In about 700 AD, Frideswide, daughter of King Didian was being pursued by an importunate though royal lover. In fear for her chastity she took refuge in a pigsty, and it was there that she learned that her tormentor had been struck blind by a well-aimed thunderbolt. To celebrate the removal of this threat to her virtue, she founded a priory close to a spit of gravel at a point where oxen forded the Thames. She remains to this day the patron saint of Oxford, and her shrine can be seen inside Christ Church Cathedral.
Quite when Oxford acquired its status as a seat of learning is unknown. What is clear is that in 1167 English scholars were recalled from the University of Paris, by Henry II, and sent instead to Oxford. However, within fifty years this academic community was all but extinguished for good. In 1209, a scholar practising archery in the street killed a woman. The city, longing to be rid of the entire pack of penniless students took reprisal by hanging several students with the connivance of bad King John. The remainder fled to start afresh in Cambridge. These two Universities, known collectively as Oxbridge have been rivals ever since.
After five years of suspension, the University at Oxford was reinstated by the Pope, and privileges were conferred on the scholars, and penances on the town. Henceforward the scholars, discipline would be dealt with only by the Chancellor and his assisting police force, the Proctors (now known as Bulldogs!). In spite of such measures, town and gown came to blows often and the outcome of every conflict was a fresh humiliation for the city and fresh privileges for the University.
Student Life in the Middle Ages and Today
Back in the Middle Ages scholars studied liberal arts, and proceeded after seven years to the degree of Master of Arts. By the time that they had succeeded in that undertaking, they would be aged about 21. Their studies were split into two distinct periods. The first three years were spent learning, after which the scholars became bachelors of Arts. For the remaining four years, the un-funded and un-endowed University made use of those who had completed the first stage, to teach those below them, hence the term Master.
In Oxford and Cambridge today, this is remembered at the degree ceremony. After three years study, (with three eight week terms per year) successful students receive their BA degree. At the same time they receive from the Chancellor, permission to be absent from their teaching duties for the next four years. At the end of that period they receive their MA degree automatically without further study.
Discipline was always a problem in medieval student communities. To combat the disorderly propensities of youth, the University ordered that scholars dwell together under the supervision of a teaching master, rather than alone like the scholar in Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale. Chaucer gives us the most comprehensive inventory of a medieval scholars room, and of his idle habits, that exists from the medieval period;
He rented a small chamber in the kip all by himself without companionship. He decked it charmingly with herbs and fruit and he himself was sweeter than the root of liquorice, or any fragrant herb. His astronomic textbooks were superb. He had an astrolobe to match his art and calculating counters laid apart on handy shelves that stood above his bed. His press was curtained coarsely and in red; Above there lay a gallant harp in sight on which he played melodiously at night With such a touch that all the chamber rang; It was the Virgin’s Angelus he sang, And after that he sang King William’s Note, And people often blessed his merry throat. And that is how this charming scholar spent, His time and money which his friends had sent.
His solitary existence led him to no good, as those of you familiar with the Miller’s Tale are aware.
Thus it was that the scholars came to dwell together in Halls, often being named after their architectural features (such as Brasenose which was named after its bronze nose-shaped door knocker), or after saints (such as St Edmund’s Hall which is the name of a college today).
Halls were not colleges, but rather the latter developed in part from the former. In so doing they represented above all else a religious revolution that seized the imagination of Europe in the thirteenth century. From the tenth to the twelfth century people of means had expressed their piety, with no small hope of securing an easy passage through purgatory as a result, in the foundation of monasteries. The idea was that in return the monks would spent a life of seclusion and contemplation in the cloister, praying for amongst other things, the souls of their benefactors. However, tales of wealth, corruption and vice began to destroy the monastic ideal.
When in the year 1212 a young tan stripped naked in the main square in Assisi, in defiance of the materialistic obsession of his father and of mankind, he began a revolution in religious thinking throughout Europe. Behind this man Francis, formed an order of friars whose quest for intellectual learning and desire to preach to the people from the scriptures, combined with absolute poverty to epitomise the apogee of medieval devotion to God. By 1224 the Franciscan Friars had arrived in Oxford, and wasted no time in establishing themselves as formidable teaching masters.
There was an explosion in the number of students, not least because the friars taught for free, and there was a redirection in the minds of those with money to spend on securing safe passage through purgatory. Instead of monasteries they founded colleges, originally of teaching masters whose learning in the scriptures was more likely to find favour with God than would a worldly monk enjoying good living in the cloister. It may amuse you to know that many thirteenth century foundation charters forbad the admission of lawyers, who even then were considered to be ungodly!
For the next three centuries colleges were founded with enthusiasm, each with its own community of teaching masters or ‘fellows’, its principal, and its buildings. Each admitted its own scholars as it does today, and collectively, these colleges came to constitute the University itself. Today the University is little more than the colleges. In addition to their teaching it provides a central University Library, the Bodleian, and a faculty for each subject where lectures are held. The teaching staff in each faculty, lecturers and professors (in England this title is reserved only f or the head of each faculty)tend to be appointed from amongst the fellows of the colleges, and hence the distinction is blurred.
Thus, whilst all students live, and are taught predominantly in their college, the exams that they sit are set and marked by the University, and it is the University that confers degrees. For the final exams in June at the end of the third year, full academic dress (gowns, suits, white shirts and mortar boards, and even black socks) must be worn. Any infringement of the dress code will result in ejection from the Examination School.
Basic facts
45 Colleges, 6 of which are only for graduates. C12000 students, of whom c.3000 are graduates. Ratio of men to women still about 2:1. Fees – University in UK is no longer free, although students from lower income families receive a basic maintenance grant, most students fund themselves with student loans which later have to be paid back when they earn enough. Wealth – The colleges of Oxford and Cambridge are the third largest landowners in the UK after the Crown and the Church.
The Walking Tour
Start at the Martyrs’ Memorial, and tell the group to remember it and to ask their way back there if they get lost. Fix a departure time (at least 2 hours later) and tell the bus to meet you back there.
Martyrs Memorial
In 1554, three distinguished prisoners were conveyed from the Tower of London to Oxford on the orders of Queen Nary Tudor. They were Archbishop Cranmer (who had arranged the divorce of Mary’s mother Catherine of Aragon from her father Henry VIII), and the bishops Latimer and Ridley. Tried in St Mary’s Church these latter two bishops were burned at the stake outside Balliol whilst Cranmer was forced to watch their sufferings from his prison window.
Cranmer was then tried and excommunicated. In terror at what he had seen at the stake, he recanted but this failed to secure his life. Rather than face further humiliation he withdrew his recantation, and as he mounted the platform uttered his famous prayer that his right hand with which he had signed the re¬cantation be burned first.
Broad Street
Turn down the Broad, passing Balliol and then Trinity on your left. Continue until you reach the Sheldonian, with it huge stone heads.
The Sheldonian was founded in 1663, as a venue for public lectures and for degree ceremonies. Until this time they had been held in the University Church of St Mary’s. It was the first building to be designed by Sir Christopher Wren who was then Oxford Professor of Astronomy. The busts around it are frequently the butt of student japes, and can be found from time to time bedecked with fashion accessories!
Turn right down Catte Street, and you will come into Radcliffe Square. You will see Hertford College’s copy of the Bridge of Sighs in Venice. Continue to the far side of the square and stop in front of the Church. Turn to face the Radcliffe Camera in the centre of the square.
Radcliffe Square
Radcliffe was court physician to William & Mary, and on his death in 1714 left his fortune of forty thousand pounds to build a faculty of medicine and a new library. The Camera (or Chamber) was begun in 1737, and is now a reading room for the Bodleian Library.
To the left is Brasenose College, named after its door knocker. George Washington’s great grandfather was a member of this college in 1619. When he left, he omitted to settle his bills with the college for the sum of 17s 10d (less than a pound in today’s money, but a good deal more then). No doubt the colleges finances were rescued when this debt was settled in 1924 by some benevolent American visitors!
In the corner beyond Brasenose, is the wall of Exeter College garden. Over it hangs a chestnut tree, and it is said that when the branches touch Brasenose, then Exeter will beat them on the river.
On the right of the Camera is All Soul’s College, founded in the fifteenth century to pray for the souls of all those killed in the Hundred Years War with France. Today, it is the only college in oxford not to admit students, but is made up only of fellows.
St Mary’s Church is the University Church. Until the relatively recent construction of University buildings it served as lecture hall, theatre and courtroom. Indeed Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley were tried here. It has a beautiful barley sugar columned porch on the other side, which you should not miss.
Oriel College
Cross the High Street, and proceed down Oriel Street, stopping outside Oriel College. Above the gate is a projecting window, which takes its name from the french for an eye. It is conjecture as to whether the college is named after this feature, or whether the feature takes its name from the college. This was the last college to take women in Oxford, only a few years ago. It must be said however, that there are still colleges in Oxford that do not admit men!
Amongst the famous alumni of this college are Sir Walter Raleigh, and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, the Bishop of Oxford who publicly and religiously opposed Darwin’s theories of evolution.
The Meadows
Take the path between Corpus Christi College and Merton College, and this will lead you into the meadows. You will turn right at the end, and in the middle of the building beside you is the Meadow Gate into Christ Church. Here you pay entrance fees.
Before going in, give the group a brief history of the college.
Christ Church
Known familiarly as ‘The House’, this is the largest of the colleges in Oxford. No less than thirteen Prime Ministers were educated here, and it includes as its chapel, Oxford cathedral.
Originally founded by Thomas Wolsey in 1525, to be known as Cardinal College in memory of him, it was not completed by the time of his fall from grace in 1529. It was subsequently refounded by Henry VIII. The head of the college is the Dean, the only college head in oxford to be appointed by the Sovereign. The strong links between the college and the Crown were cemented when Charles I set up his court here during the Civil War in 1642. By receiving the King so warmly, Oxford found itself all the poorer since the colleges’ silver collections were “contributed” to the royal army. Puritan Cambridge, who sided with Parliament (if only to be on a different side from Oxford!!!) suffered no such loss.
Probably the best-known academic from Christ Church, was the mathematics tutor C.L.Dodgson. As he watched the Dean’s daughter Alice playing in the garden he received the inspiration for his book ‘The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland’, which he wrote under the name Lewis Carroll. It is said that Queen Victoria so enjoyed the book that she wrote to him to ask for the second volume of his work. Her sent her a thesis on mathematics that he had written, and she was not amused!
You will come into the cloisters (where there are public lavatories). In the Chapter House, you will find the gift shop. Continue into the Cathedral.
The Cathedral
It is the smallest cathedral in England, and the nave is predominantly late Norman. In the nave is the tomb of Bishop Berkeley (philosopher 1685-1753) after whom the mispronounced city in California is named.
In the North Transept is the shrine of St Frideswide, and alongside it a watching tower (fifteenth century) from which an eye could be kept on the shrine’s treasures. If you see a guide about, they will conduct free tours.
The Hall
At the bottom of the stairs is an election slogan “NO PEEL” which has been burned into the door. This commemorates Robert Peel who was the first Oxford student to score a double first in his exams, and who became Prime Minister in 1842. Amongst other things, he established the Police Force in England, nicknamed the “Bobbies” after him.
Climb the stairs, built in 1805, and notice the fan vaulting above. Once inside the Hall, there is not much space between the tables and the porters tend to hurry the group on. Beforehand, therefore, tell them about the Alice Window – half way down the Hall on the left (above the fireplace) which has characters from Alice in Wonderland around the edge, and about the portraits of famous members of the college. In particular mention that of William Penn (Pennsylvania) – to the right of the door as they leave the Hall.
On leaving the Hall cross the Quad, keeping Tom Tower on your left. This Tower (through which visitors may not enter or exit) was designed by Wren and is nicknamed the ‘pepperpot’. At 9.05pm every night the bell, Tom, strikes 101 times, once for each of the scholars in the original foundation. The reason that it is five minutes late, is that it is five minutes west of the meridian at Greenwich, and this clock is the official college time! Some inspiration you may think, for Lewis Carroll’s Queen of Hearts!
You will pass under the arch known as ‘Kill Cannon’ with a small tower on top of it. It takes its name from the cold north wind that funnels through it. You will find yourself in Peckwater Quad, with the huge Corinthian style library along one side.
Above the doors in this quad are chalk marks commemorating the college boats’ performance in the bumps races. These take place twice a year, and are the subject of intense rivalry between colleges. Each boat has eight rowers, facing backwards, and a cox who does the steering. The idea is that the boats are arranged at even intervals along the river, in the order in which they finished in the previous race, or year. When the cannon is fired they all start rowing, and the idea is to hit (or “bump”) the boat ahead of you before that happens to you from the boat behind. You then swap places with the boat you bumped for the next day. Each contest takes four days, at the end of which the boat at the front of the pack is Head of the River. Exactly the same takes place in Cambridge. The culmination of the rowing year is the annual race on the Thames between Oxford and Cambridge, known as “The Boat Race”.
You leave the college by Canterbury Gate, beyond the library, and turn left back into Oriel Square. There should hopefully be some spare time to buy sweatshirts, etc, before the group meets back at the Martyrs’ Memorial – check that they know where it is.