The Sanctuary Knocker or hagoday is an ornamental knocker on the door of a cathedral. Under medieval English common law, these instruments supposedly afforded the right of asylum to anybody who touched them. Examples of Sanctuary Knockers can be found on Durham Cathedral, the St. Nicholas church in Gloucester and the Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon. By 1623, the laws permitting church sanctuary had been overturned by parliament.
Famous quotes containing the word sanctuary:
“If the veil were withdrawn from the sanctuary of domestic life, and man could look upon the fear, the loathing, the detestations which his tyranny and reckless gratification of self has caused to take the place of confiding love, which placed a woman in his power, he would shudder at the hideous wrong of the present regulations of the domestic abode.”
—Lydia Jane Pierson, U.S. women’s rights activist and corresponding editor of The Woman’s Advocate. The Woman’s Advocate, represented in The Lily, pp. 117-8 (1855-1858 or 1860)