英语词汇benefit of clergy的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

benefit of clergy. Benefit of clergy was until 1827 a procedure in British law whereby a criminal arrested for a felony was ex- empt from trial in the secular courts if he could recite a passage from the Bible—the passage becoming known as neck verse. After reciting the verse, whether he was accused of murder, rape, or burglary (all capital offenses), he would be turned over to an ecclesiastical court, which could not invoke the death penalty for such crimes, and his neck would be saved from the hangman or axman. Originally, this privilege was granted only to the clergy, but as it was based on the biblical injunction, “Touch not my annointed and do my prophet no harm” (1 Chron. 26:22), it was extended to anyone who could read or write, that is, anyone who could become an ordained clergy- man. This early-day “diplomatic immunity” of course discrimi- nated against the uneducated poor. The neck verse that had to be recited was from the first verse of Psalms 51: “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy loving kindness: According unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my trans- gressions. . . .” This verse is commonly called the Miserere be- cause its opening words in Latin are Miserere mei Deus.

词汇	benefit of clergy
词源	benefit of clergy. Benefit of clergy was until 1827 a procedure in British law whereby a criminal arrested for a felony was ex- empt from trial in the secular courts if he could recite a passage from the Bible—the passage becoming known as neck verse. After reciting the verse, whether he was accused of murder, rape, or burglary (all capital offenses), he would be turned over to an ecclesiastical court, which could not invoke the death penalty for such crimes, and his neck would be saved from the hangman or axman. Originally, this privilege was granted only to the clergy, but as it was based on the biblical injunction, “Touch not my annointed and do my prophet no harm” (1 Chron. 26:22), it was extended to anyone who could read or write, that is, anyone who could become an ordained clergy- man. This early-day “diplomatic immunity” of course discrimi- nated against the uneducated poor. The neck verse that had to be recited was from the first verse of Psalms 51: “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy loving kindness: According unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my trans- gressions. . . .” This verse is commonly called the Miserere be- cause its opening words in Latin are Miserere mei Deus.
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