On February 10 1355, Walter de Springheuse, Roger de Chesterfield and their companions from Oxford University walked into the Swindlestock Tavern. A disagreement over the quality of the wine resulted in an argument. The university men angered by the “stubborn and saucy language” of the wine-seller, threw the wine and its container at his head. The wine-seller expressed his anger to his friends and family, who armed themselves with bows and arrows and shot at the scholars and the chancellor who arrived to calm the situation down.
The following day, hostilities recommenced with serious results: 20 inns or halls were ransacked and several scholars were wounded, some killed. As the chancellor set out for nearby Woodstock to see the king, the violence in town continued. More university halls were broken into, more scholars were killed and maimed. This was the St Scholastica’s day riot.
http://theconversation.com/the-medieval-power-struggles-that-helped-forge-todays-universities-54298 .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_qenvmPitg
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Trouble started (Tuesday 10 February 1355) in the Swindlestock tavern at Carfax, when a group of scholars threw wine into the landlord's face and beat him with the empty pot. From such a small beginning violence spread rapidly, townsmen rallying to the innkeeper's support, clerks to the scholars', despite the efforts of town and university authorities to restore peace. On the second day of fighting a large body of countrymen marched into the town to support the townsmen, and their combined forces proved too strong for the scholars who fled the town or took shelter in the academic halls, of which many were sacked. Both sides accused the other of robbing, wounding, and killing; 6 clerks were alleged to have been killed and 21 seriously injured, but no account survives of the town's casualties. Although the town won the fight, the university won the peace, and most of the powers which it had sought during the previous century and a half were granted or confirmed in 1355.
The riot and its consequences were a serious blow to a community already devastated by plague. The Black Death reached Oxford in November 1348 and seems to have raged until June 1349. Mortality was high: at least 57 wills made in that period were enrolled in the town's register, compared with the usual three or four a year, and a further six survive elsewhere. The register was of wills devising real property, and thus illustrates the sufferings of the town's elite. The increase in registrations is remarkable, even allowing for the fact that unusual care was taken to enrol wills during the plague. Assuming that most wills were made in extremis it seems that mortality was high by January 1349, when 10 wills were made, reached a peak in April (16 wills), and was more or less over by June (2 wills). The victims included two current mayors, Richard Selwood in April and Richard Cary in June. The parish clergy, a group unrepresented in the wills, probably suffered at least as badly as the property-owning burgesses: between April and December 1349 the incumbents of 7 of the 14 parish churches were replaced, at least 5 of the vacancies having been created by death. The colleges and religious houses may have escaped more lightly, because of better living conditions, but the abbess of Godstow, the prioress of Littlemore, 2 chancellors of the university, and 2 provosts of Oriel College died.
Although little is known of the mortality among ordinary townsmen it is likely to have been at least as high as that among the parish clergy.
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol4/pp3-73
http://www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/mayors/government/scholastica.html
http://theconversation.com/the-medieval-power-struggles-that-helped-forge-todays-universities-54298
http://www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/mayors/1348_1485/index.html
http://floridaverve.org/one-of-historys-oldest-battles-town-vs-gown/ .
