On this day (September 22) in 1598, playwright Ben Jonson was indicted for manslaughter after a duel.
Jonson, the eventual author of Every Man in His Humor and Volpone, was very nearly hanged for his offense, but it was his ability to read and write that saved him. You see, he used his education (a rarity) to claim "benefit of clergy," which allowed him to be sentenced by the more lenient ecclesiastical courts.
It is the most famous case in history of how the assumption of a collar saved one's neck.
