This day in History......Interesting.

[Tennessee Blue Mike]

Came across this today.

On this day in 1354 in Oxford a war broke out between the University students and the townspeople. Since the students wore tonsures, the townspeople scalped the ones they caught & nobody could think the scalps belonged to farmers (least, that's what I have read somewhere). In the end the townspeople had several privileges revoked and had to suffer an annual penance. To this day, the anniversary of the massacre must be marked by the mayor & 62 citizens attending St. Mary's Church and offering one penny per man.

 

[Mutzo Nutzo]

Came across this today.

On this day in 1354 in Oxford a war broke out between the University students and the townspeople. Since the students wore tonsures, the townspeople scalped the ones they caught & nobody could think the scalps belonged to farmers (least, that's what I have read somewhere). In the end the townspeople had several privileges revoked and had to suffer an annual penance. To this day, the anniversary of the massacre must be marked by the mayor & 62 citizens attending St. Mary's Church and offering one penny per man.

It's all true mate..I live just a few miles from Oxford, and as far as I understand it...the whole thing started as a fight in a local pub between the studes and the locals..."Oi are you lookin at my pint?"

Anyways the whole situation escalated into a major city-wide brawl with the bells of St Mary's church calling the studes to battle...at one point the studes were winning but soon the locals were joined by 2000 yokels with cudgels, bows and pitchforks from surrounding villages...it was all gettin medieval at this point..with the studes now gettin battered...and when the locals captured a chaplain they scalped him!!
records state that upto 14 were actually scalped.

Anyways the church went mental, and ordered 60 leading citizens to attend mass at st marys every year and pay a penance