Whatever the truth of the tale, it was clearly a terrifying incident. The homes of clerks and townsfolk alike were plundered and burned, and one account says sixty scholars lost their lives. The battle continued until virtually all members of the University had either been killed or driven from the city, and only then was peace restored. Retribution came quickly. The town was immediately put under an interdict, which meant no religious ceremonies of any description could be carried out – no burials, baptisms or masses. This was considered dire punishment, given that religion was far more a part of daily life than it is today, and the threat of Hell and eternal damnation were genuine concerns.
The interdict remained in place for more than a year, and it was removed only on condition that the city authorities agreed to attend a special mass each year – financed by themselves – for the souls of the scholars who had perished. They were also to disburse an annual fine. Amazingly, this continued until 1865, when the University finally conceded that the town had paid its dues and agreed to forget about the matter. This was not the only punishment inflicted on the townsmen. They also lost vital privileges in a new charter. These included meeting standards imposed by the University for ale, bread and wine – which meant a loss of revenue for merchants – and breaches of the peace committed by laymen were to be resolved by the Chancellor. This gave the University a good deal of power, which was bitterly resented. The charter remained in force until 1543.
One of the earliest Colleges to be founded in Oxford was Merton, which began life in the 1260s. It was established by Walter de Merton, an influential clerk and later Chancellor to the King. When Merton drafted the statutes to govern his new institution, the universities at both Oxford and Cambridge were in a very precarious state, and migrations of scholars after periods of unrest were fairly frequent. One group had gone to Northampton, and the fledgling studium generale was still extant there (it was suppressed in 1265) when Merton built his Oxford College. Being a cautious man, he decided to provide his scholars with a bolt-hole, in case the town rose up and forced them to leave. He decided Cambridge was as good a place as any, and bought several tracts of land in the nearby villages of Gamlingay, Chesterton, Over and Grantchester, along with a manor house in Cambridge itself.
The manor belonged to the Dunning family, and Richard Dunning sold it to Merton in 1271, probably because he was desperate for money. The College leased the property, and its tenant in 1314 was Eudo of Helpryngham, who did not pay what he owed, and eventually absconded with the colossal sum of £40 outstanding. The house was a sturdy building, L-shaped and with a hall and solar on the upper floor. It remained in Merton College’s hands until the 1960s, when it was sold to St John’s College, Cambridge. Visitors today will see remnants of the Norman building in the narrow windows and stalwart buttresses, but it has been altered and rebuilt over the centuries, and is much changed. Still, even surrounded by the twentieth-century dormitories, it is impressive. It acquired the name ‘School of Pythagoras’ long after Walter of Merton’s day, probably in the Elizabethan era.
Many of the people in this story were real. The Warden of Merton in 1355 was William Duraunt or Durant, who was a Fellow in the 1330s and who held various benefices before his death in 1372. His name appears in writs with one John de Boltone, and he is buried in Merton’s chapel. William de Polmorva held fellowships in Exeter, University and Queen’s Colleges between 1333 and 1341, and he was Chancellor of Oxford from 1350 to 1352. He was a favourite of Queen Philippa, and was her confessor for a year or two before his death in 1362. Chesterfelde and Spryngheuse, the instigators of the riots, did not die in Cambridge: Chesterfelde eventually become rector of Ashley, Cambridgeshire in the 1380s, while Spryngheuse was involved in a dispute over his Somerset appointment, which resulted in him appealing to the Roman Curia. He was still alive in 1362.
Meanwhile, records tell us about several wealthy Oxford clans whose members were mayors and burgesses in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Eu family (various Philips, Johns and Peters) were mentioned between 1290 and 1329, and were still around in 1408. Their name suggests a French origin, and it is likely they had been wealthy Normans. By contrast, the Wormynghalles were thirteenth-century upstarts, a sort of medieval nouveau riche. They were mayors in 1298, 1310 and 1340, and were still prominent in the city in 1368, although they seem to have died out twenty years later. John Gonerby flourished in Oxford in 1346; he was the son of a burgess. William Abergavenny, whose name suggests Oxford enjoyed a cosmopolitan government, was a bailiff in 1352.
At Gonville Hall, early fellows included William Rougham and William of Lee. King’s Hall’s Warden was Thomas Powys (until 1361, when he died during the next wave of plague), while John de Norton, Richard de Hamecotes and Geoffrey de Dodenho were admitted in 1350, and Robert de Wolf in 1356. There was a John de ‘Wormenhale’ at King’s Hall in 1350. He was given a benefice in 1362, although it is not known whether he was kin to the Oxford dynasty. Scholars tended to remain local, and there was no reason for a Wormynghalle to travel to Cambridge to study. The University stationer in 1361 was John Weasenham, who was married to Alyce.
Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, never did found a College in Cambridge. He waited until 1361, when he purchased a handful of houses in Oxford, and took the bold step of making his new institution a place of learning for both monks and secular clergy. His foundation struggled on for a while, although the experiment never really worked, and quarrels broke out between the two factions almost immediately. Four years after Islip’s death in 1366, the Pope made the College a secular appendage of Christ Church. It became part of Cardinal’s College in the reign of Henry VIII, which, later still, became Christ Church again.
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