What words come to mind when you think of the Middle Ages, also known as the medieval period? If you’re thinking “violence,” you’re not wrong (though I would have added “smelly”).
To investigate the spread of medieval violence, researchers in the U.S. and U.K. developed medieval “murder maps” of London, Oxford, and York by mapping out 355 murders between 1296 and 1398. They studied historic jury investigations into strange deaths, which describe when the attack took place, the location of the body, the murder weapon, and occasionally the reason behind it.
This approach revealed insightful patterns of 600- to 700-year-old urban violence—including the fact that university students were even more ridiculously troublesome than college kids today.
Armed, murderous students
“Homicides were highly concentrated in key nodes of urban life such as markets, squares, and thoroughfares,” in addition to such hotspots as waterfronts and ceremonial spaces, the researchers explained in a study published earlier this summer in the journal Criminal Law Forum. In terms of timing, Sundays were the most murderous days, especially around curfew. Church in the morning was frequently followed by drinking, sports, and fights later in the day.
Each of the three cities had very different local patterns of violence, however. Oxford, for example, had a homicide rate three to four times higher than London or York. While this might seem to be at odds with the posh university city you’re probably imagining, the posh university is actually the exact reason behind those surprising rates.
“The medieval university attracted young men aged between 14 and 21, many living far from home, armed and steeped in a culture of honour and group loyalty,” University of Hull’s Stephanie Brown and University of Cambridge’s Manuel Eisner, two criminologists and co-authors of the study, wrote for The Conversation. “Students organised themselves into ‘nations’ based on their regional origins and quarrels between northerners and southerners regularly erupted into street battles.”
To make matters worse, students were often considered above the common law, so their violence could go unpunished. In fact, Oxford’s homicides were concentrated in or near the university quarter, also as a result of conflicts between students and townspeople.
The more public, the better
In London, the medieval homicidal hotspots included Westcheap, the “commercial and ceremonial heart of the city,” according to Brown and Eisner, as well as the Thames Street waterfront. The former was the site of murders associated with guild rivalries, professional feuds, and public revenge attacks, while the latter saw violence among sailors and tradespeople.
York saw significant levels of homicide in one of its main town entrances, an area that hosted significant commercial, civic, and social life as well. The concentration of travellers, locals, and merchants would have naturally caused some conflict. Stonegate, an esteemed street in York that made up part of a ceremonial route, also experienced much violence. Perhaps unexpectedly, such wealthy areas provided opportunities for competition, vengeance, and public displays of honor.
In fact, “in all three cities, some homicides were committed in spaces of high visibility and symbolic significance,” the team wrote in the study. Such public spectacles could have solidified an individual’s reputation and/or made a gruesomely compelling point. Interestingly, there were fewer murder inquests in medieval England’s poorer, marginal neighborhoods—though it’s worth considering the possibility that there wasn’t much pressure to investigate unusual deaths in less privileged communities in the first place.
Nevertheless, “the study also raises broader questions about the long-term decline of homicide,” the researchers concluded in the study, “suggesting that changes in urban governance and spatial organization may have played a crucial role in reducing lethal violence.”