St. Frideswide and the earliest days of Oxford
The River Thames formed the frontier between the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex, and Oxford's central position along the river (the major means of communication in Saxon times) made it an accessible and strategically valuable site and a useful location for important meetings.Legend suggests that Frideswide was a pious Mercian princess who became a nun in an Oxford monastery which was founded at her behest. It is now thought that Frideswide was a real person, daughter of a sub-king named Dida whose kingdom included both Bampton and Oxford with his base at the already ancient centre of Eynsham. Frideswide (or Frithuswith) was the first abbess of a mixed community of monks and nuns founded by her father in about AD 700 on the Christ Church site. She died on 19th October 727 and was buried in her monastery, which became the nucleus of the nascent town of Oxford. The first monastery was burnt down in the St. Brice's Day massacre in AD 1002 but rebuilt and enlarged by Æthelred and in AD 1122 refounded as the Augustinian priory of St. Frideswide. The site chosen for the early minster was beside the north-south crossing of the Thames on the line of the later St. Aldates and Abingdon Road (the Grandpont) which was clearly important enough by the later 8th century to require major engineering work. Indeed it now seems that the earliest settlement called Oxford consisted of a small lay community outside St. Frideswide's priory on one of the major routes between Mercia and Wessex.
On the death of Æthelred of Mercian in AD 911, Alfred's son, Edward the Elder, took control of "London and Oxford and all the lands that belonged thereto". By the early 10th century Oxford had become part of a fortification system (the burhs) which provided protection against the Danes. The central streets appear to have been laid out within a fortified enclosure at the end of the 10th or begining of the 11th century the King having provided land for an entirely new town. The area originally enclosed by earth banks and ramparts was smaller than that of the medieval walled town. The priory was located by one gate (the South Gate) and churches seem to have been built at the others.
Oxford in the 10th Century
The massacre of some Danes in St. Frideswide's church in 1002 led to the sacking of the town by Thorkell the Tall in 1009 and submitted to Sweyn of Denmark in 1013. In 1015 Oxford was the centre of the struggle for English freedom, the Witenagemot or great council being held here to organise resistance against the Danes. However, two of the chief thanes were murdered at the meeting by the treachery of Eadric of Mercia. In the fighting which ensued Oxford was loyal to Æthelred's son, Edmund Ironside, who succeeded to the throne in 1016 and fought against the Danes led by Canute. Edmund was murdered at Oxford (by Eadric) and a Witenagemot was held by Canute in London which provided a general settlement of of the country.
Canute was accepted as ruler of England and a further Witenagemot held in Oxford in 1018 defined what should be accepted as the common law of the land, the Danes and Saxons both adopting the English laws of Edgar. In 1036 Canute died at Shaftesbury, and, at another Witenagemot of all England held in Oxford, Harold Harefoot was elected king despite the desires of Earl Godwin and others to restore the English line of kings. Harold was apparently crowned at Oxford by the Archbishop of York but four years later died within the precincts of Oxford castle. In 1065 a further Witenagemot at Oxford under Earl Harold (Godwin's son, ?King Harold?) renounced Harold's (Harefoot?) son Tostig and outlawed him for rebellion. By the Norman conquest Oxford had become one of the largest towns in England.
Origins of the University
Learning in Oxford can be traced back to the monastery school set up at St. Frideswide's Priory in about 1120. The first three colleges to be founded were University, Balliol and Merton in the mid 13th Century followed by Oriel, Exeter, Queens and New Colleges in the 14th Century.Medieval Oxford and the Development of the Castle.
After the Norman conquest (in 1071), Robert d'Oilly, a Norman adventurer who had fought at the battle of Hastings, built the castle to the west of the town and realigned the town walls. He is also credited with the construction of the great causeway, the Grandpont, which improved the southern route out of the town (along the line of the modern Abingdon Road). in the early middle ages the town fluorished being a centre for trade in cloth and leather, indeed some of the wealthiest Jews in England resided there (hence the remains of a Syanogogue on the present Christ Church site). In 1130 Henry I built a royal residence, Beaumont Palace, on the site of the present Beaumont Street, and Richard I and probably King John were born there.
A conjectural view of Oxford Castle during the Norman period. Beaumont Palace can be seen in the middle distance and the Oseney Gate is on the left
A key development at this time was the establishment of two important Augustinian moansteries in Oxford through the refounding of St. Fridewide's in 1122, and in 1129 the establishment on an island to the west of the town of Osney Abbey which later (in 1149) absorbed the college of secular canons at St. George's Church (in the castle).
The Development of Oxford Castle.
In 1331 an inquisition reported a general decay of the castle's houses, walls, and turrets, particularly that over Oseney Gate (which was the responsibility of the Abbott of Oseney). This latter was in such a poor state as to be dangerous to pedestrians, and the bakehouse, brewhouse and stables were roofless! The king, Edward III, ordered the keeper of Shotover forest to supply timber for repairs, and the sheriff to for the repairs out of the royal rents of the county, and by 1336 the castle was once again in good order. In 1381 the sheriff was again instructed to pay for the repair of two gates and a bridge but from this time onwards the state of the castle tends to deteriorate. Edward VI (1547-53) gave Oxford Castle and its mill to the See of Oxford though they were subsequently confiscated by Elizabeth 1.
Agas' view of Oxford Castle in 1578.
Oxford in the 16th Century.
The map below shows the city defences and some of the medieval streets which are now lost (with their dates of closure).
Oxford and the Civil War
For four years during the Civil War Oxford was practically the centre of the Royalist cause.
Loggan's map of the area around the Castle in 1675.
St. George's Chapel in the Castle
Robert d'Oilly (d'Oyley)
The Oillys may have originated near Ouilly-le-Bassett. Robert I d'Oilly and his brother Nigel had accompanied William I to England, in the company of Robert d'Ivry (constable of the tower of Rouen and butler, and also tenant-in-chief of the barony of Ivry-la-Bataille). According to Oseney tradition, Robert was rewarded with the baronies of Hook Norton and Beckley and he invested Ivry with the latter. In the Domesday book these two men were frequently associated as joint tenants and they were co-founders of the castle chapel of St. George's. d'Oilly was the builder and constable of the castle.The creation of the barony of Hook Norton had been protracted. Whilst the nucleus of the barony was conferred immediately after the Conquest, Robert being attested as minister to a writ-charter of 1067, the barony did not achieve its ultimate size until a little before Domesday. Robert I was rewarded with one and a half hides in Ledwell after the seige of Sainte-Susanne in 1083 and he acquired two hides in Lea Marston from Alric the Englishman with royal licence. It is also probable that much of his estate came as a result of his marriage to Matilda, daughter of Wigod of Wallingford, the pre-Conquest holder of the barony.
Robert I was one of the close baronial advisors of William I. He was constable of the household, constable of the castle of Oxford, and sheriff of Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. His position and offices were inherited by his brother Nigel, the father of Robert II. However, when Robert II inherited the barony the situation was less impressive. The marriage of Matilda d'Oilly to Miles Crispin had led to the transfer of a substantial part of the estates to the barony of Wallingford, and with it, initially, the constableship of the household. Henry I wason the throne and new men held influence at court. Robert II restored his fortunes by a second marriage of the d'Oillys with an English family. His wife, Edith Forne, had been a concubine of Henry I and had had an illegitimate son by the king - Robert fitzRoy. Henry provided a dower for Edith, the barony of Claydon. (Edith's father, Forne, son of Sigulf, was one of Henry's "new men" and a local justicar, and was granted the barony of Greystoke by the king in ca. 1120.) It was Edith who caused the foundation of Oseney Abbey, and whilst a widow she gave her dowry of two hides in Claydon to the Abbey.
The St. Brice's Day Massacre
An insight into life in eleventh century Oxford is provided by King Æthelred the Unready's description of the St. Brice's Day Massacre:In the year of the incarnation of our Lord 1004, the second indiction, in the 25th year of my reign, by the ordering of God's providence, I, Æthelred, governing the monarchy of all Albion, have made secure with the liberty of a privilege by the royal authority a certain monastery situated in a town which is called Oxford, where the body of the blessed Frideswide rests, for the love of the all-accomplishing God; and I have restored the territories which belong to that monastery of Christ with the renewal of a new title-deed; and I will relate in a few words to all who look upon this document for what reason it was done. For it is fully agreed that to all dwelling in this country it will be well known that, since a decree was sent out by me with the counsel of my leading men and magnates, to the effect that all the Danes who had sprung up in this island, sprouting like cockle amongst the wheat, were to be destroyed by a most just extermination, and this decree was to be out into effect even as far as death, those Danes who delt in the afore-mentioned town, striving to escape death, entered this sanctuary of Christ, having broken by force the doors and bolts, and resolved to make refuge and defence for themselves therein against the people of the town and the suburbs; but when all the people in pursuit strove, forced by necessity, to drive them out, and could not, they set fire to the planks and burnt, as it seems, this church with its ornaments and its books. Afterwards, with God's aid, it was renewed by me and my subjects, and, as I have said above, stengthened by Christ's name with the honour of a fresh privilege, along with the territories belonging to it, and endowed with every liberty, regarding royal exactions as well as ecclesiastical dues.
Translation from D. Whitelock, English Historical Documents: I: c.500-1042 (2nd Edn., London, 1979), 590-3.
See: J. Blair, "Saint Frideswide, patron of Oxford", The Perpetua Press, Oxford (1988)
