http://www.buzzfeed.com/hilarywardle/16-surprising-facts-about-medieval-england-aplm#.sxeNjJKND
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2015/02/st-scholastica-day-riots/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Scholastica_Day_riot
Sunday, February 7, 2016
A Riot Over Ale or Class?
While surfing the internet for interesting facts from the medieval times I came across a Buzzfeed article (link below) that caught my attention. Normally when I think about this era I don't consider education being an important part. However, through this article and a few others I found out that scholars were held very high in the eyes of medieval people. The courts and the church put them on a pedestal where they were better than everyone and could do no wrong. This can been proven in a particularly amusing example I found about a fight that happened between scholars from Oxford University and the locals, it is refereed to as The St. Scholastica's Day Riots. In 1355 on St. Scholastica's Day a few Oxford students were celebrating by having a drink at the local tavern. They were not happy with the way their ale tasted and when they told the tavern owner a small fight broke out between them. The tavern owner then rounded up the local townsfolk, who were already against the scholars since they had a history of rowdy behavior with no reprimands from the court. Basically a riot formed between the townsfolk and the scholars and after it was all done an estimated 30 locals and 60 scholars were dead. Once again the court and church backed Oxford and came after the whole town even those not included in the riots. In this example its clear to see that the scholars were favored over the common townsfolk. This would make sense since in order to go to school the student would have had to have money in the first place. This is just another example of fighting between the class system, I had just never realized that it extended into schooling. Its crazy to think how much of an impact money and status had back then,
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
First of all, I think it's ironic that the riots happened on St. Scholastica's Day. I also think it is interesting the amount of locals and scholars that ended up dead, proving education can't block a punch. It is hard to think of education as a thing that would draw an angry crowd, but the rich versus the poor has always been around; the locals probably got tired of seeing these rich white guys get something they may want, but could never afford.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I think it's ironic that the riots happened on St. Scholastica's Day. I also think it is interesting the amount of locals and scholars that ended up dead, proving education can't block a punch. It is hard to think of education as a thing that would draw an angry crowd, but the rich versus the poor has always been around; the locals probably got tired of seeing these rich white guys get something they may want, but could never afford.
ReplyDeleteDanielle,
ReplyDeleteGood old buzzfeed, always something on there intriguing. This is especially because it is related to current topics in our class! I think it's funny that even back in the Middle Ages there was bar fights. Luckily, most bar fights today our controlled and not so much death. I found it also interesting that there were as much education and scholars during this time, I would have never guessed! Good topic!