The position of affairs is thus clear. The murderer was regarded as a member of a corporation, which had to answer for him, and, failing to do so, was liable to a forfeit. The manslayer, therefore, if he did not make his surrender, added to his original offence against an individual or family those of disloyalty and injury to a community; and, accordingly, he became the mark of private or public vengeance, the laws which he had violated and contemned ceasing to afford him protection.
In these circumstances, what was he to do? To judge from the testimony of the ballads and poems before mentioned, his best and usual course was to wend his way to the greenwood and join himself to a band of jovial companions who found themselves in a similar plight to his own. That this course was sometimes adopted is a fair inference from the very existence of these compositions, and is rendered probable by the vast extent of the forests and the sparseness of the population, which these desperadoes might conciliate with a share of the ransom extorted from rich wayfarers. But a homicide who flew to this remedy was not very safe. As an enemy of the established order, he had to perform prodigies of valour, and, once captured, his fate was sealed. Outlaws of this description can hardly have been common, even in the days of Hereward the Wake. The majority of those who came under this denomination were not heroes, and acted quite differently. They threw themselves on the protection of the Church.
"Holy Mother Church, as a kind mother, gathers all into her bosom; and thus each and all, good and bad, who take refuge with her, are protected unhurt under her mantle."
Such was the language of the Synod of Exeter in 1287; and the statutes go on to quote from the provisions of the Legatine Council held under Cardinal Othobon at St. Paul's, London, twenty-one years before, which were the basis of the constitutions adopted in the various dioceses: "If anyone shall drag out from the church or cemetery or cloister the person that has taken refuge there, or prevent his being supplied with necessary food; or shall in a hostile or violent manner carry off property deposited in the aforesaid places, or cause or approve of such carrying off by their followers, or lend their assistance, openly or secretly, to such things being done by those presuming on their aid, counsel, or consent--we bind them _ipso facto_ by the bond of excommunication, from which they shall not be absolved until they have made full compensation to the Church for the wrong suffered."