Falconer's Crusade by Ian Morson — Read

The streets of Oxford at this hour would normally be waking to the noise of students, refreshed by a simple draught of ale and a stale crust from the day before. Like streamlets pouring into one great confluence, bodies garbed in a rich variety of styles and colours would rouse any late risers with their robust chatter as they filled every narrow lane leading to the High Street. Richer clerks, destined for high office of State, favoured brighter colours - scarlet and blue - whereas the tunics of poorer ones were confined to rustic browns. Scattered in the crowd would be the more sober attire of the Masters, crowned with fur-lined hoods. All would be making their way to Schools Street, that narrow lane of rooms hired by the Masters to teach in their different faculties.

Also at this time the traders of the town would be lowering their wooden shutters to form counters to display their wares. The smell of bakers at their work would cause many a hungry student to yearn for his dinner, four hours away between terce and sext. The sight of sides of meat at the butcher's would cause the student entrusted with the purchase of food for his hall to think what his farthing might fetch him. The smell of ale and wine mingled with that of leather in the bootmaker's. Outnumbering the students as they did, the ordinary people of the town lived in an uneasy truce with the university. Successive royal charters had asserted the power of the chancellor over the town. Still, there was a living to be made out of so many hungry mouths, even if the chancellor regulated the traders' profits. What did they care if St Augustine had proclaimed business an evil that turned men from true rest in God? Didn't a man have to live and feed his family?