The Student Rows of Oxford. The next fifty years are filled with the record of similar conflicts; the University twice complained to the King "of the scarceness of vendibles in Oxford Market, and the unreasonable rates that they were sold at to the wronging of Scholars, and the dispersion of the poorer sort of them; a Scotch student slaved a townsman, sup posing him to belong to the southern party;" the Mayor erected a pillory in a new location without the authority of the Chancellor, for which the Chancellor promptly ex-communicated him; and these are only items in long lists of grievances. In 1327 Town and Gown joined forces and helped the people of Abendon to sack a monastery. We are told that "twelve of the ringleaders were hanged by the neck by the King's Justices." Probably all those executed were Laics. In 1333 the University petitioned Parlia ment for exemption from taxes, "being like to be troubled and charged by paying tenths and fifteenths; but the Town also peti tioned, saying that "forasmuch as the Clerks had many houses, they did possess half or more of the Town." The outcome of these petitions is not clear. The following year, 1334, a number of students and masters, "under color of some Discord" in the University, "began, renewed, or continued an Academy at Stamford, in Lincolnshire. The King or dered them to return, but it required the most strenuous exercise of royal authority to disperse those masters who persisted in lecturing, and as late as 1827 an oath not to lecture at Stamford was exacted from all candidates for the mastership of Oxford.1 In 1349 Oxford was swept by a pesti lence, which depopulated the University and parts of the Town. All those students who were able fled to the country, and many of the halls were re-occupied by the townsfolk. 'Rashdall, II-, 2, p. 397.
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Gradually, however, the students returned. In 1354 there took place the last and greatest of the Town and Gown rows. The brawl began in a tavern. "On Tuesday, loth Feb., being the Feast of S Scholastica the Virgin, came Walter de Springheuse and other Clerks to the Tavern called Swyndlestock, and there calling for wine, John de Croydon, the Vinter, brought them some, but they disliking it, as it should seem, and he avouching it to be good, several snappish words passed between them. At length the Vinter giving them stubborn and saucy lan guage, they threw the wine and vessel at his head. The Vinter therefore receding with great passion, and aggravating the abuse to those of his family and neighbor hood, several came in, encouraged him not to put up the abuse, and withal told him they would faithfully stand by him." Events then quickly followed in their usual order. The Vinter's friends, "out of propensed mal ice seeking all occasions of conflict with the Scholars, caused the Town Bell at S Mar tin's to be rung, that the Commonalty might be summoned together into a body, which being begun they in an instant were in arms, some with bows and arrows, others with divers sorts of weapons. The Schol ars, who it is said were without weapons of any kind, were shot at and wounded. Then the Chancellor appeared, trying "to appease the tumult," but the townsfolk shot at him and would have killed him had he not run for his life back to gown-land, where he ordered St. Mary's bell to be rung and soon was at the head of an army of scholars. The battle continued until dark, and—here is the extraordinary part of it—not a man on either side was killed. The next day the battle began about noon, no longer bloodless, when a body of townsmen broke into the Augustinian Con vent (now Wadham College). Students also were wounded and killed on Beaumont
