A Clerk of Oxford, and His Adventures in the Barons' War

by Evelyn Everett-Green

The story was told. Amalric stepped forward and offered to the Chancellor a second long stiletto, the very fellow and counterpart of the one just tendered by Marlow.

"This was the weapon found buried in the heart of the dead man," he said; "I can testify that my friend and comrade Hugh le Barbier, whose room at St. George's I share, never possessed such an one. It is of Italian workmanship, and the two weapons are a pair from the same maker."

A low murmur had been for some time rising from the crowd; now the people broke forth into execrations and menaces. Somebody pulled the cowl from the head of the would-be monk, and when the untonsured head and foreign face was seen by all, the clamour of wrath and fury could not be kept down; indeed it needed all the authority of those surrounding the Constable and the Chancellor to restrain the angry clerks and citizens from setting upon the wretched criminals and tearing them limb from limb.

But the tumult was appeased after some little delay, and the Chancellor spoke in clear and ringing accents.

"Tito Balzani, you are here confronted with the evidence of your crime. Have you anything to say in your own defence?"

The wretched criminal, cowering with fear, confessed his guilt, only pleading in extenuation that Roger de Horn had been the leading spirit all through, and had devised the plot, whilst he had been only a tool in his hands.

The Chancellor heard these words with stern coldness, and, deigning no reply, contented himself with handing the culprit over to the Constable, as he had no jurisdiction over the persons of other than members of the University. Roger, however, claimed to be a clerk, and to be under the authority of the Chancellor; so whilst the hapless Tito was led away to the Constable's prison, to be dealt with hereafter by a different tribunal, Roger remained amongst the unruly clerks, who awaited the award of the Chancellor in some fear and trembling.

Every eye was fixed upon the face of the great man as he rose to speak. He had conferred for a while with the Constable, and now addressed himself in the first place not to the dark-browed Roger, whose face was a picture of lowering malignity and craven fear, but to the throng of minor defaulters who had been accused of indiscriminate rioting in the streets during a period of many weeks, and of acting as ringleaders in the disturbances which were growing almost intolerable.

The Chancellor spoke with moderation but with great firmness, pointing out the folly and danger of such conduct, the interruption to study, and the peril to the peace of the city. He then went on to say that he greatly reprehended the practice of carrying arms—a custom which, in a city surrounded by walls and inhabited by members of a peaceful fraternity, ought not to be needful, but which the lawless violence of the clerks had rendered necessary. He hoped that in days to come this custom would die out; but for the present he should not attempt legislation for the well-disposed and orderly members of the University. But he called upon all the turbulent clerks who had been convicted of disturbing the peace on many different occasions to deliver up their arms at once into his keeping, and to refrain from bearing them again until they had licence to do so. The names of these persons were to be taken; and if they were found with arms upon them after this injunction, they were to be brought before him by the Proctors, and would then be dealt with more severely.

The Constable then rose and said he should make a like rule for turbulent citizens; and the ringleaders of the recent riots were brought up one by one and bidden to lay their arms upon a table placed there for the purpose, after which their names were taken, and they were, as it were, bound over to keep the peace.