TheBocardo Prison inOxford, England existed until 1771. Its origins were medieval, and its most famous prisoners were the ProtestantOxford martyrs (Thomas Cranmer,Hugh Latimer andNicholas Ridley) in 1555.[1] Other prisoners included a number ofQuakers, like Elizabeth Fletcher, among the first preachers of the Friends to come to Oxford in 1654.[2]
It was located near the church ofSt Michael at the North Gate; the prison consisted in fact of rooms in a watchtower by Oxford's North Gate, the tower being attributed toRobert D'Oyly, a Norman of the eleventh century,[3] though also said to be originally a Saxon construction of c. 1000–50;[4] the gate itself was called also Bocardo Gate.[5] The rooms were over the gate, and there was a box in the church for charitable contributions to the prisoners.[6]
John Powderham, who claimed to be the real king in the reign ofEdward II of England, was imprisoned there in or shortly before 1318, prior to being hanged.[7] 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 underJohn Gwynn.[1][8]
Bocardo is also amnemonic for a traditionalsyllogism inscholastic 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 inNewgate Prison was also namedbocardo.[9] An essay presented to the Oxford University Genealogical and Heraldic Society in 1835 suggested that the name was "derived from theAnglo-Saxon,bochord, a library or archive". It also says that it is "probable" that "the academic prison lent its name to logic".[10]
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