One Snowy Night: Long ago at OxfordHolt, Emily Sarah
General
One Snowy Night: Long ago at Oxford
Holt, Emily Sarah
Historical fiction, English
According to the monkish chroniclers, not one survived. But one
elaborate argument may be found, by an eminent antiquary (_Archaologia_,
nine 292-309), urging that survivors of this company were probably the
ancestors of a mysterious group entitled "Waldenses," who appear in the
Public Records in after years as tenants, and not improbably vassals, of
the Archbishop of Canterbury. They paid to that See 4 shillings per
annum for waste land; 3 shillings 4 pence for "half a plough of land of
gable;" 5 shillings 4 pence at each of the four principal feasts, with
32 and a half pence in lieu of autumnal labours--_i.e._, mowing,
reaping, etcetera. When the Archbishop was resident on the manor of
Darenth, they had to convey corn for his household, in consideration of
which they received forage from his barns, and a corrody or regular
allowance of food and clothing from a monastery. I am not competent to
judge how far the contention of the writer is valid; but the possibility
of such a thing seemed to warrant the supposition in a tale that one or
two of the company might have escaped the fate which undoubtedly
overtook the majority of the mission.
The story may be found in a condensed form in Milner's Church History,
Three, 459.
Every one of the singular names, as well as prices, and various other
details, has been taken from the Pipe Rolls of Henry Second, from the
first to the twenty-seventh year. All the characters are fictitious
excepting the Royal Family, the Earl and Countess of Oxford, the members
of the Council, Gerhardt himself, and--simply as regards their
existence--Osbert the porter, his wife Anania, and Aliz de Norton, who
are entered on the Pipe Roll as inhabitants of Oxford at this date.
The language spoken at that time, whether French or English, would be
wholly unintelligible to read, if enough of it had come down to us to
make it possible to be written. It seemed best, therefore, to use
ordinary modern English, flavoured with the Oxfordshire dialect, and now
and then varied by antique expressions.
THE END.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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