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The author clearly knows more about the Christian practice than the Hebrew (Jewish) one.

> while Hebraic tradition went bigger, declaring six whole cities as places where criminals could take refuge

This is not true. The only sanctuary offered in those cities was if someone accidentally or via negligence killed someone. The relatives were not able to extract blood vengeance in those cities.

That's it. It was not for criminals. It was a way of discouraging blood vengeance, while also punishing the perpetrator.

The perpetrator would also be required to be tried in court after claiming refuge.

> These early asylums were established under the belief that the gods (or god) were inviolable, and thus their temples and holy sites shared this untouchable aspect.

Absolutely not true. If someone committed murder he could be dragged away from the holy of holies if necessary.

You're right. There was no sanctuary for cold-blooded killers and traitors.

Example: In 1 Kings, Chapter 2, Joab flees to the tent of God and grabs the horn of the altar. He had participated in Adonijah's failed coup d'etat and killed two commanders of the Israeli army.

King Solomon doesn't even bother to drag him away from the altar before killing him.

The first image in that article is labeled Notre Dame, but that's the title for lots of cathedrals in France. That particular one is Notre Dame de Reims. The reproduced old image towards the bottom is jokingly called "Notre Dame back in the notre day", but that is clearly Westminster Abbey.
To add to your comment: Notre Dame simply means Our Lady. I think it's clear that that by itself is quite ambiguous.
There's even a source under the image that links to, "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Westminster_Abbey_-_...
In his biography of Charlemagne, historian Richard Winston advanced the idea of sanctuary and similar privileges being granted to the clergy to give them a useful function to native Pagan populations (Frankish -- modern day France and Germany) that would otherwise be hostile to clergy.

Charlemagne also used monks and priests in something that looks like a proto-civil service role... the registry of births, deaths, sacraments (marriage, etc) could be used for taxation, sorting out property, etc.

It's an interesting book. Charlemagne comes across as very realpolitik-ish despite the outward shows of piety, and also an excellent administrator.

Interesting, I'm very curious about the politics of structures (kingdoms and such) before the revolution/democracy era. Pardon the cynicism, but many times I end up doubting today's democracy is pragmatic enough, instead becomes a thin cult absolving the need for good sense by trusting the 'public choice every N years' system. Like believing the invisible hand of the free market will balance things out gracefully.
reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/24aibx/how_historical_is_the_idea_that_a_church_could/

reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3e3etn/what_were_the_rules_for_claiming_sanctuary_in_a/

... and probably many others from the same subreddit?

Durham's sanctuary knocker is pictured and mentioned briefly in http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20191/20191-h/20191-h.htm#ima... (which disagrees factually with the OP). Which seems to be based on the Rites of Durham - https://ia802205.us.archive.org/2/items/ritesofdurhambei00ca... (cf. pp 41-42).

[Remember to add the http://www to trigger the URL link detector.

Edit: for the lazy

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/24aibx/how_hi...

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3e3etn/what_w... ]

>> [Church Asylum] surprisingly survived (in a much changed form) into the 17th century.

Longer than that. There was a case this year in Denver where an illegal alien was given sanctuary in a church to prevent his deportation. After nine months, a deal was worked out and he was allowed to leave without fear of deportation.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_26803443/man-facing-deport...

And of course the other big Asylum story is the recent case where a criminal was given "sanctuary" in San Francisco where he proceeded to randomly murder a tourist taking a stroll. Maybe there was reason that the practice was formally dropped in Europe centuries ago...

[edit for typo]

I suspect you're just trading on the multiple meanings of "sanctuary" to inject your political views into this conversation. The modern practice bears only superficial similarities with the medieval practice.

Yes, people use the word "sanctuary" to describe the practice explained in the article, and also to describe modern U.S. localities' policies of selectively enforcing federal immigration laws. (I say "selectively" because sanctuary cities will typically hand over known criminals for deportation.) But the modern practice, based in the differing jurisdictions and legal obligations of various levels of government in the U.S. federal system, does not have a lot to do with medieval sanctuary laws. Medieval sanctuary practices, as described in the article, largely took the place of (or served as) criminal punishment, at every level of government, due to an interesting commingling of church and secular law to which there is little analog in the U.S. Sanctuary cities also, of course, only decline to enforce immigration laws, not other criminal laws as was the case in medieval England.

And while I suppose it is slightly interesting to ponder the difference, I'm not sure this slight relevance justifies injecting this flame-war inducing topic (especially in such glib terms as "a criminal was given 'sanctuary' in San Francisco where he proceeded to randomly murder a tourist taking a stroll").

> The modern practice bears only superficial similarities with the medieval practice.

The Denver church instance bears a very strong resemblance to the mediæval practice, as did the time when the Vatican gave sanctuary to Manuel Noriega.

To point out that there is a modern practice that is similar is relevant to the conversation and not particularly inflammatory.

The proper way to converse on HN is to address the content of the comment, not complain that it exists, like speech police. Unless the comment is clearly WAY over the line, like if it were full of racial slurs. This case is not at all like that.

These kinds of speech police comments---and there is more than just this one---are what is turning this thread into a flame war.

Only a very small part of the political specturm would interpret the comment in question as contra their political views and thus "inflammatory," and I'll leave it to implication which part that is. Hint: It's the part that is the usual culprit for wanting to restrict speech.

The speech-police impulse must truly be powerful, because apparently even you have been unable to resist it! Or is speech metapolicing somehow more valuable? A wise person once told me that "The proper way to converse on HN is to address the content of the comment, not complain that it exists, like speech police." But I digress.

To your point: I think you'll find that I did primarily address the content of the comment, concluding that it drew a false comparison. My suggestion that the comment was probably more inflammatory than valuable was the conclusion of my discussion of the content. I can't quite see that you've given me the same courtesy, though.

Opposing "speech policing" is standing up for open speech. It is not a variant of "speech policing." To claim that it is is just nasty verbal trickery.

It's exactly like one person saying "Criminals use guns to rob people" and another person saying "But police use guns, too, so they're just as bad as criminals." The proper distinction is that criminals use guns to rob, and police use guns to protect.

There is a technical name for this trick, "equivocation." It's equating things that are different in essence by referencing superficial similarities.

And you've added a helping of sarcasm on top of that, which is never germane to making a rational argument.

> I can't quite see that you've given me the same courtesy, though.

If I'm standing up for someone who is being "attacked" (for lack of a better term), I can't exactly be courteous to the attacker in the sense you are asking, which is "not disagreeing." Which is not the normal sense of the word "courteous." In the normal sense of "courteous," I have been courteous. The post I made doesn't even reference you personally. This is another equivocation on your part---equating actual courtesy and "not getting called out."

Now, I'm going to end this conversation before someone who actually "works at" HN has to come along and ask us to stop. I hope somebody has learned something about equivocation from this comment, which is my intention. Otherwise it would be pointless and I would not post it.

What you read as sarcasm I had intended to be lighthearted, so I'm sorry about that.

But there was also a point buried in there: I think it is clearly not contrary to the ideals of free/open speech to also hold the view that not every comment is productive or welcome in the context of every conversation given the prevailing community norms. This is why it is typically considered rude to bring up religion, politics, or sex at a dinner party, to take just one example.

What is going on here is merely that you think that comments suggesting that other comments are a bit out of bounds are themselves out of bounds. Clearly, therefore, we both believe that a conversation ought to have some subject matter limits, so I don't think its fair to suggest that I am somehow anti speech, while you are just here to defend others' rights. We just disagree about what the proper limits of an HN discussion are, nothing more.

After all, my original comment was itself speech, speech that, apparently, you would oppose.

Are you really making the argument that people who are liberal with regard to migration are the inverse when it comes to speech?
No. I said "a very small part of the political specturm," and "liberal with regard to migration" is not a very small part of the political spectrum, it's half of it or more. I'm liberal with regard to migration myself.
> It's the part that is the usual culprit for wanting to restrict speech.

You mean assholes, insecure in their convictions?

I don't know that liberals are any more guilty of wanting to restrict speech than anyone else. I do know that, whenever liberals raise issues of free speech, an awful lot of politically-conservative trolls (on this very board! posting in this very thread!) like to come out of the woodwork and bleat on about how free speech was not violated, after all, since Congress passed no law about it, which is all the 1st amendment to the US constitution mentions. As though any violation of free speech requires a literal act of Congress.

So no, despite your hint I'm not totally clear on which part of the political spectrum you're referring to.

"Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The point is that the article claims that practice petered out in the 17th century. I show otherwise. The article also states that one reason the practice was abolished was due to criminals leaving their sanctuary to commit more crimes.

'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' George Santayana

The city of San Francisco did not give Lopez-Sanchez (the alleged murderer) sanctuary in the same way as described in the article. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was free to detain Lopez-Sanchez at any time while he was in San Francisco, and then deport him.

What San Francisco did was refuse to comply with the ICE request to detain Lopez-Sanchez, because he didn't have a violent record and because ICE did not get an arrest warrant. In situations like this, ICE apparently does not want to go through the process of getting a warrant, preferring instead to treat local law enforcement as an extension of federal immigration enforcement.

But in the U.S.'s federal system, it is not the responsibility of local law enforcement to simply do whatever the feds them to do. The responsibility of SFPD is to the people of San Francisco, not to ICE. Obviously in this case the result was horrific, but up to this point the policy was in place because the City believed it better served the needs of the people of San Francisco, and the people apparently agreed.

There's obviously a good case to be made for local police departments to comply with ICE requests. On the other hand, I find it disturbing that ICE could simply order my local police department to detain me (a US citizen) without getting a warrant, just on their say-so. As someone with a strong respect for the U.S. federal system, I found your comparison to medieval sanctuary to be cheap and inflammatory. Hence my earlier comment.

> The city of San Francisco did not give Lopez-Sanchez (the alleged murderer) sanctuary in the same way as described in the article...I found your comparison to medieval sanctuary to be cheap and inflammatory.

Every time I touch on an immigration related topic on HN, I swear it is the last time, but because it is so personal to me I just simply can't resist.

OP falls into the classical logical error equating undocumented/unlawful/illegal immigrants as criminals. It is just simply impossible for certain individuals/groups to wrap their minds around the simple fact that ones immigration status does not and can not constitute a crime in and of itself. Almost everyone is aware there is civil and criminal laws, I also think everyone knows immigration law is civil in nature, but you will never stop those with a certain bias from wrongfully projecting immigration status as a criminal issue, hence the existence of terms such as "illegal immigrant" for the mere fact that is sounds closer to a criminal label...its sad really.

I think many people use the term "illegal immigrant" not because it is pejorative but because it seems like a natural way to distinguish from "legal immigrant". And (if true) I wasn't aware that all immigration law is civil. I'd presumed that there was a parallel with "criminal trespass", but perhaps that phrase is itself a misnomer. Could you point to some sources that explain the difference between "unlawful", "illegal", and "criminal" as you understand them?
> What San Francisco did was refuse to comply with the ICE request to detain Lopez-Sanchez, because he didn't have a violent record and because ICE did not get an arrest warrant. In situations like this, ICE apparently does not want to go through the process of getting a warrant, preferring instead to treat local law enforcement as an extension of federal immigration enforcement.

ICE requested San Francisco to notify them when Lopez-Sanches was going to be released from jail in San Francisco so that ICE could pick him up then [1]. All San Francisco was being asked to do was make a phone call. Do you have a source for the claim that ICE asked San Francisco to detain him for them?

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/08/us/san-francisco-murder-ca...

Your first example is church sanctuary, but is a pretty isolated case, the second is nothing to do with church sanctuary, and both cases seem picked, not to make a point about the practice of church sanctuary, but rather to stir fud about migration.
It is also apparently a de facto right in Germany (but not a de jure right).

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirchenasyl

We (Denmark) also had a case in 1991/1992 where hundreds of (criminal) rejected asylum seekers occupied a church for a long time, in full cooperation with the priest and plenty of left-wing politicians and musicians. It ended with a special law that granted them asylum -- whereupon most of them continued to inflict crimes upon the natives and so did many of their children.

https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pal%C3%A6stinenserloven

The extreme left tried to repeat the "success" in 2009 and a new batch of (criminal) rejected asylum seekers and other (criminal) foreigners who had been banned from the country. This time they didn't succeed, despite ready displays of violence from violent blackshirts ( https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifascistisk_Aktion ) and widespread support from the media.

hmmm...I think calling anti-fascists that are trying to protect migrants from fascist violence is a pretty large inversion of terms given the original black and brown shirts.
They dress in black and are violent... and they do not try to protect "migrants" from "fascist violence".
The article mentions “capitol crimes”. Do they need smarter spell checkers or have I missed something?
Before the content even loaded there was a light box that blacked out the content behind it asking for my email.
As well as being annoying, I just don't get the logic.

Why on earth is anyone going to sign up for your mailing list when at this point, they haven't yet had a chance to read anything on your site?

If you must insist on a sign up box, put it at the end of the article (and preferably after the article, not hiding the text).

Do like me and turn off JavaScript by default.

The more people we are, the greater the chances that the web remains usable without JavaScript.

I can't remember the last time the teams I've worked on ever mentioned making the site usable for people without JS and people with disabilities. "It's not in the scope!" Ugh.
I don't even ask for usable, I'd be glad to even see something. How many time noscript optimized a whole site into a blank html page. It's flabbergasting.
I work for a public university, so when we make new sites or webapps we are obliged to make them usable for people with disabilities and we have at least one person who focus only on testing this... but without javascript? That is not even considered. The web IS javascript driven
> The web IS javascript driven

I think the idea that you need Javascript to drive a page designed to show an article consisting of text and images is probably worth questioning. Maybe you do, I don't know. But I think you should at least think about instead of falling back on the idea that the web is Javascript-driven.

You (probably) won't be benefiting the people without Javascript because hopefully your page works for them anyway. (Astoundingly, some simple article-type pages do not.) You will be benefiting yourself and almost all users because, without JS, your site will load faster and (often as not on really JS-heavy websites) scroll faster.

If you're creating a webapp, sure, you'd be crazy not to use Javascript.

But it's insane that Internet comment threads or text-based articles can drive yy i7 to 100% usage.

Unlike when serving people with disabilities, which you can't understand and test well if you're not disabled yourself (or specially trained), as a developer you should automatically be aware when you'd exclude people without JS. Nobody special needed for testing, just a resistance to implement navigation with JS only, or worse, JS-only content.

Until now most content-heavy sites (like most university sites) are not problematic for the most part (1). Which I suppose is why there's no complaining till now. By having a healthy community of users with JS disabled, hopefully there will be enough complaints when it gets worse.

(1) the static parts, which is most URLs used during the day. If I encounter a site that requires JS to log in, I'll open a separate browser with JS. If I encounter a page that only shows the content with JS, I just close it unread, unless in the very rare case that it's important to me (most important content is still not relying on JS).

Web design should always include a graceful degradation spec.
> The web IS javascript driven

    S = 'N';
    s = s + 'o';
    s = s + ',';
    s = s + ' ';
    s = s + 'n';
    s = s + 'o';
    s = s + ' ';
    s = s + 'i';
    s = s + 't';
    s = s + ''';
    s = s + 's';
    s = s + ' ';
    s = s + 'r';
    s = s + 'e';
    s = s + 'a';
    s = s + 'l';
    s = s + 'l';
    s = s + 'y';
    s = s + ' ';
    s = s + 'n';
    s = s + 'o';
    s = s + 't';
    s = s + '.';
    $("comment_field").innerText = s
Stylebot or Stylish (Chrome/Firefox) and nuking such interstitials helps.

I've started adding same to my default stylesheet as block elements.

This covers a lot of sins:

    [class*="modal"], [class*="popup"], [class*="overlay"],
    [class*="interstitial"], [class*="social"], [class*="cookie"],
    [class*="flyout"], [class*="colorbox"], [class*="Modal"], 
    [class*="Popup"], [class*="Overlay"], [class*="Interstitial"],
    [class*="Social"], [class*="Cookie"], [class*="Flyout"],
    [class*="Colorbox"], [id*="modal"], [id*="popup"], [id*="overlay"],
    [id*="interstitial"], [id*="social"], [id*="cookie"],
    [id*="flyout"], [id*="colorbox"], [id*="Modal"], [id*="Popup"],
    [id*="Overlay"], [id*="Interstitial"], [id*="Social"],
    [id*="Cookie"], [id*="Flyout"], [id*="Colorbox"] { 
        display: none; 
    }
(Though it may also have false positives.)
That's like saying "turn off the ability to execute programs on your computer". Nobody's going to seriously start gearing web-dev towards a no-javascript world.
We're talking about static content here. I'm asking to read a document, not execute a program.
You've apparently missed the last 10-15 years of web development. The web is no more about static content these days as cars are about horses.

If you want static documents, I recommend pdfs?

There's a big 'X' in the upper right corner of the box you can click to make it go away.
Sbepvat crbcyr gb gnxr rkgen fgrcf gb ernq jung lbh'ir jevggra vf fghcvq.