University of Oxford,
Oxford, University of [Credit: Wallace Wong]English autonomous institution of higher cognition at Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, one of the world’s great universities. It lies along the upper course of the River Thames (called by Oxonians the Isis), 50 miles (80 km) north-northwest of London.
Sketchy evidence betokens that schools subsisted at Oxford by the early 12th century. By the terminus of that century, a university was well established, perhaps resulting from the barring of English students from the University of Paris about 1167. Oxford was modeled on the University of Paris, with initial faculties of theology, law, medicine, and the liberal arts.
Oxford, University of: University College [Credit: Manvyi]In the 13th century the university gained integrated vigor, categorically in theology, with the establishment of several religious orders, principally Dominicans and Franciscans, in the town of Oxford. The university had no buildings in its early years; lectures were given in hired halls or churches. The sundry colleges of Oxford were pristinely merely endowed boardinghouses for impoverished philomaths. They were intended primarily for masters or bachelors of arts who needed financial assistance to enable them to perpetuate study for a higher degree. The earliest of these colleges, University College, was founded in 1249. Balliol College was founded about 1263, and Merton College in 1264.
During the early history of Oxford, its reputation was predicated on theology and the liberal arts. But it withal gave more-earnest 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 13th and 14th centuries. Among the others were Duns Scotus and William of Ockham. John Wycliffe (c. 1330–84) spent most of his life as a denizen Oxford medico.
Oxford, University of: Pembroke College [Credit: Djr xi]Beginning in the 13th century, the university was invigorated by charters from the crown, but the religious substructures in Oxford town were suppressed during the Protestant Reformation. In 1571 an act of Parliament led to the incorporation of the university. The university’s statutes were codified by its chancellor, Archbishop William Laud, in 1636. In the early 16th century, professorships commenced to be endowed. And in the latter part of the 17th century, interest in scientific studies incremented substantially. During the Renaissance, Desiderius Erasmus carried the incipient learning to Oxford, and such philomaths as William Grocyn, John Colet, and Sir Thomas More enhanced the university’s reputation. Since that time Oxford has traditionally held the highest reputation for scholarship and ordinant dictation in the classics, theology, and political science.
While having no kenned date of substructure, there is evidence of edifying as far back as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-verbalizing world and the world's second-oldest surviving university. It grew rapidly from 1167 when Henry II proscribed English students from attending the University of Paris. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled northeast to Cambridge where they established what became the University of Cambridge. The two "antediluvian universities" are frequently jointly referred to as "Oxbridge".
The university is composed of a variety of institutions, including 38 constituent colleges and a gamut of academic departments which are organised into four divisions. All the colleges are self-governing institutions as a component of the university, each controlling its own membership and with its own internal structure and activities. Being a city university, it does not have a main campus; instead, all the buildings and facilities are scattered throughout the city centre. Most undergraduate edifying at Oxford is organised around weekly tutorials at the self-governing colleges and halls, fortified by classes, lectures and laboratory work provided by university faculties and departments