Oxford and Its Story

by Cecil Headlam

“for the peace, tranquillity and advantage of the University of scholars of Oxford, there be chosen four aldermen and eight discreet and legal burghers associated with them, to assist the Mayors and Bailiffs to keep the peace and hold the Assizes and to seek out malefactors and disturbers of the peace and night-vagabonds, and harbourers of robbers. Two officers shall also be elected in each parish to make diligent search for persons of suspicious character, and every one who takes a stranger in under his roof for more than three nights must be held responsible for him. No retail dealer may buy victuals on their way to market or buy anything with the view of selling again before nine in the morning, under penalty of forfeit and fine. If a layman assault a clerk, let him be immediately arrested, and if the assault prove serious, let him be imprisoned in the Castle and detained there untill he give satisfaction to the clerk in accordance with the judgment of the Chancellor and the University. If a clerk shall make a grave or outrageous assault upon a layman, let him be imprisoned in the aforesaid Castle untill the Chancellor demand his surrender; if the offence be a light one, let him be confined in the town prison untill he be set free by the Chancellor.

“Brewers and bakers are not to be punished for the first offence (of adulteration or other tradesman’s tricks); but shall forfeit their stock on the second occasion, and for the third offence be put in the pillory.” (One of these “hieroglyphic State machines” stood opposite the Cross Inn at Carfax; another, with stocks and gallows, at the corner of Longwall and Holywell Streets. In the former one Tubb was the last man to stand (1810), for perjury, though not the last to deserve it.) “Every baker,” the charter continues, “must have his own stamp and stamp his own bread so that it may be known whose bread it is; every one who brews for sale must show his sign, or forfeit his beer. Wine must be sold to laymen and clerks on the same terms. The assay of bread and ale is to be made half yearly, and at the assay the Chancellor or his deputy appointed for that purpose must be present; otherwise the assay shall be invalid.”

A few years later a Royal Writ of Edward I. (1275) conferred on the Chancellor the cognizance of all personal actions whatever wherein either party was a scholar, be he prosecutor or defendant. And in 1290, by judgment of King and Parliament, after a conflict between the town and University, when a bailiff had resisted the authority of the Chancellor in the students’ playground, Beaumont Fields, which embraced the University Park and S. Giles’, the Chancellor obtained jurisdiction in case of all crimes committed in Oxford, where one of the parties was a scholar, except pleas of homicide and mayhem. His jurisdiction over the King’s bailiffs was affirmed, but leave was granted them to apply to the King’s court if aggrieved by the Chancellor’s proceedings.

From this time forward the authority of the Chancellor was gradually increased and extended. It was, indeed, not long before the office shook itself free from its historical subordination to the Bishop of Lincoln. After a considerable struggle over the point, the bishop was worsted by a Papal Bull (1368), which entirely abrogated his claim to confirm the Chancellor elect. Since that time the University has enjoyed the right of electing and admitting its highest officer without reference to any superior authority whatever (Maxwell Lyte).

The precinct of the University was defined in the reign of Henry IV. as extending to the Hospital of S. Bartholomew on the east, to Botley on the west, to Godstow on the north, and to Bagley Wood on the south.

These were the geographical limits of the University, and within them the following classes of people were held (1459) to be “of the privilege of the University”:—The Chancellor, all doctors, masters and other graduates, and all students, scholars and clerks of every order and degree. These constituted a formidable number in themselves when arrayed against the town, for there were probably at least 3000 of them at the most flourishing periods. The Archbishop of Armagh indeed stated confidently at Avignon (1357) that there had once been 30,000, but that must have been a rhetorical exaggeration. There can never have been more than 4000. But in addition to this army of scholars, all their “daily continual servants,” all “barbers, manciples, spencers, cokes, lavenders,” and all the numerous persons who were engaged in trades ancillary to study, such as the preparation, engrossing, illumination and binding of parchment, were “of the privilege” and directly controlled by the University. In what was afterwards known as Schools Street all these trades were represented as early as 1190. Over these classes, and within the limits defined, the jurisdiction of the Chancellor was by the end of the fifteenth century established supreme.

Citizens and scholars alike had now to be careful how they lived. The stocks, the pillory and the cucking stool awaited offenders among the townsmen, fines or banishment the students who transgressed. Local governments in the Middle Ages were excessively paternal. They inquired closely into the ways of their people and dealt firmly with their peccadilloes. Did a man brew or sell bad beer he was burnt alive at Nürnberg; at Oxford he was condemned to the pillory; if a manciple was too fond of cards he was also punished by the Chancellor’s court. A regular tariff was framed of penalties for those breaches of the peace and street brawls, in which not freshmen only but heads of houses and vicars of parishes were so frequently involved.

Endeavours were made to promote a proper standard of life by holding “General Inquisitions” at regular intervals. The town was divided into sections, and a Doctor of Theology and two Masters of Arts were told off to inquire into the morals of the inhabitants of each division. Juries of citizens were summoned, and gave evidence on oath to these delegate judges who sat in the parish churches. The characters of their fellow-townsmen were critically discussed. Reports were made to the Chancellor, who corrected the offenders. Excommunication, penance or the cucking stool were meted out to “no common” scolds, notorious evil-livers and those who kept late hours.

It had formerly been enacted (1333) that since the absence of the Chancellor was the cause of many perils, his office should become vacant if he were to absent himself from the University for a month during full term. But in the course of the fifteenth century the Chancellor changed from a biennial and resident official to a permanent and non-resident one. He was chosen now for his power as a friend at court, and by the court, as it grew more despotic and ecclesiastically minded, he was used as an agent for coercing the University.

To-day the Chancellorship is a merely honorary office, usually bestowed on successful politicians. The Chancellor appoints a Vice-Chancellor, but usage compels him to appoint heads of houses in order of seniority. This right of appointment dates from the time when the Duke of Wellington, as Chancellor, dispensed with the formality of asking convocation for its assent to the appointment of his nominee.