Medieval Oxford’s “lethally violent” student population made the city England’s “murder capital”, a new crime map has revealed.
Researchers, including those from the University of Cambridge, mapped medieval England’s known murder cases, adding Oxford and York to its street plan of London’s 14th century slayings.
Oxford’s student population was by far “the most lethally violent” of all groups in any of the three cities, said the analysis, revealed in the digital resource Medieval Murder Maps.
This was 50 times higher than in 21st century English cities.
Crime scenes based on translated investigations from 700-year-old coroners’ inquests were plotted by the researchers.
They estimated the per capita homicide rate in Oxford to be 4-5 times higher than late medieval London or York.
About three-fourths of the Oxford perpetrators with a known background were “clericus” – students or members of the early university – as were nearly 75 per cent of the victims.
“Oxford students were all male and typically aged between fourteen and twenty-one, the peak for violence and risk-taking,” said Manuel Eisner, an investigator who was part of the murder map project.
“These were young men freed from tight controls of family, parish or guild, and thrust into an environment full of weapons, with ample access to alehouses and sex workers,” Mr Eisner said, adding that Oxford at the time had a “deadly mix of conditions”.
