One Snowy Night / Long ago at Oxford - Emily Sarah Holt

According to the monkish chroniclers, not one survived. But one elaborate argument may be found, by an eminent antiquary (Archaologia, nine 292-309), urging that survivors of this company were probably the ancestors of a mysterious group entitled “Waldenses,” who appear in the Public Records in after years as tenants, and not improbably vassals, of the Archbishop of Canterbury. They paid to that See 4 shillings per annum for waste land; 3 shillings 4 pence for “half a plough of land of gable;” 5 shillings 4 pence at each of the four principal feasts, with 32 and a half pence in lieu of autumnal labours—i.e., mowing, reaping, etcetera. When the Archbishop was resident on the manor of Darenth, they had to convey corn for his household, in consideration of which they received forage from his barns, and a corrody or regular allowance of food and clothing from a monastery. I am not competent to judge how far the contention of the writer is valid; but the possibility of such a thing seemed to warrant the supposition in a tale that one or two of the company might have escaped the fate which undoubtedly overtook the majority of the mission.

The story may be found in a condensed form in Milner’s Church History, Three, 459.

Every one of the singular names, as well as prices, and various other details, has been taken from the Pipe Rolls of Henry Second, from the first to the twenty-seventh year. All the characters are fictitious excepting the Royal Family, the Earl and Countess of Oxford, the members of the Council, Gerhardt himself, and—simply as regards their existence—Osbert the porter, his wife Anania, and Aliz de Norton, who are entered on the Pipe Roll as inhabitants of Oxford at this date.

The language spoken at that time, whether French or English, would be wholly unintelligible to read, if enough of it had come down to us to make it possible to be written. It seemed best, therefore, to use ordinary modern English, flavoured with the Oxfordshire dialect, and now and then varied by antique expressions.

The End.