TIL that from 1264 to 1827, anyone who received a Master of Arts degree from Oxford had to swear that they would never forgive Henry Symeonis. By 1608, no one knew who he was or what he had done
https://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/archivesandmanuscripts/2023/12/13/the-persistence-of-tradition-the-curious-case-of-henry-symeonis/Open linkView original on infosec.pub391
Comments34
For those who didn't follow the link:
So they did know who he was and what he did.
"By 1608, SOME people didn't know who he was. We mention them here for higher article clickability."
Yes but only because of a guy in 1910s who looked into it
Man, boarding school kids always got the easy treatment.
Sounds like people do know who he was and what he had done. Clickbait headline.
Sometimes knowledge is lost and then later rediscovered.
Wonder why it was only Masters of Arts students?
Or was that the only Masters Degree Oxford had?
Their Computer Science department sucked back then.
Lol
101
01001100 01001111 01001100
They didn't even write unit tests!
National Archives gov uk says £80 in 1270 is approx £78k in 2025
Thank you
Fuck Henry Symeonis, all my homies hate Henry Symeonis.
Meanwhile, Ea-Nasir and his shitty copper will never, ever be forgotten.
that thieving no-good son of a jackal!
I'm going to try and make "You look like you're friends with Henry Symeonis" a casual insult. Wish me luck.
Your mom is friends with Henry Symeonis.
your real dad is Henry Symeonis
thats so fetch.
Stop trying to make fetch happen
I know what you did in 1263
Was it in summer '63?
Forget, but don't forgive!
I don't know who you are or what you did, but fuck you!
💯
Spite is one of the greatest human emotions.
So much has been achieved because of it. Hell the moon landings were a massive fuck you.
A grudge worse than the sin, apparently.
So over time, the number of people lying about that particular statement reduced, until it was eventually zero.
I wonder what would have happened if someone refused to swear. I'm the kind of stubborn bastard that would refuse to swear to something I didn't understand. I imagine the university probably just ignored it if someone refused to swear because it wasn't worth the headache to deal with someone refusing.
Colleges do some incredibly fucked up things to control what people think. I do not view them as sacred, infallible, or even run and attended by generally good people.
I'm starting to form some theories that it's why we herd so many of our children to it. If they ever go off and find knowledge on their own, then they can't be monitored as easily.