith were marked in most cases by stone crosses erected on the highroads leading into the town. Four crosses, each 1 m. from the church, marked the mile limits in every direction of Hexham Sanctuary. Crosses, too, inscribed with the word “Sanctuarium,” were common on the highways, serving probably as sign-posts to guide fugitives to neighbouring sanctuaries. One is still to be seen at Armathwaite, Cumberland; and another at St Buryan’s, Cornwall, at the corner of a road leading down to some ruins known locally as “the Sanctuary.” That such wayside crosses were themselves sanctuaries is in most cases improbable, but- there still exist in Scotland the remains of a true sanctuary cross. This is known as MacDuff’s Cross, near Lindores, Fifeshire. The legend is that, after the defeat of the usurper, Macbeth, in 1057, and the succession of Malcolm Canmore as Malcolm III. to the Scottish throne, MacDuff, as a reward for his assistance, was granted special sanctuary privileges for his kinsmen. Clansmen within the ninth degree of relationship to the chief of the clan, guilty of unpremeditated homicide, could, on reaching the cross, claim remission of the capital sentence. Probably the privilege has been exaggerated, the fugitive kinsmen were exempt from outside jurisdiction and liable only to the court of the earl of Fife.
The canon law allowed the protection of sanctuary to those guilty of crimes of violence for a limited time only, in order that some compensation (wergild) should be made, or to check blood-vengeance. In several English churches there was a stone seat beside the altar which was known as the frith-stool (peace-stool), upon which the seeker of sanctuary sat. Examples of such sanctuary-seats still exist at Hexham and Beverley, and of the sanctuary knockers which hung on the church-doors one is still in position at Durham Cathedral. The procedure, upon seeking
