Full Description
The University of Oxford was a medieval wonder. After its foundation in the late 12th century it made a crucial contribution to the core syllabus of all medieval universities - the study of the liberal arts law, medicine and theology - and attracted teachers of international calibre and fame. The ideas of brilliant thinkers like innovative translator of Greek Robert Grosseteste, pioneering philosopher Roger Bacon and reforming Christian humanist John Colet redirected traditional scholasticism and helped usher in the Renaissance. In her concise and much-praised new history, G R Evans reveals a powerhouse of learning and culture in scintillating detail.
Evans brings Oxford's revolutionary events, as well as its remarkable intellectual journey, to vivid and sparkling life. This book traverses the centuries to delve into the history of the University of Oxford throughout the centuries, governments and political climates it has existed within.
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Coming to Oxford
1 Towards Oxford today
Not an Inkling of the future?
Riding out the First World War
Oxford takes the state's penny
Letting the women in: 1920 and after
Between the Wars
The Second World War and its aftermath
A Symposium at Worcester: the 1950s to the 1980s
From student protest to the battle for academic freedom
The 1990s and the beginning of another Oxford century
2 Oxford's Middle Ages
Oxford from the inside: inventing a University
Designing a syllabus
Housing the scholars
Quarrels and confrontations
3 Oxford and the interfering Tudors
Renaissance in Oxford
Reformation in Oxford
Consequences for the colleges
Another inspection: Edward VI goes 'visiting'
Mary Tudor's Visitors: the volte-face
Elizabeth puts Oxford under the statutes of the realm
Teaching the arts from the late sixteenth century
4 Oxford keeps up with the times
Oxford and the state
A society of scholars: student life in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Independent intellectuals and new styles of academic life
Teaching: the changing intellectual life of Oxford
Experiments in collegiate life and new ideas about universities
The Bodleian Library and the University Press
5 The nineteenth-century transformation
Varieties of student life at Oxford
The Oxford Movement
State interference and the threat of external 'reform' brings about major change
What became of the liberal arts?
Bringing the syllabus up to date: the Oxford reform of classical education
Oxford studies the sciences
Examinations reformed
Oxford does its bit for social mobility
Conclusion
Notes
Select bibliography
Index
