The Durham Sanctuary Knocker

Yesterday I wrote a post about a religious boundary line from Ancient Rome — one that was powerful enough to halt even state-sponsored violence within its borders. And today, here is another: this time, from the Medieval cathedral of Durham, England.

This is the original “Sanctuary Knocker,” cast in bronze in 1155. As _The Rites of Durham_ (dating to 1593 but recording much earlier practices) states, grasping this knocker, located on a door in the Norman cathedral, conferred “the Right to Sanctuary.” And that meant that anyone could take refuge in the cathedral for 37 days — even if they had committed a violent crime, like murder in self-defense.

The seeker was given protection in a highly formalized way: they had to wear a black robe with a cross of St Cuthbert — Durham’s special undead and saintly patron — and was kept in a separate enclosure from anyone else, fed and clothed at the expense of the cathedral community. For 37 days the person seeking sanctuary could try to arrange legal affairs in their defense.

I find the ways that the religious aura was built up around this door knocker fascinating. The fact that it was bronze was significant for Medieval people — the lost-wax technique of casting allowed for nearly perfect replication and signified to learnéd Christians the process of the creation of Adam and Eve in the Bible. An inscription from a set of 13th-century German cathedral door knockers at Trier gets at the mystical qualities bronze was thought to possess: “that which the wax gives, the fire removes and the bronze returns to you”.

The Durham Sanctuary Knocker’s design has religious significance — it’s supposed to look like the Hellmouth from Christian mythology, and if you look closely, the lion is devouring a man’s legs, which snakes are also consuming from below. Originally, the knocker had glass eyes, which perhaps was deliberately designed to make the light flicker and look like the monster’s gaze was alive.

Eventually, the powers of the Sanctuary Knocker lost their pull — the Protestant Reformation and parliament put an end to the Right to Sanctuary in 1624.