Art. 8.-THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. A History of the University of Oxford. THERE are few things in history of stronger and more Later, the days of adventure are no doubt over. The University of Oxford becomes a regular English institution and part of the national life; it is defended against enemies by authority, there are rewards for its teachers, there are aids for its learners, learning itself has a material value in Church and State. The story is of a different kind; it is not always the record of a steady advance of learning; but it is never dull or prosaic. Almost everything that happens is picturesque; a great part of the narrative has won itself a place in English history, so closely are the fortunes of Oxford intertwined with the fortunes of the nation. Itself important from its situation, and enjoying an importance immeasurably enhanced by the great seat of learning, Oxford was for long the second city in England. Kings were the foster-fathers of the infant University, and queens were its nursing mothers. Its cloistral peace, in the course of ages, was often broken by more than the distant echo of great events. It was the stronghold, or the battlefield, of the Church. Martyrs died for their faith at its gates. Parliaments sat and kings held their courts within its precincts. It has been the refuge of unpopular reformers and unpopular reactionaries, and suffered for its hospitality. It has been loyal to an illstarred dynasty, and suffered for its loyalty. For good or evil, it has been the fortune of Oxford to play often a leading and always a picturesque part in the drama of English history; and English history, as it touches Oxford, is tinged with the romance inseparable from that incomparable setting. It is natural that a large and increasing number of readers should want books about Oxford-especially in these days, when every place of education (and perhaps even education itself) has become so popular. How general is the demand is shown in our own time by the number of hand-books, gift-books, and guide-books about the University which continue to issue from the press. To go no further back than the last few years-Mr Madan, for instance, fills a too brief volume with 'Things not generally known.' Or two ex-Rhodes scholars do their best to instruct their compatriots in the sympathetic understanding of a seat of learning which does not as yet play baseball. Or Mr Mansbridge shows that it is no unworthy task to summarise the history of a University which has attained its End and Object by collaborating with the Workers' Educational Association. Books and booklets have abounded at any time in the last forty years; but no serious and comprehensive history had been published till 1924. There was, of course, the late Dean of Carlisle's monumental study of mediæval Universities. There was Sir H. Maxwell Lyte's history of the University of Oxford. But Dr Rashdall carries the reader no farther than the 15th century; and Sir H. Maxwell Lyte stops at 1530. For the history of Elizabethan and Stuart Oxford, there are many monographs and editions of ancient authorities; In but till now there has been no full history of that very important period, although for its later part, at least, the diaries of Antony Wood supply such abundant material. Clearly, therefore, the field was open for a scholar who should have the industry to produce a detailed and documented history of the University from its birth to the present day. That is the task which Sir Charles Mallet has proposed to himself. So far, his narrative is complete to the end of the 17th century; a third volume, which should be even more interesting gol than the two already published, is to deal with the of 18th and 19th. It appears that we are far enough removed from the 19th century for that. This is a vast undertaking. Undoubtedly, in a certain sense, the historian's work is easier as he has more guides to show him the way; but if there is less need for guesswork there are more hours to be spent in compiling and comparing, sifting the relevant and illuminating fact from the mass of material which the catholic diligence of research excavates from the dark mines of the Bodleian. The volume of accessible matter has vastly increased in the last thirty years; and Sir C. Mallet has taken full advantage of it. The growing erudition of learned men has guided him to manuscript sources in the great library. Printed monographs have multiplied. The University Registers have been edited. The publications of the Oxford Historical Society embody the studies of diligent researchers, Mr Madan, Mr Salter, and many others. Much light has been thrown on the life of Colleges; much is summarised in the excellent series of College Histories. Material, in short, abounds; and as Sir C. Mallet possesses not only great industry but also the pen which can produce the fruits of labour in a most readable form, he may be congratulated on having written what must remain for a long time the standard history of Oxford. He has not limited himself to academic matters alone. That would be impossible. The history of the University is in some measure also that of the city of Oxford; and it is not possible to write fully of either without constant reference to the general history of England. The pre-Collegiate period is the most interesting partsb of Oxford history; but it is also, of course, the most maj obscure. We have long discarded the old legend of a tes College founded by Alfred the Great; Prester John and a Trojan Brute are not more mythical than that familiars story. The origins of a University are lost in medieval g darkness. It is clear that there must have been teaching -fostered perhaps here as elsewhere in England by the t Church-before the days of Henry the Second; but l history speaks with no certain voice before his reign. Under him, we are told, Theobald of Etampes was teaching 'sixty or a hundred clerks, more or less '-evidently, says Sir C. Mallet, at Oxford. From this and other dy indications, 'it is clear that before the middle of the twelfth century there were schools at Oxford, where clerks already gathered in substantial numbers to hear men of learning teach. There were priests and monks and canons living there, some of whom may well have drawn a following of students round them. There was a thriving town, accessible from all parts of the kingdom, long known as a centre of national activities, under the shadow of an intellectual court. There was a new stir and independence in the hearts of scholars, a passionate desire for larger knowledge to answer the new calls upon the minds of men.' Thus the historian, summing up contributory motives very plausibly; and, no doubt, as he suggests, the expulsion of foreign scholars from France in 1167, and Henry II's ordinances forbidding clerks to cross the sea from England without express permission, were causes leading to a concentration of students at Oxford. The University was 'protected' by the temporary abolition of free trade in learning. Sic fortis Etruria crevit. Later, we see the fortuitous association of learners developing into a regular institution, forming its customs on thei model now of Bologna, now of Paris. Masters and scholars begin to be formally differentiated. A Chancellor, first perhaps dependent on the goodwill of the Church, comes to preside over an autonomous University; but the whole body is generally under the strong ægis of 'Church and King.' It grows and develops in no peaceful atmosphere; there is much turbulence, continual the ta tin brawls between the boys in their early 'teens, who formed the majority of students, and the townsmen; continual and disputes between city and University about prices of Jo necessaries, and the immunities of scholars. Both for parties were prosperous and growing; each resented the edprivileges of the other. Acerrima inter vicinos odia; it was a family quarrel, carried on with the acrimony br characteristic of such dissensions. City and University d: have long been reconciled, though even now one is occasionally conscious of slumbering fires; but in those early years the day of reconciliation was far off. More than once scholastic turbulence or civic jealousy led to bloody affrays in the streets; battles, of which the old Town and Gown rows' (now in the 20th century almost forgotten) were the comparatively innocuous successors. The 13th century saw several such riots; but worst of all was the terrible day of St Scholastica in 1355. A pot-house quarrel led to general street fighting; the Chancellor had to flee for his life; countrymen came in to the aid of the town; there was killing of scholars and sacking of the inns and halls where they lodged. Whenever higher authority intervened to adjudicate on these broils, the townsmen appear to have been invariably in the wrong; perhaps they were; it can only be noted that decisions seem to have been always in favour of the University. So the citizens took little by their victory in 1355. As a punishment for its outrages, the city saw fresh privileges, to its own detriment, conferred on the University; and was obliged to do formal penance for the crimes of St Scholastica's day till 1825. These continual riots sadly hampered the peaceful development of a seat of learning; and it is to be remembered that the University was also disturbed by domestic dissensions, battles between the 'Nations' of north and south; it was not for nothing that proctors had to go armed. What with fightings within and fears without, it is hardly surprising that every now and then masters and scholars who wanted to study rather than to fight should have transferred themselves to some place which was as yet less troubled by academic roisterers and 'diabolical imps' of the town. At the beginning of the 13th century many students were driven from Oxford by fear of the violence of the Mayor and |