[HN Gopher] St Scholastica Day Riot
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St Scholastica Day Riot
Author : brudgers
Score : 130 points
Date : 2023-03-16 16:29 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Town & gown strife goes _way_ back.
|
| (I'd stumbled across the SSDR a few years back, it's a
| fascinating bit of academic & cultural history.)
| akiselev wrote:
| _> Around 30 townsfolk were killed, as were up to 63 members of
| the university.
|
| > Violent disagreements between townspeople and students had
| arisen several times previously, and 12 of the 29 coroners'
| courts held in Oxford between 1297 and 1322 concerned murders by
| students. The University of Cambridge was established in 1209 by
| scholars who left Oxford following the lynching of two students
| by the town's citizens._
|
| Man, college towns used to be so much more violent!
|
| I never knew about the connection between a saint and the
| word/concept of scholastics, nor that a university as notable as
| Cambridge was started because the locals lynched students. That's
| pretty cool, TIL!
|
| Edit: Sidenote, why does the graduation ceremony at Cambridge
| look like they're going to drown a witch? [1]
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_and_gown#/media/File:Punt...
| simonh wrote:
| Not just college towns. Schools also.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1797_Rugby_School_rebellion
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >Man, college towns used to be so much more violent!
|
| I was expecting they riot on diversity grounds, not for such
| prosaic reasons. Those ancient students were so little
| politically and morally evolved!
| pjc50 wrote:
| Oxbridge has never been especially diverse or progressive;
| there were riots against the admission of women:
| https://www.varsity.co.uk/features/15985
|
| By 1988 this had diminished to resentful grumbling from
| Magdalene.
|
| (I'm not sure if there's even a UK counterpart to "absurdly
| progressive US university that gets mentioned by conservative
| culture war campaigners" all the time?)
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| LoL, which one? Probably Evergreen State College in
| Washington or UC Berkeley? These are like catnip for
| conservative pundits.
| gigfkb wrote:
| That is not a photo of the graduation ceremony. It shows a
| student punting. He is wearing the gown needed for the
| ceremony.
| edgineer wrote:
| I had to look up "punting." It means boating in a punt (which
| is a small boat).
| spatulon wrote:
| Importantly, the punt is propelled by having someone stand
| at the back and push a pole against the river bed. It's
| popular with students and tourists in both Oxford and
| Cambridge, although the two cities disagree over which end
| of a punt is the back.
| RRWagner wrote:
| And why do we recognize graduates of higher education in the
| 21st century by making them wear clothes from 500 years ago?? I
| know "why" but somehow it would be more forward-looking if they
| were even wearing Starfleet uniforms.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| Some people believe that things from the past have value, and
| that continuing traditions is good in itself, providing a
| sense of meaning and community.
| aaron695 wrote:
| [dead]
| pjc50 wrote:
| It's from 500 years ago, but it's also from 50 years ago and
| from 5 years ago; that is, it's continuous and has not really
| had a specific occasion to change. Although the fur is
| usually no longer real.
|
| Oxbridge are not called "the dreaming spires" for nothing;
| there's a timelessness to the place that all the antique
| surroundings and rituals accentuate. The 20th century has
| largely got rid of formalwear as an important concept, but
| (at least while I was there) the gown wasn't just for
| graduation, it was for formal dinners, which would be held on
| various occasions or up to several times a week in the larger
| colleges for the sake of having a nice dinner.
| akiselev wrote:
| I'm guessing for one of the same reasons they were used
| originally. From that town and gown wiki article [1]:
|
| _> The gown also served as a social symbol, as it was
| impractical for physical manual work._
|
| The gowns symbolize that graduates are now above physical
| manual labor and are destined for greater things (Starbucks
| barista)
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_and_gown
| thinkingemote wrote:
| I wonder what today's version of the gown would be.
| Something that would be impractical for both service work
| (barista) and brain work (prompt engineer).
|
| Maybe ski gloves or a sling or maybe a respirator with
| sunglasses.
| williamdclt wrote:
| Simply a suit and tie, maybe?
| jrumbut wrote:
| I think it's so important to keep universities connected to
| the tradition they arose out of in small ways like a gown.
|
| It's amazing, when you read the history, how much of today's
| discourse about the value of a university education, the
| conduct of students, and the antagonism between university
| faculty and intellectuals who exist outside the walls of the
| university is a replay of stuff that happened in the 14th
| century and every century in between.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| > The ... riot took place in ... 1355 ... complained about the
| quality of wine served to them in the Swindlestock Tavern
|
| > this was the site of the swindlestock tavern 1250-1709
| (http://www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/streets/inscriptions/central...)
|
| > swindler (n.) 1774 (https://www.etymonline.com/word/swindler)
|
| Hmmm
| defrost wrote:
| You might want to look to the use of _Swind_ and _Swynde_ in
| English texts from the centuries before, eg: _Historia
| ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum_ [1]
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastical_History_of_the_...
|
| which the OED gives as
|
| "To waste away, languish; to dwindle, decrease; to vanish,
| disappear."
|
| and then Swindle Stock would be the site of a place of
| punishment - stocks on which people are put to waste away and
| diminish.
|
| Of course, language being plastic, it _might_ also be the pub
| in which farm workers drank after listening to the sound of
| Sycthes while cutting sheaves to _Stuck_ (or Stock) (placed
| uprtight to air and dry); but that 's a stretch.
|
| _I drank with the harvesters, who sang me songs about rural
| life, such as--'Sitting in the swale; and listening to the
| swindle of the flail, as it sounds dub-a-dub on the corn, from
| the neighbouring barn.'_
| throwaway4533 wrote:
| As with many other archaic words in English, I'm guessing
| that "Swind" and "Swynde" came from Scandinavia and Germany
| where they've kept their old meaning to this day:
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/schwinden#German
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/svinde#Danish
|
| A modern example is "oxygen depletion" or "hypoxia" in
| English/Latin which, in Danish, is called "iltsvind" ("ilt" =
| oxygen, "svind" = depletion):
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoxia_(environmental)
|
| https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iltsvind
|
| It is indeed related to swindle/svindle/schwindeln but I
| don't know when the two words "diverged":
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/schwindeln#German
|
| If you go back far enough, swind/svind/schwinden may also
| share a common ancestor with "dwindle":
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-
| Germanic...
| defrost wrote:
| Indeed - the Vikings (Danes) brought their language to the
| north of the British Isles and it spread and persisted to
| today.
|
| As I can no longer edit my comment above I should mention
| that the original text by Bede was written by him in Latin
| circa AD 731, but the O.E.D. references version translated
| in early | middle English by other authors in the centuries
| that followed.
|
| It's from one of those that the OED quotes the first
| written use of Swind | Swynde in <cough> "English"
| </cough>.
|
| ( _not so much a language as a kitchen sink full of dregs_
| )
| shaftoe444 wrote:
| See also, https://thehistoryteamblog.wordpress.com/the-riots-
| of-1272/
| DeathArrow wrote:
| One doesn't simply mess with one man's booze without
| consequences.
| ExMachina73 wrote:
| I feel like there's a script for a movie here, no? Has this event
| been dramatized in anyway? Reads like "Gangs of New York (2002)."
| groestl wrote:
| "according to those sympathetic to the university, de
| Chesterfield threw his wooden drinking vessel at de Croydon's
| head; those sympathetic to the townsfolk say the student beat
| him around the head with the pot."
|
| This is 6 centuries ago.. Amazing
| podgib wrote:
| I was a tour guide in Oxford while I was doing my PhD there. This
| was always my favourite story to tell. It's a part of history
| that is simultaneously so foreign and yet so relatable today.
| swapsCAPS wrote:
| Just. Wow. This has piqued my interest, is there any background
| information as to why this happened (so often)? There must have
| been underlying tentions, wondering what those were, but can
| imagine it's just lost to history
| pnut wrote:
| The article explained it?
|
| Oxford scholars were literally above the law, and used their
| protected status to abuse and demean the townspeople, up to and
| including the mayor.
|
| After the riot, the king cracked down and reasserted the
| arrangement, which apparently continued in some forms for
| another 500 years.
| jonstewart wrote:
| There's some important context that's also not covered by the
| Wikipedia article: the Black Death swept through Europe from
| 1347-1350. England's population declined by almost half and
| would not recover to the same level until the 1600s. As we've
| seen with covid, but just as a shadow, the population decline
| led to a huge labor shortage and high inflation. So, 1355
| wasn't a happy time.
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| Things back in the day seemed to escalate quickly.
|
| If the local college kids here in upstate New York complained of
| the quality of the wine in my local tavern, I'd definitely...
| *checks notes* incite the local townsfolk to extrajudicialy kill
| 63 of their campus colleagues.
| christophilus wrote:
| Ah, for those halcyon days. They were simpler times.
| chasil wrote:
| If forever the moment was to buy a fellow bar patron a drink,
| that was it.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| The petty incitement of this immediately reminded me of The Straw
| Hat Riot.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_Hat_Riot
|
| It's hard for people today to understand just how sudden,
| frequent and destructive mass violence was in the past. Up to our
| very recent history. As recently as the 70s there were fairly
| regular riots in America that would make most of what you saw in
| 2020 look pretty pedestrian.
| joenot443 wrote:
| Pedestrian? Didn't like 19 people die during the protests in
| 2020?
|
| I don't see any deaths listed for the Straw Hat Riot, I don't
| see any mention of lootings or arson either. On the other hand,
| I was in Seattle during the worst of the 2020 riots, I'd never
| seen such anger and destruction in my life.
| heywhatupboys wrote:
| This comment reeks of racism, I hadn't thought I would have
| to read these absurdist takes on HN. Would you write the same
| thing about the civil rights demonstrations?
| hackeraccount wrote:
| You've made me feel completely alienated from the world.
| joenot443 wrote:
| This comment reeks of low effort finger pointing, I hadn't
| thought I would have to read these juvenile takes on HN.
| Would you feel the same way if 200 people had died? 2000?
| For the record, I have nothing but support for the cause
| they were protesting, policing in America is hugely broken
| and there are well-documented racial elements to that
| failure, but I don't think I'm alone in wishing
| demonstrations themselves hadn't been so destructive.
|
| Try making this comment again without using the R word. Are
| you of the opinion that the protests in Seattle are immune
| from criticism? I had a friend who closed her store after
| it was looted twice. Where does she fit into your
| distressingly simple model?
|
| I was living next to CHOP during the whole ordeal. If you
| don't have on the ground experience, I genuinely don't
| think your opinion is worth anything here, I'm sorry.
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| It is maybe the cause you describe well:
|
| > policing in America is hugely broken and there are
| well-documented racial elements to that failure,
|
| vs
|
| > it spread due to men wearing straw hats past the
| unofficial date that was deemed socially acceptable,
|
| that made your comparison a bit triggering, and even if
| you did not mean it, not totally incomprehensible?
|
| Those two also fail to compare in other dimensions, e.g.
| size, so not sure if worth it at all..
| joenot443 wrote:
| I'm not the one who originally made the comparison and I
| completely agree; the two are so different they
| _shouldn't_ be compared.
|
| Regardless of how one feels about the motives or the
| methods, I think it's safe to say it was a fairly
| watershed moment for the US whose importance shouldn't be
| downplayed.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| Can I say that my goal was not to compare the two in an
| absolutist way.
|
| There is a narrative that developed about the 2020
| protests that they were categorically different from the
| America's past because some of them spilled over into
| violent episodes. The talk was borderline existential
| regarding them as something new in American society. They
| were frequently unfavorably compared to the "peaceful"
| civil rights protests of the 60s.
|
| But those protests were only peaceful in the small
| cherry-picked set that progressive historians and non-
| violence aligned activists have succeeded in turning into
| the canonical story of America. The civil rights movement
| in fact did have episodes of ambiguous violence. Critics
| at the time cited these incidents as reasons the protests
| should stop or wait. King references these critics
| directly in the Letter from the Birmingham Jail. It's
| barely buried history.
|
| What's more, the protests occured amongst a back drop of
| constant deadly violence and struggle over all kinds of
| grievance and issues. Forget the risk of an antifa
| punching you in the jaw. There were people with deadly
| weapons, ready to do deadly violence or at least
| advocating it. From The Weather Underground to The Black
| Panthers to MOVE to biker gangs and on.
|
| But the popular narrative wishes to ignor all this. How
| many times during 202 did I hear some boomer say, "look
| what we got done with civil rights without violence." But
| they have imbibed the Forest Gumpification of history.
| This myth is used to create an impossible standard,
| according to which, any incidental violence immediately
| discredits change.
|
| I point to The Straw Hats because the are the most
| blatant tell to the law that America has a 'peaceful'
| past. That people are now somehow more unreasonable,
| easily triggered to violence and with thinner
| justification for their demands.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| I'll clarify because that was perhaps too flippant on my
| part. There are episodes from the 2020 protests which match
| the intensity of past American riots at times. But for how
| widespread and recurring the protests were, they had a lower
| density of and a lower conversion to violence.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_u.
| ..
| joenot443 wrote:
| There certainly are a lot! I was only living in an affected
| city during the '20 protests, so that's all I feel
| confident commenting on.
| joenot443 wrote:
| Ah I see your edit now. I understand what you're getting
| at, you're right.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I remember reading an article that said, if the Inspector Morse
| Mysteries were reflecting real life, Oxford would be one of the
| most dangerous places on Earth.
|
| Maybe they were just a few centuries off...
| shusaku wrote:
| > While the royal commission of inquiry was in place, John
| Gynwell, the Bishop of Lincoln, imposed an interdict on the
| townspeople, and banned all religious practices, including
| services (except on key feast days), burials and marriages; only
| baptisms of young children were allowed.
|
| That is quite an interesting tidbit
| duxup wrote:
| I struggle to follow / understand a lot of things in the past.
|
| We get history that understandably is written by the more
| educated from those times. I really don't know that we know what
| the local rando citizens thought or were thinking.
|
| Heck even when we get history and information from the people at
| the time sometimes it is confusing. The English Civil War is
| completely confusing for me.
| zone411 wrote:
| The Pillars of the Earth and its follow-up by Ken Follet are
| fun (but long) fiction novels set in Medieval England, which
| help you envision living in that world. I'm not sure how
| accurate they are when it comes to people's general attitudes,
| though.
| narrator wrote:
| One thing I've learned about the ancient world is it was hyper-
| violent. Some guys could come over the hill and kill everyone
| in a tribe for stupid reasons.
| tenpies wrote:
| > We get history that understandably is written by the more
| educated from those times. I really don't know that we know
| what the local rando citizens thought or were thinking.
|
| One of my favourite history series was HBO's Rome because it
| tackled this directly.
|
| Sure, you have all the important aristocratic characters, but
| you also have all the no-name soldiers, slaves, and Roman
| citizens.
|
| At one point, a legionnaire gets into a bar fight with some
| Romans. The next day, that same legionnaire is escorting Marc
| Anthony and they get attacked by an angry mob. Marc Anthony
| interprets it as an attack on himself, but the mob was actually
| just pissed at the one legionnaire from the bar fight the night
| before and forces the group to retreat.
|
| The whole thing is interpreted by the aristocrats as an attack
| by the Pompeiian mobs on tribune Marc Anthony. This in turn,
| prevented Marc Anthony from exercising his office, and the
| whole thing snow balls into Caesar being forced to cross the
| Rubicon.
|
| Entire history potentially made, because a legionnaire got into
| a bar fight. Now this is fiction, but it's incredible to think
| how many stories like this must exist outside of our records.
| baryphonic wrote:
| > The English Civil War is completely confusing for me.
|
| That's interesting, because I see Cavaliers vs Roundheads as
| the prototypical debate about the nature of Western culture
| that we are still having today.
| eru wrote:
| > I really don't know that we know what the local rando
| citizens thought or were thinking.
|
| Yes, that's a big problem. That a big part of why finding
| Pompeii was important: the volcanic eruption preserved
| everything, including daily life and random graffiti.
|
| In a more general sense, that's also why archaeologists love
| digging up trash dumps. See
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midden
| paganel wrote:
| There's also this famous history book about life in the early
| 1300s in a village located in the Northern Pyrenees:
| _Montaillou, village occitan de 1294 a 1324_ [1]:
|
| > _Montaillou_ examines the lives and beliefs of the
| population of Montaillou, a small village in the Pyrenees
| with only around 250 inhabitants, at the beginning of the
| fourteenth century. It is largely based on the Fournier
| Register, a set of records from the Inquisition which
| investigated and attempted to suppress the spread of
| Catharism in the Ariege region from 1318 to 1325, during the
| reigns of Philip V "the Tall" and Charles IV "the Fair".
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montaillou_(book)
| idontwantthis wrote:
| Reminds me of the "sacks" in Ananthem.
| jeron wrote:
| And we've had the Scholastic Book Faire every year since
| JoBrad wrote:
| And Carfax.
| petesergeant wrote:
| Hard to move a 12th century church tower, no?
| bee_rider wrote:
| And if you do, it really hurts the resale value.
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