The political action on the part of the men interested was accompanied,
as the tendency is of all such movements, by the rioting of a mob and
^ ' Done i alat Tosti del north, Harold del suth de Oxenford.' VEstorie des
Envies, line 5075. Mon. Hist. Brit. p. 825.
OXFORD BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST. l8i
acts of murder, violence, and plunder. Not only they immediately
slew all Tostig's faithful servants they could find, and broke open the
earl's treasury, but proceeded to march southwards, and this, if we
accept the statements of the Chronicles, under the open leadership of
Morkere himself; and this brings the story to the passage in the
Chronicle which concerns Oxford : —
' A.D. 1065. And then, very shortly after, there was a great "gemot"
at Northampton ; and so at Oxford, on the day of S. Simon and S.
Jude (Oct. 28th). And Earl Harold was there, and would work their
reconciliation if he could, but he could not^, for all his earldom
unanimously renounced and outlawed him [Tostig] and all who raised
up lawlessness with him ; because he first robbed God and bereaved
all those of life and of land over whom he had power. And they then
took to them Morkere for earl, and Tostig went over sea.'
In two other Chronicles, viz. D and E, it is recorded that there was
at this time a Gemot at Northampton. The passage runs thus: —
' Then came Earl Harold to meet them, and they laid an errand on
him to King Eadward, and also sent messengers with him, and prayed
that they might have Morkere for their Earl. And the king granted
it, and sent Harold again to them at Northampton on the Eve of
S. Simon and S. Jude's mass ; and he made known the same to them,
and gave his hand thereto ; and he there renewed Cnut's law^.'
One version does not discredit the other, for a Gemot may have
been held at Oxford as well as at Northampton, and Harold may
have been at both ; for it will be observed that the one meeting was
held the day after the other, and it was quite possible for Harold, even
with an absolute adherence to dates, to have gone direct from North-
ampton to Oxford, in the twenty-four hours, though it would have
involved a ride of nearly sixty miles. In the then state of the king-
dom, and the important issues at stake, such rapidity was necessary.
Florence of Worcester, copied more or less verbally by other writers,
mentions the meeting at Oxford as well as that at Northampton : —
' Afterwards nearly all those of his followers \comitatus\ assembled
together at Northampton and met Harold Earl of the West Saxons,
and the others whom the King, at Tosti's request, had sent to them in
order to restore peace. Where first of all, and afterwards at Oxford,
on the feast of the apostles SS. Simon and Jude, they all unanimously
opposed their assent, when Harold and several of the others tried to
reconcile Tosti to them'^'
1 The first is from A.-S. Chron. C. Chron. D and E omit the mention of the
Gemot at Oxford, and Chron. F has ceased with the year 1058 ; Chron. D, however,
mentions fully, and Chron. E very briefly, the circumstance of Harold being sent to
Northampton. Appendix A, §§ 70-71.
^ Flor. of Wore, stib anno 1065. Mon. Hist. Brit. p. 612. Appendix A, § 72.
i8a THE EARLY HISTORY OF OXFORD.
Henry of Huntingdon has evidently used Chronicles D and E,
and only mentions the meeting at Northampton ; while William of
Malmesbury confines his remarks to an account of the revolt.
The writer of the Vita ^duuardi Regis, a work which must have
been composed between 1066 and 1074, after speaking of the
slaughter at York and Lincoln, states that a vast number of rebels
massed together continued their course — ' like a whirlwind or storm '
— past the middle of England till they reached Axoneuorde^. There is
no doubt that Oxford is meant, although the spelling is singular.
This implies that the rebellious mob were accompanying the leaders.
Harold might therefore have made a stand, and attempted to treat at
Northampton, but might have been obliged, in consequence of the
overwhelming mass of insurgents, to fall back upon Oxford, and continue
the Gemot there, since a Gemot held under the former circumstances
could not have been attended with any satisfactory results.
The importance of what was done at this Gemot at Oxford cannot
be over-estimated. The king, it would appear, was favourable to making
at least an attempt to crush the rebellion, which was instigated, there
could be but little doubt, by the house of ^Ifgar, as they would be the
only gainers ; but earl Harold was for listening to the demands of the
leaders for the sake of peace.
There is no reason to give credence to the speeches which different
historians put into the mouths of the respective parties ; we have before
us certain elements, and we have also before us the results of their
combination, and we are able to take perhaps a more unbiassed view
than those who lived at the time, and who were in one way or another
affected by the revolt. It is clear that Harold anticipated that by
sacrificing his brother to the insurgents, he would win the allegiance
of the Northumbrians on the one hand, and yet, on the other, not lose
the friendship of his brother so completely that any harm would come
of it. He made a great mistake in both his anticipations. He gained
only the contempt of the lawless bands who had come down from the
north ravaging the country wherever they went, by condoning their
offences. At the same time he gained only the enmity of the steadier
men, whose lands had been then ravaged by those bands. The
Chronicle in simple terms speaks of the great harm they did : —
'And the Rythrenan did great harm about Northampton while he
[Harold] went on their errand, inasmuch as they slew men and burned
houses, and corn, and took all the cattle which they could come at,
^ From the Harleian MS. (No. 526), printed in Lives of Edward the Confessor,
Rolls Series, p. 422, Vita Edwardi, line 1157. The MS. is of the twelfth century.
OXFORD BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST. l^T,
that was many thousand : and many hundred men they took and led
north with them ; so that the shire and the other shires that were nigh
them were for many winters the worse '.'
Morkere, who led the revolt, would have been the chief gainer by the
decision of the Gemot; but there is not the remotest chance of any
spark of gratitude having been aroused in his heart by Harold's exhi-
bition of weakness. Lastly, in his treatment of his brother, Harold made
not only an enemy, but one whose enmity, as it turned out, was the most
formidable of all with which he had to contend, because it was exhibited
at the most inopportune moment which could possibly have occurred.
Before turning the leaf which brings us to the end of the story, it
may be worth while to notice that, according to Chronicle D, an im-
portant clause in the submission agreed to by Harold acting with the
king's authority, but as already said on his own judgment and against
that of the king, was ' that Cnut's law was renewed.' This is some-
what striking from the fact that it was at Oxford the Gemot of 1018
was held in which occurs the passage ' then the Danes and Angles were
unanimous for Eadgar's law 'I' It is impossible that the phrase means
only that the kingdom should be under one law, that is, the laws of
the land should be obeyed : for when the two passages are put into
juxtaposition, there is evidently something more than this implied.
It is believed that these are the only two instances which occur in the
Chronicles of the agreement as to the law to be observed at any
Gemot, and therefore their interpretation must be based upon the
several circumstances attending the two occasions on which the words
were used. The mention in both instances of the special law implies
a priori that at least there was another code in existence, and there
cannot be much doubt that there were two, namely the Danish code
which had been tacitly allowed to make its way in the land occupied
by the Danes ; and the English code, which was understood by the
expression of Eadgar's law. There had been, roughly speaking, a
northern kingdom, and a southern kingdom, and a northern law, and
a southern law. In 10 18 Oxford was the scene of an agreement
made by a Witan, presided over by a truly Danish king, that the
English law should be the law of England. In 1065 is held another
Gemot in the same place, assembled by the English king's orders, and
nominally presided over by his representative, acquiescing in the
' Anglo-Saxon Chronicles D, E, sub anno 1065, and continuation of passage
quoted from D, E, ante, p. 181. In E the unknown word ' Rythrenan' appears as
' Nortliernan men': but it is open to question whether it is not a conjectural
emendation of the compiler of Chron. E, and that the meaning of the original
word had been lost. Appendix A, § 73. - See ante, [>. 161.
184 THE EARLY HISTORY OF OXFORD.
decision that the Danish code should be the code of England. There
is strong probability therefore in this distinction recorded by the
Chronicles being of set purpose, when we remember that Harold was
dealing with a large and powerful body, representing especially the
land which was so long under the Dane law, and which was now again
separating itself, in fact, though acknowledging a nominal obedience to
the government of the rest of England. If this is the case it is very
humiliating, and the submission of 1065 must be put in the same
category as that of 10 13, the result of Ethelred's incompetence, of which
William of Malmesbury, paraphrasing the Chronicle, writes : ' Soon
coming to the southern districts, Sweyn obliged the men of Oxford
and Winchester to obey his laws\' If this was but one of the results
it is not a Gemot of which Oxford can be proud. But the worst was
to come.
King Eadward died on January 5, 1066, and Harold had been duly
elected king. The Norman writers, of course, find numerous flaws in
the election ; but the object is so palpably by way of apology for
William's seizure of the English crown that they are not deserving of
serious attention. He was elected no doubt by the Witan in London,
as representative probably as circumstances would admit.
By May of the same year Tostig, the banished earl, had brought
together a fleet with a view of regaining that of which he naturally
thought himself wrongly deprived, and was attacking the southern shores
of England. At the same time observing the division in the kingdom
which Eadwine and Morkere had effected, a Norwegian king, Harold
Hardrada, following in the wake of the Danish kings and jarls of old,
came to see what he could gain by an incursion upon the unfortunate
country. The banished earl threw his lot in with the Norwegian king, and
it is suggested that he even prompted him to the act ; certain it is that
by September, 1066, the two were together in command of a large
army, and marching to York. How far Eadwine and Morkere really
attempted to defend their own kingdom against the foreign enemy and
the former earl, cannot be well ascertained ; all that is clear is that
they were unsuccessful and appealed to the English king for help.
Harold generously, without thinking of his own danger, though he
might well have known what was in preparation on the coast of
Normandy, and though in ill health, obeyed the summons, and hastened
so rapidly to the scene of action, that before September closed he was
at Stamford Bridge, and won back, as it appears in the sequel, rather
for Eadwine and Morkere than for England, the kingdoms of Northum-
' See ante, p. 153.
OXFORD BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 185
bria and ]\Iercia, which were at the moment at the mercy of Harold
Hardrada and Tostig.
Scarcely had the victory been won, when the news of William's
landing on the coast of Sussex arrived. King Harold ought, mean-
while, to have been gathering his army in his own kingdom of Wessex ;
and if this had been the case William would, at his landing, have had
far different circumstances to contend with, and the unequal battle
near Hastings (to the place of which Orderic Vital alone of all
historians has given the name of Senlac^) would probably never
have been fought. Of course, as the Norman influence had been
allowed to grow to a great extent during King Eadward's reign, it is
possible that eventually England might have been subjected to the
Norman rule ; but the decisive victory gained by the Normans on
October 14th, 1066, which led to the coronation of Duke William
at Westminster on Christmas Day of the same year, was due to the
journey to York to resist Tostig. Eadwine and Morkere of course kept
their own men back ; they were glad enough to cry to Harold for aid
in their need, but with gratitude as absent as when Harold con-
firmed them in their aggression upon the kingdom to the detriment
of his own brother's welfare. These two earls had taken the best of
West Saxon blood to help them in Mercia, but evidently declined
to send a single man to help Harold in Wessex.
It was to be expected. The events, as already said, without the aid
of historians to narrate imaginary conversations and suggest possible
motives, tell their own tale. The decision of the Gemot at Oxford
was at the bottom of the whole matter. At that Gemot, contrary to
the king's wish, Harold listened to the pleas of rebels, and trusting
Eadwine and INIorkere, threw over Tostig ; all the rest followed in due
course. It was in 1009, at Oxford, that the betrayal of the northern
rulers, Sigeferth and Morkere, by the old traitor, Eadric, took place.
In 1065 it was no less a betrayal of the patriot Harold, by the no less
traitors, in fact, Eadwine and another Morkere. The complement of
the one was the subjection of England to Cnut, the Danish king.
The direct result of the other was the leaving England open to the easy
victory of William, the Norman duke, when he landed in Sussex.
' There is no mention of this name in the charters concerning the foundation of
Battle Abbey on the spot.
CHAPTER X.
Oxford during the Twenty Years after thz
Norman Conquest.
After the great battle, Duke William's march to London was com-
paratively easy. Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and Hampshire had been too
severely taxed in supplying men to meet the Conqueror on his landing,
to offer any serious resistance. In fact from these counties nearly the
whole of the forces employed by Harold must have been procured, for
from the north bank of the Thames it would appear that he had
obtained hardly any assistance whatever. We know little of what
occurred after the battle, for the few lines which comprise all the record
left by the two or three historians on which we have to rely, are very
imperfect, if not contradictory. But as the neighbourhood of Oxford
is by some made the scene of an important event in the Conqueror's
march before he was crowned king, and as Oxford itself is made by
nearly all historians to have been besieged either immediately before,
or soon after his coronation, it is necessary to examine somewhat
closely the evidence on which such statements are based.
Two only of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles remain ^ which record the
details of the conquest. Of these Chronicle D is the fullest, but in
it the whole story of the conquest is summed up in the few lines
following : —
' 1066 . . . And Count William went afterwards again to Hastings, and
there awaited whether the nation would submit to him ; but when he
perceived that they would not come to him he went up with all his army
which was left to him, and what had afterwards come over sea to him,
and harried all that part which he passed over until he came to Beorh-
hamstede. And there came to meet him Archbishop Ealdred, and
Eadgar child, and Earl Eadwine, and Earl Morkere, and all the best
men of London, and these from necessity submitted when the greatest
harm had been done ; and they gave hostages, and swore oaths to him ;
* The original Winchester copy A, or rather its continuation, has become so
meagre in its notes, with sometimes not a dozen lines to twenty years, that it is
quite useless. The Canterbury copy B ceased with the year 975. The Chronicle
C, supposed to have been compiled at Abingdon, ceased with the battle at Stamford
Bridge in 1066; while Chronicle F ceased with 1056. There remains therefore
only Chronicle D, supposed to have been compiled at Worcester, and Chronicle
E, supposed to have been compiled at Peterborough, and which is preserved in the
Bodleian Library.
OXFORD AFTER THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 187
and he promised them that he would be a kind lord to them ; and yet
during this, they harried all that they passed over- Then on Midwinter's
day [December 25], Archbishop Ealdred hallowed him king at West-
minster; and he pledged him on Christ's book, and also swore, before
he would set the crown on his head, that he would govern this nation
as well as any kini,' before him had best done, if they would be faith-
ful to him. Nevertheless he laid a very heavy contribution on the
people, and then, in Lent, went over sea to Normandy, and took with
him Archbishop Stigand, and ^Egelnoth, abbot of Glastonbury, and
Eadgar child, and Earl Eadwine, and Earl Morkere, and Earl Waltheof,
and many other good men of England ^'
In Chronicle E we find a still shorter summary, as follows : —
'And the while Count "William landed at Hastings on S. Michael's
mass-day ; and Harold came from the north and fought against him
before his army had all come, and there he fell, and his two brothers,
Gyrth and Leofwine ; and William subdued the land, and came to
Westminster, and Archbishop Ealdred hallowed him king ; and men
paid him tribute and gave him hostages, and afterwards bought their
land -.'
Florence of Worcester, writing before 1 1 1 8, follows Chronicle D,
though in other words, and apparendy without other material: —
' Meanwhile Duke William ravaged Sussex, Kent, Southamptonshire,
Surrey, Middlesex, and Hertford, and ceased not to burn towns and
kill men, till he came to the vill which is called Beorcham, where
Archbishop Aldred, Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester, Walter, Bishop of
Hereford, Eadgar the Atheling, Earls Eadwin and Morcar, and several
nobles from London, with many others came to him, and gave hostages,
and made submission to him, and swore fidelity. And with these he
made a treaty ; nevertheless he allowed his army to burn towns and
to plunder. . . . And on Christmas Day he was consecrated with great
honour by Aldred, Archbishop of York, at Westminster^.'
Simeon of Durham (or at least the writer of the Chronicle bearing
his name, circa 1130), follows the above verbatim*, as also Roger of
Hoveden writing circa 11 75. William of Malmesbury, writing about
1 1 20, seems not to have come across a Chronicle of the D type, with any
mention of Beorhhamstede, and it is probable that he has only extended
Chronicle E, adding his own inferences.
* By degrees William marched on with his army (as became a con-
queror) not in a hostile but in a royal manner, and went to London,
* Anglo-Saxon Chronicle D, sub anno. Appendix A, § 74.
* Anglo-Saxon Chronicle E, sub anno. Appendix A, § 75.
' Florence of Worcester, Chronicon. Printed in Mon. Hist. Brit. p. 615. Ap-
pendix A, § 76.
* Simeon of Durham, De Gestis Regum Anglorum. Printed in Twisden's
Scriptores Decern, col. 195. Rogfer of Hoveden. Rolls Series, 1868, vol. i. p. 117.
1 88 THE EARLY HISTORY OF OXFORD.
the chief city of the kingdom ; and immediately all the citizens poured
forth to meet him on the way with welcome ; a crowd rushed forth
from all the gates to greet him, the nobles at their head, especially
Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Aldred of York ; for a few
days before Edwin and Morcard, the brothers who had so much ex-
pectation, when they heard in London of Harold's death, had entreated
the citizens to raise one or other of them on the throne, and when
they had found their endeavours vain they had departed to North-
umbria, imagining according to their own ideas that William would
never come thither. The other nobles would have chosen Edgar
had they had the Bishops amongst their supporters. . . . Then he
(William) having been undoubtedly proclaimed king, was crowned on
Christmas Day by Archbishop Aldred ^'
Henry of Huntingdon, writing in 1135, compresses the whole into
a couple of hnes.
'William having gained so great a victory was received by the people
of London peaceably, and was crowned at Westminster by Aldred,
Archbishop of York ^'
William of Poitiers, however, writing perhaps soon after the event
itself, seems to have heard a different story altogether. He knows
nothing of Beorhhamstede or Beorcham, but he takes William across
the Thames to a certain ' Guarengeford,' which has been supposed
(and probably rightly) to be meant for Wallingford. After mentioning
the capture of Dover and the submission of the men of Canterbury, he
refers to Archbishop Stigand and other magnates of the kingdom dis-
cussing at London who should succeed Harold, ' while he who was to
be their actual king was hastening on his way.' He then writes : —
* The five hundred of the Norman cavalry which had been sent for-
ward by William, put to flight the company of soldiers which had
sallied forth against him, and drove them back within the walls of the
city. In addition to considerable slaughter, they burnt whatever
buildings they found on this side of the river. . . . The Duke then
marching forward in whatever direction he pleased, and crossing the
river Thames, both by the ford and by the bridge, reached the town
of Giiarengefort. Stigand, the Metropolitan Archbishop, coming
to this very place, delivered himself into his hands Thence pro-
1 William of Malmesbury, Gesta Rcgtiin, lib. iii. § 247. Engl. Hist. Soc. ed.
1840, vol. ii. p. 421. Appendix A, § 77.
^ Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglonitn. Rolls Series, 1S79, p. 204.
Appendix A, § 78. The very peaceful entry into London, and the welcome given
by the citizens, as recorded or imagined by William of Malmesbury and Henry of
Huntingdon, seems to be the view popularly followed by later chroniclers : e. g.
Wyke's Chronicle {Annaks A/onastict, Rolls Series, iv. p. 7) has ' assecuto tarn
felici trmmpho, dux cum suis pompatice procedens, primo civitatem Wyntoniae,
deinde civitatem Londoniae brevissimo labore, nullo sibi lesistente, pessundedii.'
OXFORD AFTER THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 189
ceeding forward, immediately that London was in sight, there came
out to meet him the chief persons of the city, and they delivered up
themselves and all the city to be obedient to him, just as the people of
Canterbury had already done ^'
It is later on, and after William's coronation, that he makes Eadwine
and Morkere submit ; thus : —
'Having departed out of London he spent some days in a neighbour-
ing place, Bercingis. . . . There came to offer obedience to him there
Edwine and Morcard ; the chief of almost all the English in rank and
power, the renowned sons of that Algard ; and they seek his pardon '^.'
It will be observed that the more complete continuation of the Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle brings William at once from Sussex to Beorham-
stede. There a treaty is made and he proceeds to Westminster to be
crowned. The less complete, takes him from Sussex to Westminster
without narrating any intervening circumstance except what is con-
tained under the words ' subdued the land ^' Florence of Worcester,
enlarging upon the first of the two, incorporates his inferences
into the history. He infers that William would have passed through
part of Sussex, Kent, Hampshire, Surrey, Middlesex and Hertford-
shire, and therefore he adds that he ravaged those counties. By his
introducing Hertfordshire, he may perhaps be said to imply that he
understood the * Beorhamstede ' of the Chronicle to mean Berkham-
stead, though he writes the name Beorcham. All this, however, is
ignored by William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, who
make Duke William enter London at once, and that peacefully ; while
it may be said to be contradicted by William of Poitiers. None of the
three seem to have heard of Berkhamstead, but the last has either
heard or has invented the story that Duke William attempted to enter
^ William of Poitiers, Gesta Giiillclmi Diicis. Piinted in Duchesne's Historia
Normannorum Scriptorcs, Paris, 1619, p. 205. We are dependent wholly upon
the printed copy. There was only one MS., but as to whether it was the writer's
autograph or an imperfect transcript there is difference of opinion. Originally in
the Cottonian Library, it was lent to Duchesne to print from. It appears he never