The Mark of a Murderer (58 page)

Matilde was going to Norwich, where she had a distant cousin. The Guild of Frail Sisters would survive without her, and she
longed for the respectability that she knew she would never have in Cambridge. Folk had too readily believed she was the kind
of woman to entertain men in her house all night, and she wanted something better. In
Norwich she could begin another existence, where she would be staid and decent, and honoured by all. She would be courted
by upright men, one of whom she would eventually choose as a husband. After all, she could not wait for ever for the man she
really loved, and it was clear he was never going to ask her to be his wife.

She did not look back as her cart rattled along the road that led to the future. She would not have seen anything if she had,
with hot tears scalding her eyes. She did not hear the birdsong of an early summer morning, and she did not notice the clusters
of white and pink blossom that adorned the green hedgerows. She wondered whether she would ever take pleasure in such things
again.

When the service at St Michael’s had finished, Clippesby nodded encouragingly to Bartholomew, who grinned back and slipped
out of the procession to head for the Jewry. He heard the birds singing, and saw the delicate clouds in the sky, and his heart
felt ready to burst with happiness. He was going to see Matilde, and it was the first day of his new life.

On 10 February 1355, all hell broke loose in Oxford. It was St Scholastica’s Day, and several students had gone to an inn
called the Swindlestock Tavern at the south-west corner of Carfax. There are conflicting accounts of what happened, but basically
the scholars complained to the taverner, John Croidon, about the poor quality of the wine they had been served. A row ensued,
and scholars named Walter Spryngheuse and Roger de Chesterfelde smashed the jug over Croidon’s head.

Then accounts begin to diverge. The citizens claimed that their bailiffs had tried to reason with the scholars, but that the
students had rushed out and armed themselves with bows and arrows. The bailiffs had then asked the University Chancellor to
call for calm, but Chancellor Brouweon refused, and a throng of two hundred academics began looting, killing and setting the
city alight. Meanwhile, the scholars maintained that the taverner had summoned a mob to attack them, and that Brouweon was
almost murdered when he appealed for peace. It was only when the University men feared they were all about to be slaughtered
that the bells were rung to summon them to arms.

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.