The Bocardo Prison in Oxford, England existed until 1771. Its origins were medieval, and its most famous prisoners were the Protestant

Oxford martyrs The Oxford Martyrs were Protestants tried for heresy in 1555 and burnt at the stake in Oxford, England, for their religious beliefs and teachings, during the Marian persecution in England. The three martyrs were the Church of England bishop ...

( Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley) in 1555. Other prisoners included a number of Quakers, like Elizabeth Fletcher, among the first preachers of the Friends to come to Oxford in 1654. It was located near the church of

St Michael at the North Gate __NOTOC__ St Michael at the North Gate is a church in Cornmarket Street, at the junction with Ship Street, in central Oxford, England. The name derives from the church's location on the site of the north gate of Oxford when it was surrounded b ...

; the prison consisted in fact of rooms in a watchtower by Oxford's North Gate, the tower being attributed to Robert D'Oyly, a Norman of the eleventh century, though also said to be originally a Saxon construction of c. 1000–50; the gate itself was called also Bocardo Gate. The rooms were over the gate, and there was a box in the church for charitable contributions to the prisoners.

History

John Powderham John Deydras (died 1318), also known as John of Powderham, was a pretender to the English throne during the reign of Edward II. He was executed by hanging and his body was burnt. Background By 1318, Edward II of England was increasingly unpop ...

, who claimed to be the real king in the reign of Edward II of England, was imprisoned there in or shortly before 1318, prior to being hanged. The prison was demolished in 1771, for a road construction scheme, following an Act of Parliament in 1770, and as part of the wider city redevelopment in Oxford under John Gwynn.

Name

''Bocardo'' is also a mnemonic for a traditional

syllogism A syllogism ( grc-gre, συλλογισμός, ''syllogismos'', 'conclusion, inference') is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true. ...

in scholastic logic. An example: Some cats have no tails. All cats are mammals. Some mammals have no tails. There is a folk etymology for the name: because Bocardo was found to be one of the harder forms of valid syllogism for students to learn, it was said to be the name of a prison that was hard to escape from. One of the rooms in

Newgate Prison Newgate Prison was a prison at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey Street just inside the City of London, England, originally at the site of Newgate, a gate in the Roman London Wall. Built in the 12th century and demolished in 1904, t ...

was also named ''bocardo''. An essay presented to the Oxford University Genealogical and Heraldic Society in 1835 suggested that the name was "derived from the

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

, ''bochord'', a library or archive". It also says that it is "probable" that "the academic prison lent its name to logic".

Notes

{{Prisons in South East England Buildings and structures in Oxford Defunct prisons in Oxfordshire 1771 disestablishments in England Defunct prisons in England

History

Name

See also

Notes