Oxford and Its Story

like to begin from Jove-or Genesis. T

ives the year 1009 B.C. as the authentic date, when Memphric, King of the Britons, built it an

nks of the chief river of the country at a point where a tributary opens up a district to the north, it would yet seem that there was no British settlement of importance at Oxford, for it was dangerous borderland between the provinces into which Britain wa

us, an imaginative historian, no respecter of facts, who died, full of years and in

ge pack of very savage wolves, and being torn and devoured by them, ended his existence in a horrible manner. Nothing good is related of him except that he begot an honest son and heir, Ebrancus by name, and built one noble city which he called from his own name Caer-Memre, but which afterwards in

vel space outside Oxford, contiguous to the walls of the town, which is called Belmount, which means beautiful mount, and this in a certain way agrees with one of the older names of the city before named and recited; that is to say Bellisitum; whence many are of opinion that the University from Greklade was tra

ave been transplanted to Oxford from "Grekelade." This story is found in its earliest form in the Oxford Historiola, the account of the University prefixed to the official registers of the chance

Quad Mert

lous poetry"-to account for the origin of the myth as to the Greek philosophers. Do you not find for instance,

ersity is the most ancient, the most comprehensive, the m

zed the island, then called Albion, next Britain, and lastly England, certain philosophers came and chose a suitable place of habitation upon this island, on which the philo

d the name given to the town Bellesitum is obviously a confusion arising from the latinised form of Beaumont, the palace which Henry I. built on the slope towards S. Giles. The names of Caer-bossa and Ridochen

ientific history and that they were used with immense gusto by the champions in that extraordinary controversy which broke out in the days of Elizabeth, and lasted, an inky w

ge orator, who on the occasion of a vi

owed from Cambridge its most learned men, who in its schools provided the earliest cradl

. Assertions were issued, and counter-asser

rove their claim. And the claim appeared to be proved by a passage attributed to Asser, the contemporary historian of Alfred's deeds, and surreptitiously inserted into his edition of that author by the great Camden. But that passage occurs in non

till 912, some years after Alfred's death, that Edward the Elder obtained possession of Oxford, which was outside Alfred's kingdom; Asser knew nothing of t

to establish schools for the various arts at Oxford;

me the myth was

nd the University who did? or

no discoverable traces of such a thing at Oxford, but in the last twenty years of that century references to

ighing the words of the law, bringing forth from their treasures things new and old.

logy, and to Paris, the researches of modern experts l

ut a dim and flickering flame. In Spain not one priest in a thousand about the age of Charlemagne could address a common letter of salutation to another. Scarcely a single person could be found in Rome who knew the first elements of letters; in England, Alfred declared that

the Crusades. Trade revived and began to develop, some degree of tranquillity was restored, and the growing wealth of the world soon found expression in

h the more cultured East. Everywhere throughout Europe great

traditions of mankind, either local or intellectual, that had hurried half Christendom to the tomb of its Lord, crowded the roads with thousands of young scholars, hurrying to the chosen seats where teachers were gathered together. A new power, says an eloq

century. After the manner of medi?val craftsmen in other trades, the profession of teaching was limited to those who had served an apprenticeship in a University or Guild of Study and were qualified as Masters of their Art. Nobody was allowed to teach without a licence from such a Guild, just as no butcher or tailor was allowed to ply his trade without having served his proper term and having been approved by the Masters of his Guild. A University degree, therefore, was originally si

e school of philosophy at Paris which chiefly attracted the newly-kindled enthusiasm of the studious. The tradition of the schools of Charlemagne may have lingered there, although no direct connection between them and the University which now sprang into being can be proved. As early as 1109 William of Champeaux opened a school of logic, and it was to his brilliant and combative pupil, Peter Abelard, that the University owed its rapid advancement in the estimation of mankind. The multitude of disciples who flocked to his lectures, and listened with delight to his bold theories and his assertion of the rights of reason against authority, showed that a new spirit of en

hn of Salisbury became famous as one of the Parisian teachers. Becket wandered to Paris from his school at Merton. After spending twelve years at Paris, John of Salisbury, the central figure of English learning in his time, finally returned to England. S. Bernard recommended him to Ar

ss of justice, all the caution of providence, every form of learning. They after prayers and before meals, in reading, in disp

lishments and with many of the monasteries as well as the houses of the nobles. There were, for instance, great schools at S. Alban's and at Oxford. But these studia were not studia generalia;

d left England; Stephen, on the other hand, bade Vacarius cease from lecturing, since the new system of law, which he taught and which had converted the Continent, was inconsistent with the old laws of the English realm. As to Theobaldus Stampensis, he styles himself Magister Oxenefordi?, and letters from him exist which show

the Chancellor of Notre Dame over the masters and scholars of Paris. But at Oxford, the masters and scholars were never under the jurisdiction of the Prior or Abbot of S. Frideswide's or Osney. If they had been, some trace or record of their struggle for emancipation must have survived. The Chancellor, moreover, when he is first mentioned, proves to be elected by the masters and scholars and to derive

xplanation. That other fact is the suddenness with which the reputation of Oxford sprang up. Before 1167 there is, as we have shown, no evidence of the ex

le, with a number of Masters and Faculties. It is a Studium Generale by that time without a doubt. And in

e founded by migrations from one University or another. The story of Oxford itself will furnish instances in plenty of the readiness of the University to threaten to migrate and, when hard pressed, to fulfil their threat. Migrations to Cambridge, Stamford, and Northampton are among the undoubted facts of our history. Such a migration then would be in the natural

tains this remark: "France, the most polite and civilised of al

y the French King against the oppressor of Holy Church and against the English eccle

o England within three months, "as they love their revenues." This would produce an exodus from Paris. A large number of English masters and scholars must have been compelled to return home. According to the usual procedure of medi?val students t

h had been formed there. But they left Gervase at Canterbury to write his history, and Nigel to compose his verses and polish his satires. Passing northwards, they might, had they come a little later, have been absorbed at Lambeth, and the scheme of Archbishop Baldwin for setting

See-town. At any rate the peculiar position of Oxford, which was neither of these and yet an important commercial and politica

rful king of the West, and the international correspondence which that position involved, tended to make the Court a centre of literary activity. Learning was sought not for itself only, but as a part of the equipment of a man of the world. For whatever reason, whether they were influenced by a desire, springing from experience of Paris, to establish themselves where they might be

esiastical and political importance of the place; the settlement of one of the wealthiest of the English Jewries in the very heart of the town indicated, as it promoted, the activity of its trade. It was still surrounded on all sides by a wild forest country. The moors of Cowley and Bullingdon fringed the course of the Thames; the g

ols, and within a very short time the reputation of the Universi

his new work, as Herodotus read his history at the Panathenaic festival at Athens or at the National Games of Greece. Giraldus had written a book on Ireland-Topographia-and he chose this method of publishi

ere three distinctions or divisions in the work, and each division occupied a day, the readings lasted three successive days. On the first day he received and entertained at his lodgings all the poor people of the whole town; on the second all the doctors of the different faculties, and such of their pupils as were of fame

in name or by charter. A few years later the records reveal to us the first known student in it. He was a clerk from Hungary named Nicholas, to whom Richar

btained, as the result of a series of events, in which the citizens of Oxford had been encouraged to commit an act of unjust revenge by their reliance on John's quarrel with the pope and the clergy. The pope had laid the whole country under an interdict; the people were forbidden to worship their God and the priests to administer the sacraments; the church-bells were silent and the dead lay unburied on the ground. The King retaliated by confiscating the land of the clergy who observed

For it was a chief principle of the Church that all clerks and scholars, as well as all higher officials in the hierarchy, should be subject to ecclesiastical jurisdiction alone. For this principle Becket had died, and in defence of this principle a quarrel now arose between the University and the town whic

he following year is the University's first charter of privilege. The citizens performed public penance; stripped and barefooted they went daily to the churches, carrying scourges in their hands and chaunting penitential psalms. When they had thus obtained absolution, and the University had returned, the Legate issued a decree by which the townsmen were bound in future, if they arrested

any authentic document to the

the town was forever to pay an annual sum of fifty-two shillings to be distributed among poor scholars on the feast of S. Nicholas, the patron of scholars, and at the same time to feast a hundred poor scholars on bread and beer, pottage and flesh or fish. Victuals were to be sold at a reasonable rate, and an oath to the observa

btain redress departed from Paris in anger. Henry seized this opportunity of humiliating the French Monarchy by fomenting the quarrel and at the same time inviting "the masters and the University of scholars at Paris" to come to study in England, where they should receive ample liberty and privileges. A migration to Oxfo

ntury a customary rather than a legal or statutory corporation. And in

to see that in Oxford nobody exercised the office of teaching except after he had qualified according to the custom of the Parisians. Whilst then the idea of a University was undoubtedly borrowed from the Continent, and Oxford, so far as her organisation was concerned, was framed on the C

sity, Alfred did not found it, still

left its mark on the minds of men. The tradition still lingers. The College Chapel was dedicated at the end of the fourteenth century to S. Cuthbert, Durham's Saint, but the seventeenth-century Bidding Prayer still perpetuates the venerable fiction, and first among the benefactors of the "College of the great Hall of the University," the name of King Alfred is cited. In 1872 the College even celebrated, by the English method of a dinner, the supposed thousandth anniversary of its existence. At that di

sity C

will be found to be ins

n Edmund Francis and Idonea his wife came forward to dispute the right to it. They maintained that Philip Gonwardy and his wife had had no true title to the estate, for it, or part of it, had been bequeathed to them by one John Goldsmith in 130

pparently, that the case was going against them, the College determined to use the myth about Alfred, claim to be a royal foundation a

mmenced a suit in the King's Bench, against some of the tenants of the said masters and scholars, for certain lands and tenements, with which the College was endowed ... and from time to time doth endeavour to destroy and utterly disinherit your said College of the rest of its endowment.... That it may please your most sovereign and gracious Lord King, since you are our true founder and advocate, to make the aforesaid parties appear before your very sage counci

id deliberately forge, attaching the Chancellor's seal thereto,

e masters and scholars or a cynical assumption of the historical ignorance of lawyers. If the College was founded by King Alfred who came to the throne in 872, it would seem a

d to have "abounded in great revenues, but was gaping after greater." Some litigation with the Bishop of Durham led him to appeal to the Papal Court. His appeal was successful, but it availed him little, for on his journey home he died at Rouen (1249). His bones are said by Skelton to lie in the Chapel of the Virgin in the Cathedral there. He left 310 marks in trust to the University to invest for the benefit and support of a certain number of masters. It was actually the first endowment of its kind,

ding a College, and indeed the original

Barons' War for instance. Such loans were seldom repaid, and only 210 marks remained. This sum was expended in purchasing houses. The fir

h Street on the north side, was bought. It stands almost opposite to the present Western Gate of the College. Brasenose Hall was the next purchase under William's bequest (1262), and (1270) a quit rent of fifteen shillings, charged on two houses in S. Peter's parish, was the last. William of Durham had not founded a College. There is nothing to show that the purchase of houses by the Univers

revenue from the fund increased rapidly, so that by 1292, the society was increased from "four poor masters" to one consisting of two classes of scholars, the seniors receiving six and eightpence a year more than the juniors, and having authority over them. Other clerks of good character, not on the foundation, were permitted to hire lodgings in the Hall, prototypes of the modern commoner. Funds and benefactions accrued to the Hall. A library was built, and the society gradually enlarged. Members of it were enjoined to live like Saints and to sp

rfeited his election. This latter regulation, which occurs in substance in most of the fourteenth century foundations-by the Statutes of Queens, indeed, a Fellow who refused a benefice forfeited his fellowship-shows that fellowships were intended not as mere endowments of learning but as stepping-stones to pre

, to the site of their present College, bounded by Logic Lane and Grove Street, and forming in the southern curve of the High Street, one of the mos

eet were bought, and Lodelowe Hall, on the east of Spicer's Hall (1336). Spicer's Hall soon came to be known as the University Hall; the hall next to it, when acquired, was distinguished as Great University Hall. The reversion to the remainder of the High Street frontage, between Lodelowe Hall and the present Logic Lane, was not secured till 1402, wh

foundation, as "Scholars of University Hall." Their proper title, "Scholars of the Hall of William of Durham," gradually fell out of use. Strangers to the University system usually find themselves confused by the relations o

e necessary to rebuild in 1632. A smaller version of the sevent

opsical monarch, that he would not have his two legs for his two kingdoms. It had long been known that the worthy doctor intended to make his College and his University his heirs. His munificence was rewarded by a

brary from B

Quadrangle commemorates his benefaction to his College; the Radcliffe Infirmary (Woodstock Road, 1770), the Radcliffe Observatory, built 1772-1795, on a site given by George, Duke of Marlborough; and last,

forms one of the most striking fe

at Oxford which should be of interest to the visitor. In the Bodleian may be seen certain coins which have led historians to assume that Alfred set up a mint at Oxford, and to argue

ine ELFRED, and in the third line

ld be written Orsnaforda and why, instead of the usual practice of abbreviation, the name of the place of the mint should have been written wro

united by their allegiance to the same ruler" (Green) or not, the fact is not to be deduced from an imaginary mint at Oxford, any more than from the forged

nd added to the Ashmolean collections a little later. The inscription "Aelfred mee

to the degree of Master of Arts, is the earliest mention of that degree in Oxford. The story of

re the service was finished in order to join the other students at their games. But at the north door a divine apparition bade him return, and from that time his devotion grew more fervent. It is recorded with astonishment by his biographers as a mark of his singular piety, that when he had taken his degree as Master he would attend mass each day before lecturing, contrary to the custom of the scholars of that time, and although he was not yet in orders. For this purpose he built a chapel to the Virgin in the parish where he then lived. His example was followed by his pupils. "So study," such was the maxim he loved to impress upon them, "as if you were to live for ever; so live as if you were to die to-morrow." How little the young scholar, to whom Oxford owes her first introduction to the Logic of Aristotle, cared for the things of this world is shown

ote the names of the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost. "Be these thy diagrams henceforth,

the old medi?val world were both alike threatened by the new training. Feudalism rested on local isolation. The University was a protest against this isolation of man from man.

ed to mere interpretation of the text of Scripture and the dicta of the Fathers or Church. To this narrow science all the sciences were the handmaids. They were regarded as permissible only so far as they contributed to this end. But the great outburst of intellectual enthusiasm in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries created a momentary revolution in these matters. The whole range of science as revealed by the newly d

alive to the danger

ont S Joh

more triumphed, and the reign of Theology was resumed. Soon scholasticism absorbed the whole mental energy of the student

all their inquiries after truth were vitiated by two insurmountable obstacles-the authority of Aristotle and the authority of the Church. For Aristotle, whom the scholastics did not understand, and who had been so long held at bay as the most dangerous foe of medi?val faith, whom none but Anti-Chr

heir understanding, unless perhaps it were a subtle and learned dispute as to whether a chim?ra, buzzing in a vacuum, can devour second intentions? John of Salisbury observed of the Parisian dialecticians in his own time, that after several years absence he found them not a step advanced, and still employed in urging and parrying the same arguments. His observation was applicable to the succeeding centur

ogether contemptible. Their disputes did at least teach men to discuss and to define, to reason and to inquire. And thus was promoted the critic

sprang into existence to mark the first beg

is the only architectural illustration of this period. It was consecrated by S. Hugh, the great Bishop of Lincoln, and is of interest as affording one of the e