1276-01-19, Winchester

The like to Salomon de Roffa and Thomas Tryvet touching a complaint of the prior of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in England that, whereas he and his predecessors, by privileges granted to them by 175 the apostolic see, have been used to commit to Christian burial, as often as need might be, the bodies of those who have given alms to the fraternity, whatever may have been the manner of their death, and certain thieves were lately sentenced for felony before the justices appointed to deliver the gaol of Ivelcestre and were afterwards hanged, and accordingly the headboroughs of those places were attached to wait and ought to have waited at the gallows until they had breathed their last, and at length before William Cukeman, Nicholas le Messager, and Stephen de Pecham, the prior's men, deputed to bury the said thieves, had come to the gallows for their bodies, they found the said thieves, none of the headboroughs or other persons being present, strewn on the ground, whether by the breaking of the ropes, by the malice of the prior's ill-Avishers, or in some other way : and they, believing them to be dead, carried the bodies to the church of St. Olave, Ivelcestre, for burial in the churchyard, but when Adam le Messer, one of the said thieves, was placed in his grave, resuming his vital force, he moved his foot, and, after gaining more strength, sought the threshold of the church, and stayed there until he abjured the realm, for which cause the sheriff of Somerset detains the said prior's men in the prison of Ivelcestre, as though they were guilty of the felony, escape or malice aforesaid. The sheriff is commanded to cause the said men to be delivered by good bail in the interval.