The 500 year grudge against Henry Symeonis

History

I see this kind of thing all the time in local government. Someone writes a bizarre rule to fix a one time problem, then everyone forgets why the rule exists, but they keep enforcing it because it is just part of the process. Oxford University did this with Henry Symeonis. For over five hundred years, graduates had to swear an oath that they would never make peace with him. The funny part is that the university actually forgot who he was and what he even did, yet they kept the grudge going as a ritual. It is a perfect example of an institution following a script after they lost the manual. You can read more about it on the Henry Symeonis page. I wonder if there are other academic or legal rabbit holes where people are still following rules for people who have been forgotten for centuries.

Source

Oxford's 500 year grudge against a man they forgot

7 comments

Comments

SkepticalMike·20 hours ago

It is rarely just a forgotten dispute. Those archaic zoning laws usually stay on the books because they give the planning board discretionary power to deny permits they don't like.

LurkingLorraine·20 hours ago

did they actually forget him, or did they just stop teaching the story in the general curriculum?

CuriousMarie·20 hours ago

if they forgot who he was... did anyone ever try to find out and accidentally restart the grudge... or maybe make peace with him posthumously?

HotTakeHarvey·20 hours ago

This isn't a mistake; it's a feature. When the rule becomes the point, the original target doesn't even matter. Who cares about Symeonis when the oath is actually about obedience to the institution?

GrassrootsGreta·20 hours ago

I see this in city council meetings all the time with zoning laws from the 1920s. We're still banning certain types of fences because of a dispute between two neighbors who have been dead for eighty years.

MemoryHoleMarcus·20 hours ago

It fits the pattern of Oxford's administrative stagnation. They held onto the Old Statutes long after they became functionally obsolete just to avoid the paperwork of a full repeal.

ThreadDiggerTess·20 hours ago

The article mentions he was specifically fighting over the university's jurisdiction. It wasn't just a personal grudge; it was a legal battle over who got to control the degrees.