Because the young couple had "kept company", they were considered "married without benefit of clergy".

Their relationship has been referred to as a "marriage without benefit of clergy."

Should that person attempt to return they would be subject to the death penalty without the benefit of clergy.

I met a girl and she's pregnant-without benefit of clergy.

Section 31 eliminated the benefit of clergy for capital crimes.

I claim benefit of clergy and the right to ecclesiastical trial.

But if nothing else, you're inventing benefit of clergy, which apparently they don't have here.

I claim benefit of clergy and demand to be tried in an ecclesiastical court.

In this context, couples living together, even without benefit of clergy, are not far from Christian norms.

I still claim benefit of clergy, he said weakly.

In 1533 benefit of clergy was withdrawn from those who refused to enter a plea.

More significant was the privilegium fori, or benefit of clergy.

He succeeded in inducing his first wife not to appear against him, and seems to have been allowed benefit of clergy.

I for one still don't believe the Almighty will smite us dead just because we go to bed without benefit of clergy!

This opened the door to literate lay defendants also claiming the benefit of clergy.

They returned to court nine days later and pled "benefit of clergy" to avoid the death sentence.

Only the extreme one: hanging without benefit of clergy."

It abolished benefit of clergy for petty treason and murder.

Mother was much more blunt when she told me that Cariel's first son would be his heir - with or without benefit of clergy.

Living together without benefit of clergy can be destructive, instructive, useful, a mess, or a blessing.

Anyone who ignored such an order was to be found guilty of a felony without benefit of clergy and put to death.

So he had Elizabeth's body placed in the family tomb, without the benefit of clergy, alongside her long-dead husband.

"So they are burying poor 'Shape' without benefit of clergy," says the note-book.

It stated that anyone who refused to plead in a criminal trial would not be eligible for benefit of clergy.

Women acquired the benefit of clergy in 1624, although it was not until 1691 that they were given equal privileges with men in this matter.