Ever heard of the “neck-verse”? The kneeling man in this painting probably would have wished he had. It’s a detail from Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s _The Triumph of Death_ (1562-1563). In it, the man with the blindfold on is about to be unalived by the skeleton with the sword in a public execution.
Violence was rife in Early Modern Europe, and the death penalty was given out frequently. But in England, there were ways that people succeeded in wriggling out from this ultimate punishment, and claiming to be a member of the clergy was one of them.
The clergy were tried in different courts than the mainstream secular ones, and the punishments doled out to the professional religious were much less harsh. The laity of the time cottoned on to this situation and many claimed that they were clergy just to obtain a more lenient sentence. These pretenders could “demonstrate” their rights to the “benefit of clergy” by reading in Latin. In fact, there was a particular Biblical passage, Psalm 50 verse 3 of the Vulgate (modern translations have it as Psalm 51), which was commonly used:
“misere mei Deus secundum misericordiam tuam iuxta multitudinem miserationum tuarum dele iniquitates meas”.
Reciting this verse could get an offender out of a hanging, and thus became known as the “neck-verse.” But it only could be used once — those who invoked it were branded on their thumbs to demonstrate they had used up this right.
The famous playwright Ben Jonson evaded hanging using the neck-verse after killing the actor Gabriel Spencer in a duel in 1598.
“Have mercy on me, oh God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.” Is a translation of the Latin.
Source(s): Https://hull-awe.org.uk/index.php/Neck-verse. Cambridge UP, “Life of Ben Jonson,” Ian Donaldaon. Painting is in the Museo del Prado, Room 055A.
