The
beginning of the whole affair was the quarrel with the town, which,
in 1209, had hanged two clerks, "in contempt of clerical liberty."
The matter was taken up by the Legate--in those bad years of King
John the Pope's viceroy in England--and out of the humiliation of the
town the University gained money, privileges, and halls at low
rental. These were precisely the things that the University wanted.
About these matters there was a constant strife, in which the Kings,
as a rule, took part with the University. The University possessed
the legal knowledge, which the monarchs liked to have on their side,
and was therefore favoured by them. Thus, in 1231 (Wood, Annals, i.
205), "the King sent out his Breve to the Mayor and Burghers
commanding them not to overrate their houses"; and thus gradually the
University got the command of the police, obtained privileges which
enslaved the city, and became masters where they had once been
despised, starveling scholars. The process was always the same. On
the feast of St. Scholastica, for example, in 1354, Walter de
Springheuse, Roger de Chesterfield, and other clerks, swaggered into
the Swyndlestock tavern in Carfax, began to speak ill of John de
Croydon's wine, and ended by pitching the tankard at the head of that
vintner. In ten minutes the town bell at St. Martin's was rung, and
the most terrible of all Town-and-Gown rows began. The Chancellor
could do no less than bid St.
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