Underworld
Oxford lane gangs
Also called the two lane companies
Two loose companies of porters, copy-house runners, discharged servants and debt men who divided gambling rooms and protection of unlicensed lodging houses behind the colleges; their quarrel became the Seven Lanes War of 4584 (officially the Lane Disturbances).
At the table
Six weeks of fighting left three dead; proctors, landlords, publicans and college stewards forced an unwritten frontier that held nearly twenty years. Oxford's gangs remain small, service-based and cautious: gambling rooms, student debt, illicit drink, relic brokerage, discreet carriage and lodging-house protection.