The privileged tradesmen of Oxford
A privileged person (or privilegiatus) was someone granted the privileges of the University of Oxford via matriculation. Very few of these privilegiati were visiting scholars, with most being local inhabitants who served the University or the colleges in some capacity. These were commonly known as matriculated tradesmen, and by the 1520s a fifth of the town’s taxable inhabitants had that status.
The University was forced to matriculate its own employees because the city council allowed only its own freemen to trade in Oxford. While some of these matriculated people worked for colleges in the capacity of butlers or servants, others traded in the city in university-orientated trades, for example as booksellers. They were not required to serve an apprenticeship. From 1581 to 1854 privilegiati had to swear at their matriculation an oath of allegiance not only to the monarchy but also to the Established Church, which meant that Nonconformists were automatically excluded from working for the University or colleges.
By far the greatest number of privileged persons were the tonsores (barbers). Members of the Company of Barbers (which had been incorporated by the Chancellor of the University as early as 1348 and existed until 1859) dined once a year with the Vice-Chancellor and supped annually with the Proctors. Their duties would include shaving as well as cutting hair, and some of them would also have been phlebotomists and dentists.
Approximately a thousand matriculated tradesmen are listed in Alumni Oxonienses, which means that the vast majority are omitted. For instance very few of the many college servants (ranging in status from “scrape-trencher” to butler) whose wills were proved in the Chancellor's Court (see online wills index) have their matriculation recorded.
Right: Robert Sutton (c.1666–1742), who is described on his memorial in Beckley Church as “Barber in the University of Oxford”, is not listed in Alumni Oxonienses
The trades of privileged persons were usually given in Latin in Alumni Oxonienses: for example, the chicken keeper matriculated in 1761 was a “Pullarius” and the hosiery seller of 1822 was a "Tibialium mercator":
- List of Latin names of trades held by those privileged persons listed in Alumni Oxonienses
A matriculated tradesman would have been exempt in certain respects from the jurisdiction of the town, so in any disputes the townsmen sued them in the Vice-Chancellor’s Court.
A privileged person could renounce his matriculation: on 9 December 1801 it was agreed by the Council that: “The petition of John Hawkins being read Resolved that he be restored to the freedom of this City upon his renouncing his matriculation with the University.” (This was probably the John Hawkins who had been matriculated as a barber on 5 April 1897.)
On 12 November 1811 the Council minuted:
A representation being made to this House that in several instances matriculated persons do greatly exceed their priviledges [sic] by branching out into other trades and occupations than those to which they are matriculated to the prejudice of the Freemen and their priviledges Resolved that a committee of this House be appointed to represent this complaint to the Reverend the Vice Chancellor of the University, and to confer (if necessary) with a Committee of that Body — and that the Committee of this House consist of the Mayor, Town Clerk, Solicitor, Mr Alderman Parsons, Mr Herbert Parsons and Mr Henry Taunton, and that they be instructed to request in the name of this House that the University will either restrain the persons above alluded to to the occupation to which they are matriculated or that the City may not be considered as acting offensively towards the University in taking the proper measures for confining such persons to their matriculated trades, or for taking up their freedom of the City and thereby entitling themselves to carry on other and additional trades agreeably to the established rights of this City.
The dentist William Lukyn boasted in his advertisements in Jackson's Oxford Journal from 1833 that he had been “matriculated by the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford”.
The practice of matriculating tradesmen should have come to an end at the time of the Municipal Reform Act of 1835, but in fact tradesmen were matriculated until 1874. William Sherwood in Oxford Yesterday and Today gives this explanation:
I spoke of a Matriculated Tradesman. These were an interesting survival from old days … they survived at this time mainly because they provided men to fill up the jury in case the University Coroner had to hold an inquest during the vacation, when it might be difficult to find twelve real members of the University in residence. That they might do this, they were brought before the Vice-Chancellor and admonished to keep the Statutes, and duly matriculated.
Some disputes relating to privileged persons
- 1601. On 18 August 1601 it was reported that, “Whereas Mr John Willis, brewer, beeing a priveledged person of Thuniversitie, became lately a freeman of this cytie; and for that cause Thuniversitie maligning him have verie uncharitablie discharged him from serving of beere unto New Colledg and other places, where hee had custome, whereby hee is like to bee ympoverished and quyte undone unlesse the citie in charitie take regard of his estate; therefore yt shall bee lawfull for the said John Willis to absent himself from this howse and from all meetings of the citizens and from bearing any offyce within this cytie, so long as hee shall thincke good, his othe before taken to this cytie in any wyse notwithstanding.”
- 1729. On 5 September a petition from several citizens was read at a council meeting, setting forth that a matriculated person called James Tredwell [Alum. Oxon. records that had been matriculated as a college cook on September 1721] kept an open shop and sold several wares and merchandise to the great detriment of certain freemen trading in the City, and it was agreed that speedy action would be taken to put a stop to his carrying on this trade.
- 1794. In his Recollections of Oxford, G.V. Cox records how in August 1794 the barber William Taman (whose date of matriculation is recorded in Alumni. Oxonienses as 13 April 1778) was prosecuted by the City of Oxford at the Assizes for encroaching on their privileges by selling glass and china without being a Freeman. Taman was encouraged by the University to fight the case on the grounds of his university matriculation privilege, but the Counsel at his trial said to him, “You and your brother barbers might hold the basin, but the gentlemen of the jury will tell you, by their sentence, that you were not privileged to sell one.” Thus Taman lost his case, incurring considerable expense, and had to shut up his shop.
For more information, see:
Andrew Clark, Register of the University of Oxford, Vol. II (1571–1622), Part I, Vol. II.
The extensive “Privileged Persons" section on pp. 381–406 gives more information about privilegiati,
and lists c.450 individuals who were matriculated with that status between 1571 and 1622
The section on Privileged persons in the Victoria County History.
