The University of Oxford

The University of Oxford

The Glorious Legacy of the Past

“The life of England, for some eight centuries, may be traced in the buildings of Oxford” (Lang 2). It is almost impossible for a true Englishman to forget of how many striking events in the development of his country Oxford has been the scene. The element of romance is furnished early in her story by the daring escape of the Empress-Queen, Matilda, from Oxford Castle. The Provisions of Oxford, issued in 1258, were the work of one of the most famous Parliaments of the thirteenth century, the century which saw the building of the English constitution, and the students of the University fought for the cause which those Provisions represented. The burning of the martyr bishops in the sixteenth century is one of the greatest tragedies in the story of England’s Church. The seventeenth century saw Oxford the capital of Royalist England in the Civil War, and Parliamentary history, too, of Oxford in the seventeenth century is full of interest, as it was there that in 1625 Charles' first Parliament met in the Divinity School. Moreover, fifty years later, his son, Charles II, triumphed over the Whig Parliament at Oxford, which was trying by make-believe violence to force the Exclusion Bill on the king and nation.

Anyone who makes a more thorough analysis of the evolution in time of this institution of culture will attach less importance to these great historical events than to the great changes in thought which have found in Oxford their inspiration and interest. To appreciate the life of the place, then, we must follow step by step the growth of the University.

A Brief History of the University

There is no clear date of foundation, but teaching existed at Oxford in some form in 1096 and developed rapidly from 1167, when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. Certainly, to this university, the academic corporation of Oxford, the Universitas, owed many of her regulations; while the founder of the college system, Walter de Merton, who visited Paris in company with Henry III, probably compared ideas with Robert de Sorbonne, the founder of the college bearing that name. “In the early Oxford, however, of the twelfth and most of the thirteenth centuries, colleges with their statutes were unknown. The University was the only corporation of the learned, and she struggled into existence after hard fights with the town, the Jews, the Friars, the Papal courts” (Lang 10).

Master Puleyn began to lecture there in 1133, and in 1188, the historian, Gerald of Wales, “having been despatched to Ireland by Henry II, as companion of Prince John” (Brodrick 6), gave a public reading to the assembled Oxford dons “on the Topography of Ireland” (Brodrick 6). In 1190, Emo of Friesland, the first known overseas student, arrived at Oxford and instituted the University's tradition of international scholarly links. By 1201, the University was headed by a magister scolarum Oxonie, on whom the title of Chancellor was conferred in 1214, and in 1231 the masters were recognized as a Universitas or corporation.

In the thirteenth century, rioting between town and gown, townspeople and students, hastened the establishment of primitive halls of residence. These events were succeeded by the setting up of the first of Oxford's colleges, which began as mediaeval halls of residence or endowed houses under the supervision of a master. “By far the most important event in the academical history of the thirteen century was the foundation of University, Balliol and Merton Colleges” (Brodrick 15), between 1249 and 1264. Less than a century later, Oxford had achieved eminence above every other seat of learning, and won the praises of popes, kings and sages by virtue of its antiquity, curriculum, doctrine and privileges.

From its early days, Oxford was a centre for lively controversy, with scholars involved in religious and political disputes. John Wycliffe, a fourteenth-century Master of Balliol, the great opponent of the friars, the man who, as the first of the Reformers, is to many the most interesting figure in mediaeval English religious history, campaigned for a bible in the vernacular, against the wishes of the papacy. The University, too, constantly opposed the friars, who had settled in Oxford pretending to be willing to convert the Jews, and attempting to get education into their hands. “The conduct of the friars caused endless appeals to Rome, and in this matter, too, Oxford was stoutly national, and resisted the Pope, as it had, on occasions, defied the King.” (Lang 12)

During its early history its reputation was based on theology and the liberal arts. Nevertheless, it also gave more serious treatment to the physical sciences than did the University of Paris: Roger Bacon, after leaving Paris, conducted his scientific experiments and lectured at Oxford from 1247 to 1257. Bacon was one of several influential Franciscans at the University during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Among the others were Duns Scotus and William of Ockham.

The illustrious century which Italy employed in unburying, appropriating, and enjoying the treasures of Greek literature and art, was given, in England, to dynastic, constitutional and religious arguments. “Presently the foreign wars and the wars of the Roses drained the University of the youth of England. The country was overrun with hostile forces, or infested by disbanded soldiers. Plague and war, war and plague, and confusion, alternate in the annals. In the general dullness and squalor two things were remarkable: one, the last splendour of the feudal time; the other, the first dawn of the new learning from Italy” (Lang 16). Fortunately, a spark of hope shone when a printing-press was established at Oxford, and certain Italians began to arrive, to propagate New Learning ideas. The arrival of the Italians is dated by Wood in 1488. Polydore Virgil had lectured in New College, teaching literature for the first time in Oxford. Cyprianus and Nicholaus, Italici, also arrived and dined with the Vice-President of Magdalen on Christmas Day. Lily and Colet, too, one of them the founder, the other the first Head Master, of St. Paul's School, were about this time studying in Italy, under the great Politian and Hermolaus Barbarus.

Wolsey was Bursar of Magdalen. The colleges, to which Brasenose College was added in 1509, and Corpus Christi College in 1516, were competing with each other for success in the New Learning. Fox, the founder of Corpus Christi College, established in his college two chairs of Greek and Latin, to extirpate barbarism and ignorance. “Henry VIII in his youth was, like Francis I., the patron of literature, as literature was understood in Italy. He saw in learning a new splendour to adorn his court, a new source of intellectual luxury, though even Henry had an eye on the theological aspect of letters” (Lang 18). Desiderius Erasmus found in Oxford a kind of substitute for the Platonic Society of Florence and even compared John Colet’s discourse to Plato’s, also praising the judgment and learning of those Englishmen, William Grocyn, Lynacre and More, who had been taught in Italy. Since that time Oxford has traditionally held the highest reputation for scholarship and instruction in the classics, theology, and political science.

The reign of Edward VI fully supported that ascetic and intolerable hatred of letters which had sometimes made its voice heard under Henry VIII. Thus, in 1550, the ancient libraries were by their appointment rifled, and many manuscripts, guilty of no other thing than red letters in the front or titles, were condemned to be burnt, as being accounted Papish or diabolical. “The number of degrees continued to fall off, and the number of the halls to dwindle, as religious controversy usurped the place of education, and the University was used as an instrument to advance the political or ecclesiastical aims of the Sovereign.” (Brodrick 80)