It was a lovely morning in the Eastertide of 1256 when young Martin
looked forth from the window of his hostel at Oxford on the quaint
streets, the stately towers of the semi-monastic city. He was bound, of
course, as a dutiful son of Mother Church, to attend the early service
at one of the thirteen churches, after which, still at a very early
hour, he was invited to break his fast with the great Franciscan, Adam
de Maresco, to whom his friend the chaplain had strongly commended him.
So he put on his scholar’s gown, and went to the finest church then
existing in Oxford, the Abbey Church of Oseney.
This magnificent abbey had been endowed by Robert D’Oyley, nephew of
the Norman Conqueror, mentioned in another of our Chronicles {12}. It
was situated on an island, formed by various branches of the Isis, in
the western suburbs of the city, and extended as far as from the
present Oseney Mill to St. Thomas’ Church. The abbey church, long since
destroyed, was lofty and magnificent, containing twenty-four altars, a
central tower of great height, and a western tower. Here King Henry III
passed a Christmas with “reverent mirth.”
There was a large gathering of monks, friars, and students; the quiet
sober side of Oxford predominated in the early dawn, and Martin thought
he had never seen so orderly a city. He was destined to change his
ideas, or at least modify them, before he laid his head on his pillow
that night.
Before leaving the church Martin ascended to the summit of the abbey
tower, the wicket gate of which stood invitingly open, in order to
survey the city and country, and gain a general idea of his future
home. Below him, in the sweet freshness of the early morn, the branches
of the Isis surrounded the abbey precincts, the river being well
guarded by stone work and terraces, so that it could not at flood time
encroach upon the abbey. Neither before the days of locks could or did
such floods occur as we have now, the water got away more readily, and
the students could not sail upon “Port Meadow” as upon a lake, in the
winter and spring, as they do at the present day.
Beyond the abbey rose the church and college of “Saint George in the
Castle,” that is within the precincts of the fortress, and the great
mound thrown up by Queen Ethelflaed, a sister of Alfred, now called the
Jew’s Mount {13}, and the two towers of the Norman Castle seemed to
make one group with church and college. The town church of Saint Martin
rose from a thickly-built group of houses, at a spot called _Quatre
Voies_, where the principal streets crossed, which name we corrupt into
Carfax. He counted the towers of thirteen churches, including the
historic shrine of Saint Frideswide, which afterwards developed into
the College of Christchurch, and later still furnished the Cathedral of
the diocese.
Around lay a wild land of heath and forest, with cultivated fields very
infrequently interspersed; the moors of Cowley, the woods of Shotover
and Bagley; and farther still, the forests of Nuneham, inhabited even
then by the Harcourts, who still hold the ancestral demesne.
Descending, he made his way to Greyfriars, as the Franciscan house was
called, encountering many groups who were already wending their way to
lecture room, or, like Martin, returning to break their fast after
morning chapel, which then meant early mass at one of the many
churches, for only in three or four instances had corporate bodies
chapels of their own.
These groups were very unlike modern undergraduates; as a rule they
were much younger people, of the same ages as the upper forms in our
public schools, from fourteen or fifteen years upwards; mere boys,
living in crowded hostels, fighting and quarrelling with all the sweet
“abandon” of early youth, sometimes begging masterfully, for licenses
to beg were granted to poor students, living, it might be, in the
greatest poverty, but still devoted to learning.
At length Martin arrived at the house of the Franciscans, where he was
eventually to lodge, but they had no room for him at this moment, hence
he had been sent to a hostelry, licensed to take lodgers; much to the
regret of Adam de Maresco. But he could not show partiality. Each
newcomer must take his turn, according to the date of the entry of his
name. The friary was on the marshy ground between the walls and the
Isis, on land bestowed upon them in charity, amongst the huts of the
poor whom they loved. At first huts of mud and timber, as rough and
rude as those around, arose within the fence and ditch which they drew
and dug around their habitations, but the necessities of the climate
had driven them to build in stone, for the damp climate, the mists and
fogs from the Isis, soon rotted away their woodwork. And so Martin
found a very simple, but very substantial building in the Norman
architecture of the period. The first “Provincial” of the Greyfriars
had persuaded Robert Grosseteste, afterwards the great Bishop of
Lincoln, to lecture at the school they founded in their Oxford house,
and all his powerful influence was exercised to gain them a sound
footing in the University. They deserved it, for their schools attained
a reputation throughout Christendom, so nobly was the work, which
Grosseteste began, carried on by his scholar and successor, Adam de
Maresco.
And they had helped to make Oxford, as it was then, the second city of
importance in England, and only second to Paris amongst the learned
cities of the world.
Martin was shown along a cloister looking through the most sombre of
Norman arches, upon a greensward. The doors of many cells opened upon
it. He was told to knock at one of them, and a deep voice replied,
“Enter in the name of the Lord.”
It was a large, plain room, with a vaulted ceiling lighted by lancet
windows and scantily furnished; rough oaken benches, a plain heavy
table, covered with parchments and manuscripts: in one recess a
_Prie-Dieu_ beneath a crucifix, and under the fald stool a skull, with
the words “_memento mori_,” three or four chairs with painfully
straight backs, a cupboard for books (manuscripts) and parchments,
another for vestments ecclesiastical or collegiate. This was all which
cumbered the bare floor. At the corner of the room a spiral stone
staircase led to the bed chamber.
Before the table stood an aged and venerable man, in the gray clothing
of the Franciscans, sweet in face, pleasant in manner, dignified in
hearing, in reputation without a stain, in learning unsurpassed.
Martin bowed reverently before him, and gave him the chaplain’s letter.
“I had heard of thy arrival, my son. I trust thou hast found
comfortable lodgings at the hostel I recommended?”
“I have slept well, my father.”
“And hast not forgotten thy duty to God?”
“I should do discredit to my teacher at Kenilworth if I did. I have
been to the abbey church.”
“He is a man of God, and I doubt not thou art worthy of his love, for
he writes of thee as a father might of a much-loved son. But now, my
son, we must break our fast. Come to the refectorium with me.”
Passing into the cloister they came to the dining hall or
“refectorium.” Three long tables, a fourth where the elders and
professors sat, on a raised platform at right angles to the others. A
hundred men and boys had already assembled, and after a Latin grace,
breakfast began. It was not a fast day, so the fare was substantial,
although quite plain—porridge, pease soup, bread, meat, cheese, and
ale. The most sober youth of the university were there, men who meant
eventually to assume the gray habit, and carry the Gospel over
wilderness and forest, in the slums of towns, or amongst the heathen,
counting peril as nought. There was no buzz of conversation, only from
a stone pulpit the reader read a chapter from the Gospels.
After this was done, grace after meat was said, and the elders first
departed, the great master taking Martin back with him into his cell.
“And now, my son, what dost thou come to Oxford for?”
“To learn that I may afterwards teach.”
“And what dost thou desire to become?”
“One of your holy brotherhood, a brother of Saint Francis.”
“Dost thou know what that means, my son? Scanty clothing, hard fare,
the absence of all that men most value, the welcoming of perils and
hardships as thy daily companions, that thou mayst take thy life in thy
hand, and find the sheep of Christ amongst the wolves.”
“All this I have been told.”
“Well, my son, thou art yet new to the world. At Oxford thou will see
it, and will make thy choice better when thou knowest both what thou
rejectest and what thou seekest. Meanwhile, guard thy youthful steps;
avoid quarrelling, fighting, drinking, dicing; mortify thine own
flesh—”
“Do these temptations await me in Oxford?”
“The air has been full of them, since Henry brought the thousand
students from the gay university of Paris hither. Thou wilt soon see,
and gauge thy power of resisting temptation. I would not say, stay
indoors. The virtue which has never been tested is nought.”
“Where do the brethren chiefly work for God?”
“In the noisome lazar houses, amongst the lepers, in the shambles of
Newgate, here on the swamps between the walls and the Thames, where men
live and suffer. We do not enter the brotherhood to build grand
buildings. We sleep on bare pallets without pillows.”
“Why without pillows?” asked Martin, wondering.
“We need no little mountains to lift our heads to heaven. None but the
sick go shod.”
“Is it not dangerous to health to go without shoes in the winter?”
“God protects us,” said the master, smiling sweetly. “One of our friars
found a pair of shoes last winter on a frosty morning, and wore them to
matins. At night he had a dream. He dreamt that he was travelling on
the work of God, and that at a dangerous pass in the forest of the
Cotswolds, robbers leapt out upon him, crying, ‘Kill, kill.’
“‘I am a friar,’ he shrieked.
“‘You lie,’ they replied, ‘for you go shod.’
“He awoke and threw the shoes out of the window.”
“And did he catch cold afterwards?”
Another smile.
“No, my son, all these things go by habit.”
“Shall I begin to leave off my shoes?”
“Not yet, your vocation is not settled. You may yet choose the world.”
“I never shall.”
“Poor boy, you are young and cannot tell. Perhaps before nightfall a
different light may be thrown upon your good resolutions.”
A pause ensued. At length Martin went on, “At least you have books. I
love books.”
“At first we had not even them, but later on the Holy Father thought
that those who contend with the unbelieving learned should be learned
themselves. They who pour forth must suck in.”
“When did the Order come to Oxford?”
“Thirty years agone. When we first landed at Dover we made our way to
London, the home of commerce, and Oxford, the home of learning. The two
first gray brethren lost their way in the woods of Nuneham, on their
road to the city, and afraid of the floods, which were out, and of the
dark night, which made it difficult to avoid the water, took refuge in
a grange, which belonged to the Abbey of Abingdon, where dwelt a small
branch of the great Benedictine Brotherhood. Their clothes were ragged
and torn with thorns, and they only spoke broken English, so the monks
took them for the travelling jugglers of the day, and welcomed them
with great hospitality. But after supper they all assembled in the
common room, and bade the supposed jugglers show their craft.
“‘We be not jugglers, we be poor brethren of our Lord and Saint
Francis.’
“Now the monks were very jealous of the new Order, so unlike
themselves, in its renunciation of ease and luxury, and in very spite
they called them knaves and impostors, and kicked them out of doors.”
“What did they do?”
“They slept under a tree, and the angels comforted them. The next day
they got to Oxford and began their work. The plague had been raging in
the poorer quarters of the city, and they brought the joy of the Gospel
to those miserable people. At length their numbers increased, and they
built this house wherein we dwell.”
In such conversation as this Martin passed a happy hour, then went to
the first lecture he attended, in the schools attached to the friary,
where the great works of Augustine and Aquinas formed the text books;
no Creek as yet. He passed from Latin to Logic, as the handmaid of
theology. The great thinker Aristotle supplied the method, not the
language or matter, and became the ally of Christianity, under the
rendering of a learned brother.
Then followed the noontide meal, a stroll with some younger companions
of his own age, to whom he had been specially introduced, which led
them so far afield that they only returned in time for the vesper
service, at the friary.
After the service Martin should have returned to his lodgings at once,
but, tempted by the novelty of all he saw about him, he lingered in the
streets, and saw cause to alter his opinion of the extreme propriety of
the students. Some of them were playing at pitch and toss in the
thievish corners. At least half a dozen pairs of antagonists were
settling their quarrels with their fists or with quarterstaves, in
various secluded nooks. Songs, gay rather than grave, not to say a
trifle licentious, resounded; while once or twice he was asked: “Are
you North or South?”—a query to which he hardly knew how to reply,
Kenilworth being north and Sussex south of Oxford.
But the penalty of not answering was a rude jostling, which tried his
temper sadly, and awoke the old Adam within him, which our readers
remember only slumbered. He looked through the open door of a tavern.
It was full of the young reprobates, and the noise and turmoil was
deafening.
As he stood by the door, three or four grave-looking men came along.
“We must get them all home, or there will be bloodshed tonight,” Martin
heard one say.
“It will be difficult,” replied the other.
Into the tavern they turned, and the noise suddenly subsided.
“What do ye here, ye reprobates, that ye stand drinking, dicing,
quarrelling? To your hostels, every one of you,” said the first.
Martin expected scornful resistance, and was surprised to see that
instead, all the rapscallions evacuated the place, and the “proctors,”
as we should now call them, remained to remonstrate with the host,
whose license they threatened to withdraw.
“How can I help it?” he said. “They be too many for me.”
“If you cannot keep order, seek another trade,” was the stern response.
“We cannot have the morals of our scholars corrupted.”
“Bless you, sirs, it is they who corrupt me. I don’t know half the
wickedness they do.”
Our readers need not believe him, the proctors did not.
But Martin took the warning, and was bent on getting home, only he lost
his way, and could not find it again. It was not for want of asking;
but the young scholars he met preferred lies to truth, in the mere
frolic of puzzling a newcomer, and sent him first to Frideswide’s,
thence to the East Gate, near Saint Clement’s Chapel, and he was making
his way back with difficulty along the High Street when he heard an
awful confusion and uproar about the “_Quatre Voies_” (Carfax) Conduit.
“Down with the lubberly North men!”
“Split their skulls, though they be like those of the bullocks their
sires drive!”
“Down with the moss troopers!”
“_Boves boreales_!”
And answering cries:
“Down with the lisping, smooth-tongued Southerners!”
“_Australes asini_!”
“_Eheu_!”
“Slay me every one with a burr in his mouth.” (An allusion to the
Northumbrian accent.)
“Down with the mincing fools who have got no r.r.r’s”
“Burrrrn them, you should say.”
“_Frangite capita_.”
“_Percutite porcos boreales_.”
“_Vim inferre australibus asinis_.”
“_Sternite omnes Gallos_.”
So they shouted imprecations in Latin and English, and eke in French,
for there were many Gauls about.
What chance of getting through the fighting, drunken, riotous mobs?
Quarterstaves were rising and falling upon heads and shoulders. No
deadlier weapons were used, but showers of missiles from time to time
descended, unsavoury or otherwise.
At length the superior force of the Northern men prevailed, and Martin,
whose blood was strangely stirred, saw a slim and delicate youth
fighting so bravely with a huge Northern ox (“bos borealis,” he called
him) that for a time he stayed the rush, until the whole Southern line
gave way and Martin, entangled with the rout, got driven down Saint
Mary’s Lane, opposite the church of that name, an earlier building on
the site of the present University church.
At an angle of the street, where another lane entered in, the young
Southerner before mentioned turned to bay, and with three or four more
of his countryfolk kept the narrow way against scores of pursuers.
Martin could not restrain himself any longer. He saw three or four men
pressed by dozens, and rushed with all the fire of his generous and
impetuous nature to their aid, in time to intercept a blow aimed at the
young leader.
Well could he brandish such weapons, and he stood side by side and
settled many a “bos borealis,” or northern bullock, with as much zest
as ever a southern butcher. But at length his leader fell, and Martin
stood diverting the strokes aimed at his fallen companion, who was
stunned for the moment, until a rough hearty voice cried out:
“Let them alone, they have had enough. ’Tis cowardly to fight a dozen
to one. Listen, the row is on in the _Quatre Voies_ again. We shall
find more there.”
The two were left alone.
Martin raised his wounded companion, whose head was bleeding profusely.
“Art thou hurt much?”
“Not so very much, only dazed. I shall soon be better. I am close
home.”
“Let me support you. Lean on me, I will see you safe.”
“You came just in time. Where did you come from? I never saw you
before—and where did you learn to handle the cudgel so well?”
“From the woods of merry Sussex, and later on, the tilt yard of
Kenilworth.”
“Oh, you are a true Southerner, then. So am I, the second son of
Waleran de Monceux of Herst, in the Andredsweald.
“Here we are at home—come in to Saint Dymas’ Hall.”