chief weapon employed in battle.
[FN [y] Bened. Abb. p. 305 Annal. Waverl. p. 161.]

The clergy and the laity were, during that age, in a strange situation
with regard to each other, and such as may seem totally incompatible
with a civilized, and, indeed, with any species of government. If a
clergyman were guilty of murder, he could be punished by degradation
only: if he were murdered, the murderer was exposed to nothing but
excommunication and ecclesiastical censures; and the crime was atoned
for by penances and submission [z]. Hence the assassins of Thomas a
Becket himself, though guilty of the most atrocious wickedness, and
the most repugnant to the sentiments of that age, lived securely in
their own houses, without being called to account by Henry himself,
who was so much concerned, both in honour and interest, to punish that
crime, and who professed, or affected on all occasions, the most
extreme abhorrence of it. It was not till they found their presence
shunned by every one as excommunicated persons that they were induced
to take a journey to Rome, to throw themselves at the feet of the
pontiff, and to submit to the penances imposed upon them: after which
they continued to possess, without molestation, their honours and
fortunes, and seemed even to have recovered the countenance and good
opinion of the public. But as the king, by the constitutions of
Clarendon, which he endeavoured still to maintain [a], had subjected
the clergy to a trial by the civil magistrate, it seemed but just to
give them the protection of that power to which they owed obedience;
it was enacted, that the murderers of clergymen should be tried before
the justiciary, in the presence of the bishop or his official; and
besides the usual punishment for murder, should be subjected to a
forfeiture of their estates, and a confiscation of their goods and
chattels [b].
[FN [z] Petri Blessen. epist. 73. apud Bibl. Patr. tom. xxiv. p. 992.
[a] Chron. Gervase, p. 1433. [b] Diceto, p. 592. Chron. Gervase,
1433.]

The king passed an equitable law, that the goods of a vassal should
not be seized for the debt of his lord, unless the vassal be surety
for the debt; and that the rents of vassals should be paid to the
creditors of the lord, not to the lord himself. It is remarkable that
this law was enacted by the king in a council which he held at
Verneuil, and which consisted of some prelates and barons of England,
as well as some of Normandy, Poi