That darn bear!

Ditches and monastic river planning

Today I am writing about the diversion of the River Thames at Abingdon through one of the meadows of the abbey in the twelfth century.

This was done at the bequest of the citizens of Oxford who wanted a faster and safe way of travelling upstream as previously they had to navigate through shallow waters near Barton Court. This diversionary route eventually became known as 'Swift Ditch', a name which denotes the usefulness of this route along this important river.

"Monks' Map",16th century map produced during a property dispute (Abingdon museum)

As I sit here resisting the urge to procrastinate on the book of face, it never ceases to amaze me the sheer tenacity and drive of people during the middle ages (yes people from all ages have achieved feats of daring do, but let me have my medieval obsession). The effort it must have been (and the cost) to carve out a whole new channel by hand was some feat. I've no idea how long it took, but I silently applaud the people of the past.

It also amuses me that people don't really change. People then, and now, dislike having to go the long way round. 'Swift Ditch' was essentially the medieval equivalent of the M6 toll.


Extra:
For more on 'Monks Map':
Steane, J. "The Abingdon Monks Map" (Oxoniensia, 2008), pp. 17-32

http://oxoniensia.org/volumes/2008/steane.pdf

Roger Bacon

In an effort to procrastinate with a purpose I occasionally do research for friends on topics completely unrelated to my own research. Today's topic was Roger Bacon.

The query was, what is the evidence for this extract?:

"After having likely come up to Oxford at the age of thirteen (given how cruelly truncated life expectancy was in the thirteenth century, adult life was compelled to start earlier), Bacon later invited a delegation of Cambridge University fellows and students to visit Oxford.  Bacon recruited the finest Oxford minds from the University, even holding auditions to ensure he hired the desired academic dream team, and fitted those who had earned a successful call-back with peasant clothes; he even smeared dirt to capture that authentic just-been-wrestling-a-wild-boar look that was so fashionably de rigour throughout those early medieval years. Bacon then schooled his mock peasant ensemble in deceiving accents to appear illiterate and uneducated.

Make no mistake about it - this was clearly a thirteenth-century student prank with a budget; there are Hollywood movies starring Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt that got made with smaller budgets than this project received.

Bacon insisted that the majority of his Oxford 'peasants' were routinely tri-lingual, conversant in Latin and Greek as well as their native tongue.  And as student pranks go as feats of scale and imagination, it sure beats unscrewing the top of a salt cellar prior to passing it at dinner.

Bacon initiated and undertook the entire project to ensure that when a Cambridge University delegation encountered the troupe of Oxford 'peasants'; they conversed in Greek and Latin to discuss the works of Aristotle.  This, Bacon believed, proved to Cambridge that Oxford was so immeasurably superior, even the local peasants were schooled in the classics and effortlessly tri-lingual."

- Richard O Smith, Oxford Student Pranks: A History of Mischief and Mayhem (Stroud: The History Press, 2010)

This took a bit of searching but I eventually came to the conclusion that the extract although rooted in urban legend has a healthy amount of codswallop placed on top. 

The earliest mention I was able to find of this epsiode seems to be in the mid-1600s when it was written down by Anthony Wood and pubished in 1796 by John Gutch:

"Once upon a time several Scholars of Cambridge came to dispute with the Scholars of Oxford, with fair promise to themselves of returning conquerors, the which Fryer Bacon hearing, fained himself a Thatcher, and when he was upon a house at Oxford Town's end, he upon the approach of the Cantabrigians, came down to meet them, and drawing near to them, one of the Cantabrigians said to him:
"Rustice quid quaeris?"  [Peasant, for whom do you search]
Bacon the Thatcher answered:
"Ut mecum versificeris."  [For someone to write verse with me]
Then quoth another of the Cambridge Scholars:
"Versificator tu?"  [To write verse with you?]
Bacon answered
"Melius non Solis ab ortu." [Not well, only by birth]

Whereupon the Cantabrigians seeing that Oxford Thatchers were so good verifiers [scholars], and being more afraid of the scholars themselves, returned to Cambridge re infecta." [their task unfinished]

- Wood, A. "The history and antiquities of the university of Oxford" ed. John Gutch (Oxford, 1796, vol. 2), Availble online here: http://tinyurl.com/klkwrbf 

The text in brackets are my own translations (politely excuse any errors). 

Basic gist is, there was a dispute between Oxford and Cambridge over which was the better institution and the Cambridge students are coming to teach Oxford a lesson. Roger convinces them that he is a simple thatcher who wants to speak latin but doesn't believe his latin is good enough and that he only has it because of where he has been brought up (Oxford). The Cambridge students are appalled at the standard of education in the locality and turn tail. 

Definitely an urban legend by the looks of things but a jolly good one all the same.

By the by, Roger Bacon had a tower/study on Folly Bridge in Oxford and his later accusations of witchcraft may be where the archetypal wizard in his tower originates (think Tolkien's Sauron and Saruman).