Exemption from capital punishment, earned by correctly reading a psalm from the Bible.
A privilege enjoyed by members of the clergy, including tonsured clerks, placing them beyond the jurisdiction of secular courts. (MEDIEV-L. Medieval Terms) The legal privilege of those who could prove they were clergy to be tried and sentenced for felonies in the church courts and punished by the church. (Heath, Peter. Church and Realm, 1272-1461, 359)
Originally, this meant that clergymen could be tried by church courts which exacted only spiritual punishments. It was gradually extended to literate males. Laymen could claim it only once, and were branded on the thumb to prevent its being claimed twice. In 1705, it was extended to all first offenders, except for certain serious offences which were excluded by law. Benefit of the Clergy was therefore a method of softening the harsh criminal code of the eighteenth century.
In its original sense, the term "benefit of clergy" denoted the exemption accorded to clergymen from the jurisdiction of secular courts in the Middle Ages. The privilege of exemption from capital punishment was gradually extended in specific cases to all persons connected with the church and eventually to everyone who could read. By the 18th century, the term was used to indicate a one-time privilege, accorded to literate defendants, of exemption from hanging for certain felonies. It was granted in cases where a person convicted of an offence for which benefit of clergy could be claimed passed a literacy test by reading a passage from the Bible, usually the 51st Psalm. The person would usually be branded in the thumb and then discharged. During the 18th century, the literacy test was abolished in England; benefit of clergy was removed for many serious felonies (such as murder, robbery, and burglary), and became a means of pardoning some first-time offenders.
In English law, the benefit of clergy was originally a provision by which clergymen could claim that they were outside the jurisdiction of the secular courts and be tried instead under canon law. Eventually, the course of history transformed it into a mechanism by which first-time offenders could receive a more lenient sentence for some lesser crimes.