"Home of lost causes, and foresaken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible loyalties."
-Matthew Arnold, Oxford student 1841
Arnold embodies Oxford, the energetic and elitist spirit of a university no more distinguishable from the town around it. Oxford isn't a place of learning. Intellectualism permeates the streets, the spires of each college no more distinguishable from every storefront or street corner. Its history ad hoc embodies an ancient and acute understanding that what can be learned shall never be fully understood. The wealth of knowledge buried deep in these ancient streets one can only grasp yet never covet and consume. It is a home for lost causes as those who walk its streets observe the infinitesimal insignificance of a single individual, of humanity as a collective, against the stark, endless universe. No matter your mastery, there is always more to learn. Oxford cannot contain its education within a definitive border or place. It exists in the interspace, timeless, efferent, and above all, intangible.
I finished my first lecture this morning with the renowned Mr. Mark Almond, former Modern History lecturer at Oriel College. Much of the stories I tell from here reflects his work. And here enshrines the history of medieval Oxford, its roots and foundation for those dreaming spires.
Oxford's history is deeply tied with the proliferation of literary. The earliest artifacts recovered suggest that teaching has been conducted on these holy grounds since the eleventh century. This sepulcher city worshiped knowledge as auditory, in passing due to the limited availability of text. "Oxford" itself derives from being one of the few places in ancient Britain where one could cross the River Thames, across a waterfall. The ancient term Oxanforda translates to a ford or shallow crossing which oxen could cross safely. People passed through here, desiring to consume knowledge which could only be understood by a few select capable of reading it. Oxanforda exchanged information my mouth, enshrining the auditory in the libraries of memory contained to the few cubic centimeters of the cranium.
Yet by 1066, a year you nor I care to remember, the Normans invaded Britain. The Normans, who occupied modern France, issued Latin and Norman French as the communication for all state business. Now, this had two impacts in Oxford. The first is that the proliferation of information largely halted at those capable of understanding Latin. The majority of texts told by oral tradition shrunk as the broader population could not comprehend this new language. However, this invasion ushered Britain to the international stage. The island remained isolated from mainland Europe for centuries until this point. Norman occupation brought trade with the Mediterranean and later the Islamic empires of the Arabian peninsula and northern Africa. It enabled the transportation of knowledge across entire continents, ushering in a new method of education: Christendom.
Christendom refers to the Catholic Church's sociopolitical power during much of Medieval Europe. Traditionally, this time period is referred to as the "Dark Ages," alluding to a time of great ignorance, widespread conformity, pestilence, plague, famine, death, and a preoccupation with the occult. While all some of my favorite pastimes, the name distorts the intellectual advancements made during this time period.
There are four primary advancements in education in Oxford brought about by the Catholic Church: home of lost causes, foresaken beliefs, unpopular names, impossible loyalties. The home of lost causes involves the institution of a transnational religion. Education at Oxford served for the training of clerics, monks, priests, and other members of religious orders. Religion served as the bastion of knowledge, the keepers of history, and those educated enough to act politically on behalf of the illiterate masses. And being connected to an institution which spanned the European continent largely opened up the availability of information exchange with the Islamic Empire. Foresaken beliefs detail the re-discovery of Greek and Roman philosophy and literature and the birth of neoclassicism and the Renaissance. Classic works were re-introduced to Europe by Islamic translations of the texts. The Crusades enabled classicism to permeate through Europe despite decades of bloodshed. Moreover, the mathematical and scientific advancements of the Islamic Golden Age ushered in algebra, geometry, glass manufacturing, ethanol and kerosene, and countless other inventions. Trade alliance even brought gunpowder and paper from China.
Despite the amount of knowledge being spread, only a select few had access. Catholicism gets an unpopular name for its strict adherence to social hierarchy. It maintained social order by reserving education to a select class of people whose knowledge facilitated and maintained the church as arbiter of information. Conformity to this order demanded ignorance from the masses of serfs, indentured servants, slaves, women, people of color, and other minorities reserved for the bottom of the hierarchy. Only the wealthy elite could glimpse access to Oxford University's education. Even then, those who attended were intended to be inducted into the church, thus perpetuating the widening information gap. In fact, information was so valuable that the little books that did exist were chained to walls or locked in chests. Libraries contained a select few, handwritten copies delicately and meticulously embellished, locked away for only a few privileged eyes to see. The great shelves of the Bodleian would not rise for another five centuries.
Yet the university contains an even more ancient intellectual spirit trapped in its skeletal walls: the tutorial system. Its individualized approach to critical thinking is as old as Oxenforda. Maintaining that one-to-one student to instructor ratio, however, requires funding. Medieval Oxford relied upon monastic ties to not only cover expenses but facilitate dialogue and debate. Thus, impossible loyalties arose in the tête-à-tête between monks of different orders. Monasteries across England not only copied and guarded texts but each developed unique perspectives on the ancient subjects, sparking great debates in divinity, astronomy, philosophy, and the natural sciences. The order of monks truly represented branches of scholars, all of whom would return to the crossroads at carfax center to exchange ideas. And by doing so, these men preserved the intellectual spirit so inherent to this university. Oxford ultimately aims too liberate the mind by encouraging independent thought, developing a geographically accessible region and wellspring of knowledge which people from across the Medieval world to gather and exchange ideas freely.
So perhaps the Dark Ages weren't all so dark. Oxford University's roots in Medieval Britain ultimately cemented its intellectualism for centuries, continuing to embrace knowledge not as a means to an end but to celebrate the ever-escaping quest for understanding as valuable for its own sake. Perhaps there is no true destination at the Oxenforda. The treasures buried here are meant to remain unknown. It is their discovery and humility in knowing one can never truly encapsulate it all that immortalizes this sepulcher of learning. It is just as much an oxymoron as the words of Matthew Arnold. There are simply too many stories to tell. And I cannot wait to unearth them.
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