Mortal singing

From Oxford Was The Murder Capital of Late Medieval England, And It Was All Because of Students by Michelle Starr.  

I have posted in the past about the raucousness and violence of medieval scholarship towns as well as the the enduring sameness of students (letters home pleading for more money.)

This is an interesting project which captures the specifics of crimes from records from the 1200 and 1300s and also provides some capacity to put the impressions on a measured footing.  

A deep dive into historical documents reveals that during the late medieval period in the 14th century CE, Oxford had a per capita murder rate four to five times higher than other high-population hubs like York and London.

And the reason? Bloody students.

Like, quite literally. Newly translated documents list 75 percent of the perpetrators of murders with known background as "clericus", a term most commonly used to describe students or members of the then-recently founded University of Oxford. And 72 percent of the victims were also classed as clericus.

This information has been compiled into a newly relaunched, interactive website by Cambridge University's Violence Research Centre. It's called the Medieval Murder Map, where you can explore the map to learn the details of violent historical crimes.

"A medieval university city such as Oxford had a deadly mix of conditions," says criminologist Manuel Eisner, lead murder map investigator and Director of Cambridge's Institute of Criminology.

"Oxford students were all male and typically aged between fourteen and twenty-one, the peak for violence and risk-taking. These were young men freed from tight controls of family, parish or guild, and thrust into an environment full of weapons, with ample access to alehouses and sex workers

How about compared to today?

It wasn't guaranteed that the perpetrator would be brought to justice. But the crime rate in Oxford is certainly striking. Back then, the city had a population of around 7,000, with around 1,500 of those people students. Eisner and his colleague, historical criminologist Stephanie Brown of the University of Cambridge, worked out that the murder rate was around 60 to 75 people per 100,000 per year.

The murder rate in the US per 100,000 is about 5 per 100,000 compared to Oxford's rate in the 13th century of 60-75 per 100,000 per year.  Our murder rate today ranges from nearly zero in places like Vermont and New Hampshire to nearly 24/100,000 in Mississippi.  St. Louis, at 65/100,000 has the highest murder rate of any major city in the US.  Well in 1300 Oxford league.  

Click through to the article for the interactive map.  Love the particulars.  For example.

Harps, viols, insults and a stabbing

On 21 August 1306, around midday, Gilbert de Foxlee, clerk, died in his lodgings in the parish of St. Peter’s in the East, Oxford. The following day he was examined by Thomas Lisewys, the king’s coroner of the town of Oxford, and found to have a wound in his left shin, below the knee, 4 inches in diameter and one and a half inches deep. An inquest was thereupon held before the coroner. The jury say under oath that on the evening of the festival of the Nativity of St. John Baptist [23 June], the tailors of Oxford and other townsmen who were with them, spent the whole night in their shops, singing and entertaining themselves with harps, viols and various other instruments, as is their practice and the custom there and elsewhere regarding the celebration of that festival. After midnight, when they did not expect anyone to be wandering in the streets, they and the others who were with them left the shops and took their choir out into the high street heading for the drapery. As they were enjoying themselves, they suddenly came upon Gilbert de Foxlee with his sword drawn and naked in his hand. He immediately started to argue with them, demanding to join their choir. Since they had among their number some persons of note, they approached him and asked him to go away and not cause anyone any trouble. Gilbert was not prepared to agree to this, but broke away from them and then dogged their footsteps, hurling insults at a certain William de Cleydon and threatening to cut off his hand with his sword unless William promptly surrendered to him his place in the choir. At this, Henry de Beaumont, crusader, Thomas de Bloxham, William de Leye, servant, John de Leye, and William de Cleydon rushed towards Gilbert; Henry gave him a wound on the right arm with his sword, Thomas stabbed him in the back with a dagger, while William de Cleydon felled him with a blow to the head. Immediately after, William de Leye, with a hatchet called a “sparth” [a fighting axe], gave Gilbert the wound on his left leg, by the knee, from which he died on 21 August, having lived for 8 weeks and 2 days and having received all the last rites.

Sounds like a nightly news flash in any major city today.  An armed and drunk individual insists on having his way, which leads to a fight and wounds and/or death.  Details of course different.  A sword instead of a gun.  A fight over joining a singing group instead of rapper performance.  A lingering death of eight weeks rather than the instantaneous.  

What struck me most was the prevalence of Norman names.  The Norman conquest was in 1066.  The conquest was that, a conquest not an invasion.  The upper class were supplanted but not everyone else.  There was no mass migrations of Normans out of Normandy and into England.  Despite the minuscule numbers of Normans, virtually everyone named has a Norman name.  

Just as with other nations at other times, violence varied enormously by class and culture.