In the annals of bizarre historical events, few are as strange and terrifying as the Black Assizes of Oxford in 1577. It was a court session that began with a routine trial for sedition but ended in a catastrophic outbreak of a mysterious and deadly illness. Over the course of a month, more than 300 people, including the court’s most powerful officials, would die in agony. With no visible signs of plague and a seemingly supernatural speed, the event baffled 16th-century onlookers, who saw it not as an act of nature, but as a divine punishment—a curse unleashed within the courtroom itself. This is the story of a trial that turned into a tomb, a mystery that pits a supernatural curse against a scientific diagnosis hidden in plain sight.
The Trial of the “Foul-Mouthed Bookseller”
The stage for the tragedy was set in early July 1577 at the assize court held at Oxford Castle. The defendant at the center of the proceedings was Roland Jenkes, a local bookseller described by contemporary chroniclers as a “sturdy, saucy, and foul-mouthed stationer.” Jenkes, a Roman Catholic in a time of intense religious persecution under the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I, had been arrested and charged with sedition for speaking slanderous words against the Queen and her government.
The trial was a high-profile affair, presided over by two eminent judges, Sir Robert Bell, the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and Sir John Doyly, the High Sheriff of Oxfordshire. A full jury was assembled, and the courtroom was packed with local gentry, university scholars, and common spectators, all crammed into the tight, poorly ventilated space typical of an Elizabethan courthouse.
Jenkes was defiant and belligerent, but the outcome was never in doubt. He was found guilty and sentenced to have his ears nailed to the pillory, a brutal and humiliating punishment. As the harsh sentence was passed down, a strange and terrible event began to unfold.
A Pestilent Vapour and a Sudden Sickness
According to eyewitness accounts recorded in chronicles like Raphael Holinshed’s, a “pestilent vapour” or a “noisome smell” suddenly emanated from the dock where the prisoners, including Jenkes, were standing. It was described as a “damp” so terrible that many in the courtroom felt faint. At the time, this strange miasma was blamed for what was to come.
Within hours, the sickness began. The first to fall ill was the High Sheriff, Sir John Doyly. Soon after, Judge Robert Bell also took sick. The illness spread with terrifying speed among those who had been present in the courtroom. It was swift and brutal. The symptoms were described as a sudden, violent pain in the head and stomach, followed by a high fever, delirium, and a strange “frenzy” that caused victims to ramble incoherently and lose all sense of their surroundings. Victims reportedly could not sleep and would cry out in agony, “Hold up my head!” or “Let me have some drink!” Most died within a few days.
Over the next month, the mysterious affliction decimated the local elite. In addition to the two judges and the High Sheriff, the list of the dead included most of the jury, several prominent knights and gentlemen, and hundreds of other court officials and spectators. Curiously, the illness seemed to spare the prisoners in the dock, including Roland Jenkes himself, as well as the city’s women and children. This strange selectivity only deepened the mystery and fueled the terrifying belief that this was no ordinary disease.
The Curse of Roland Jenkes
In an age where science was still in its infancy and the hand of God was seen in every event, the people of Oxford looked for a supernatural explanation. The most popular theory was that the “plague” was a curse, a divine judgment unleashed upon the court for the harsh sentence handed down to Roland Jenkes.
It was said that Jenkes, in a fit of rage, had summoned a demonic force or called upon God to avenge him. The “pestilent vapour” was seen not as a natural phenomenon, but as the physical manifestation of this curse sweeping over the court officials who had condemned him. The fact that Jenkes and the other prisoners were seemingly unaffected was taken as proof. It was not their sickness; it was a sickness sent for them. This narrative of a courtroom curse took hold in the public imagination, transforming the Black Assizes into a legendary tale of supernatural retribution.
The Scientific Explanation: Gaol Fever
For centuries, the story of the Black Assizes remained a historical curiosity, a chilling ghost story. But modern science has provided a far more plausible, though no less horrifying, explanation. The mysterious illness was almost certainly a massive outbreak of “gaol fever,” a term used for centuries to describe the diseases that were rampant in the squalid, overcrowded prisons of the time. Today, we know it as epidemic typhus.
Epidemic typhus is a bacterial disease (Rickettsia prowazekii) transmitted by the bite of the human body louse. The conditions in an Elizabethan jail, like the one at Oxford Castle, were a perfect breeding ground for both the disease and its vectors. Prisoners were packed together in dark, filthy, unventilated cells with no sanitation, rarely able to wash themselves or their clothes. They were crawling with lice.
On the day of the trial, Jenkes and the other prisoners were brought from these squalid conditions into the equally crowded and poorly ventilated courtroom. As they stood in the dock for hours, the lice carrying the typhus bacteria would have abandoned their feverish hosts in search of new ones. They would have crawled onto the clothes of the nearest people—the court officials, the jury, the well-dressed gentry packed in around the front. This explains the seemingly selective nature of the outbreak; it wasn’t a curse targeting the elite, but a disease vector moving from the prisoners to those in closest proximity.
The symptoms described by the chroniclers—high fever, severe headache, delirium, and a rash (which may have been overlooked or not mentioned)—are all classic signs of typhus. The “pestilent vapour” was likely just the foul stench emanating from the unwashed prisoners, a smell that was later conflated with the cause of the disease itself.
The Black Assizes of Oxford was not a supernatural event. It was a tragic, man-made disaster, a direct result of the inhumane and unsanitary conditions of the Elizabethan justice system. The “curse” was, in reality, a cloud of infected lice, a microscopic monster far more terrifying than any demon Roland Jenkes could have summoned.
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