2023-09-30 18:42:51
Time.news – A murder mapping project in medieval England has added Oxford and York to the map of 14th-century London murders, finding that Oxford’s student population was by far the most lethal and violent of all social groups or professionals from the three cities. This was revealed by the study by researchers at the University of Cambridge, who carried out the Medieval Murder Mapsa digital resource that tracks crime scenes based on investigations translated from 700-year-old inquests by coroners, those who act as bailiffs and investigate death cases.
It is estimated that the murder rate per capita in Oxford was 4 to 5 times higher than that of late medieval London or York. Among Oxford murderers with a known past, 75% were identified by the coroner, as clericus, as were 72% of all Oxford murder victims. In this period, clericus is more likely to refer to a student or member of the first university.
“A medieval university city like Oxford had a deadly mix of conditions,” said Manuel Eisner, lead author of the murder map and director of the Cambridge Institute of Criminology. “The Oxford students were all male and usually aged between fourteen and twenty-one,” Eisner explained.
“These were young men freed from the strict controls of family, parish or guild, and thrust into an environment full of weapons, with wide access to places where there was access to beer and prostitutes,” Eisner continued. “In addition to city-to-city clashes, many students belonged to regional fraternities, called nations, an additional source of conflict within the student body.”
A new website, launched today by Violence Research Centre di Cambridge, allows users to compare, for the first time, the causes and patterns of urban violence in medieval England across three cities. The site presents a new map of the murders that occurred in York during its Golden Age, in the 14th century, when, driven by trade and textiles, the city flourished as the Black Death waned.
Many of York’s cases document feuds between artisans working in the same profession, from knife fights between tannery workers to deadly violence between glove makers. Coroners’ registers are catalogs of sudden or suspicious deaths compiled by a jury of local residents. Recorded in Latin, they include names, events, places and even the value of the murder weapons. Using the scrolls and maps ofHistoric Towns Trust, researchers constructed a street atlas of 354 homicides in all three cities. Audio versions of the inquests are now available for dozens of these cases, so users can hear the details of the most intriguing medieval cases.
The original map of London, published in 2018, has been reshaped and updated to include coroner-recorded incidents, sudden deaths, prison deaths and the Sanctuary Church incidents, which involved an alleged criminal fleeing towards the holy land, which allowed forty days to negotiate with the coroner. This situation often led to exile from the kingdom: the criminal confessed and was directed to an agreed port through which he permanently left England.
“When a suspected murder victim was discovered in late medieval England, the coroner was sought and the local bailiff assembled a jury to investigate,” Eisner said. “A typical jury was made up of local men of good standing, whose job it was to establish the course of events by listening to witnesses, evaluating the evidence, and then naming a suspect,” Eisner continued.
“The charges were summarized by the coroner’s scribe” Eisner added. According to researchers, these reports were a combination of detective work and rumors. Some juries strategically constructed narratives aimed at influencing verdicts, such as self-defense. “We have no evidence to show that juries lied intentionally, but many investigations will have been based on the only information available,” explained Stephanie Brown, a Cambridge historian and researcher.
“In many cases, it is likely that the jury pointed to the right suspect, while in others this may not have happened,” Brown added. At the beginning of the 14th century Oxford was one of the most important centers of learning in Europe. The city had a population of about 7,000, with perhaps 1,500 students. Based on their research, Eisner and Brown estimate that the murder rate in late medieval Oxford was approximately 60 to 75 per 100,000 inhabitants.
This is a rate approximately 50 times higher than the current rate in 21st century English cities. The mix of young male students and alcoholics was often a tinderbox of violence. Some Oxford cases reveal rifts between scholars from different parts of the British Isles. Accommodation was often arranged according to the regions the students came from, and friction between northerners and southerners, or between Irish, Welsh and English, was common.
“The circumstances that often led to violence are similar to those today, such as young men affiliated with a gang who indulged in sex and alcohol during weekends,” Eisner said. “Guns were never far away and male honor had to be protected“, continued Eisner. “Life in medieval urban centers could be harsh, but it was by no means lawless: the community knew its rights and had recourse to the law when conflicts emerged,” highlighted Eisner. “Each case offers a insight into the dynamics that generated an explosion of violence in a street in England about seven centuries ago”.
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