Town and Gown
THE University has so overshadowed the City of Oxford that it provides almost a new field of local history. The town is well situated. Roads *Om London to Southampton and from the East to the West of England cross at Carfax, and therefore Oxford was a prosperous market town, with water defences and river transport, until the University arrived. The author places this rather later in the twelfth century than some scholars do. The first serious clash was in 1209 and from then until the nineteenth century, with the peak of the warfare on St. Scholastica's day, February 10, 1355, when sixty-three scholars were killed, the feuds between the two corporations continued, with the University winning each time because it was favoured by the king. Eventually it gained control of the markets, the machinery for fixing ptices and quality of goods, the police and the law courts. Citizens might be run off the streets at night or tried in a University court and all purveyors to the University were privileged persons. The University resented high rents and dear ,food and the Town resented privilege. The blood that flowed between St. Martin's and St. Mary's was the result.
Mrs. Fasnacht has made a more interesting and important book than she claims. Her use of material is imaginative and revealing. She has a nice eye for the frailties of human nature and the picture of the Councillors occupied with 'apparel' for processions and perfecting a technique for frustrating the University has entertain- ment value. Nineteenth century problems of poverty and disease are studied and a good index, full quotations from sources and several appendices add to the value of the book which is brought up to date by comments of town planning, and the promised clearance of the gas works site. The author thinks that, though Oxford was lovelier, quieter and smaller fifty years ago, it was not a better place for the average working man or woman to live in.
HELEN FITZRANDOLPH
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