The statute de Clero, 25 E. 3. st. 3.
c. 4. settled the law on this head. 2. As to the persons, it
extended to all clerks, always, and toties quoties. 2 H. P. C. 374.
To nuns also. Fitz. Abr. Corone. 461. 22. E. 3. The clerical habit
and tonsure were considered as evidence of the person being clerical.
26. Assiz. 19. 20. E. 2. Fitz. Corone. 233. By the 9 E. 4. 28. b.
34. H. 6. 49 a. b. a simple reading became the evidence. This
extended impunity to a great number of laymen, and toties quoties.
The stat. 4 H. 7. c. 13. directed that real clerks should, upon a
second arraignment, produce their orders, and all others to be burnt
in the hand with M. or T. on the first allowance of clergy, and not
to be admitted to it a second time. A heretic, Jew, or Turk (as being
incapable of orders) could not have clergy. II. Co. Rep. 29 b. But a
Greek, or other alien, reading in a book of his own country, might.
Bro. Clergie. 20. So a blind man, if he could speak Latin. Ib. 21.
qu. II. Rep. 29. b. The orders entitling the party, were bishops,
priests, deacons and subdeacons, the inferior being reckoned Clerici
in minoribus. 2. H. P. C. 373. Quaere, however, if this distinction
is not founded on the stat. 23 H. 8. c. I. 25 H. 8. c. 32. By merely
dropping all the statutes, it should seem that none but clerks would
be entitled to this privilege, and that they would, toties quoties.
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