Who came to Oxford
Medieval Oxford drew students from across England, with smaller numbers from Wales, Scotland, Ireland and sometimes the Continent. Most were boys or young men, often in their mid-teens when they began the arts course, though ages varied widely. Women were not admitted. A large share of students intended to become clergy, since the church was the main employer of educated men, but others went on to serve as royal or noble administrators, lawyers, teachers or physicians.
Students came from many levels of society. The sons of well-off families could pay for lodging and books, and some arrived with servants. Others were poor and relied on charity, patrons, or earnings from copying and tutoring. Peasants’ sons could sometimes attend with the help of a local lord or priest, and the education was a recognized path for social advancement, though one that depended on patronage.
Numbers are hard to pin down. Estimates for the peak of the later Middle Ages vary, and historians treat any single figure with caution. What can be said is that Oxford had thousands of members at its height, and that most never completed a degree.
The arts course
Almost every student began in the faculty of arts, the foundation for all further study. The curriculum was based on the seven liberal arts: grammar, logic and rhetoric, then arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. In practice logic dominated. After the translation of Aristotle into Latin, his works on logic, natural philosophy, ethics and metaphysics formed the core of the course. Students listened to lectures, took part in disputations, which were structured arguments on set questions, and eventually became bachelors and then masters.
The master of arts could teach and, as a member of the guild, had a voice in university affairs. Many stayed on as “regent masters” for a period, teaching younger students, before moving into a higher faculty or leaving for a career elsewhere.
Theology, law and medicine
The higher faculties took more years. Theology was the most prestigious and the longest, with a student often spending well over a decade in total study before becoming a doctor of theology. It was based on scripture and on a standard collection of theological opinions from earlier writers, which students lectured on and debated. Questions about faith and reason ran through much of this teaching, and the scholastic method of question, objection and reply structured it. Oxford’s reputation in the later Middle Ages rested heavily on its theologians and philosophers.
Law, both canon (church) law and civil (Roman) law, was studied at Oxford, though it never rivaled Bologna’s. Medicine was a smaller faculty, relying on the same texts as other centers. The surviving evidence suggests that the arts and theology were the strongest parts of Oxford’s offering, but the weight of evidence is uneven.
The friars at Oxford
The arrival of the friars in the early thirteenth century changed Oxford. The Dominicans came first, around 1221, followed by the Franciscans a few years later. Later the Carmelites and Augustinians also established houses. The orders set up their own schools within the town, and talented members could study and teach in the university.
The Dominican Thomas Aquinas, by contrast, taught mainly at Paris and in Italy. For the followers of the Franciscan order, Oxford was a major intellectual center. The scholar and bishop Robert Grosseteste, who became chancellor of the university and later bishop of Lincoln, is traditionally associated with lecturing to the Franciscans and encouraging their study of theology. The friars’ presence also brought tension with secular masters, who sometimes resented their privileges and their rapid growth, a dispute that played out at Paris as well.
Well-known scholars
Several famous names are associated with Oxford, though in some cases the details of their careers there are uncertain.
- Robert Grosseteste (died 1253) is remembered as a scholar with wide interests, including theology, natural philosophy and optics, and as a translator and commentator on Aristotle.
- Roger Bacon, a thirteenth-century Franciscan, is often described as an Oxford scholar who wrote about languages, mathematics and experimental knowledge. His reputation as a precursor of modern science has been exaggerated in popular accounts, and historians debate how original his methods really were.
- Duns Scotus, a Franciscan philosopher and theologian active around 1300, is linked to Oxford, with the main details of his career spread over Oxford, Paris and Cologne.
- William of Ockham, another Franciscan, studied and taught at Oxford in the early fourteenth century and is associated with the philosophical position later called nominalism. His career was disrupted by accusations of unorthodoxy.
- John Wycliffe, in the later fourteenth century, was a theologian at Oxford whose ideas about church authority and scripture became controversial. His links to Oxford are well attested, though the college affiliation often claimed for him, Balliol, is less certain. Later disputes over his teachings affected the university.
- Thomas Bradwardine and others at Merton are associated with the “Merton calculators,” fourteenth-century scholars who worked on problems of motion and quantity using logical and mathematical tools.
The work of such figures shows Oxford at its most distinctive, in logic, natural philosophy and mathematical approaches to physical questions. Some of these writers influenced scholars on the Continent as well.
What a typical student experienced
A student’s day was shaped by the college or hall in which he lived and by the schedule of lectures. Lectures could begin early in the morning, and teaching was in Latin. Books were expensive because they had to be copied by hand, so students often borrowed or hired copies, or took notes, and many relied on the lecturer’s reading. Disputations tested a student’s logic and memory, and examinations were largely oral.
Discipline was a concern. Records mention fights, drinking, gambling and conflicts with the town. Universities tried to regulate dress, curfews and behavior with rules, with mixed success.
Most students left without a degree. Many had acquired the Latin and logical skills they needed to work as clerks or priests. A master of arts had a recognized qualification, and a doctor of theology reached the highest honors, but the numbers at the top were small.
Careers after Oxford
Graduates found work in the church, as parish priests, canons and bishops’ officials. Others entered royal service, serving as clerks and diplomats, or worked for nobles. The ability to read and write Latin, draft documents and reason clearly was valuable, and the Oxford name gave a graduate standing.
Limits of the picture
It is easy to treat Oxford as a golden age of ideas, but the reality was more varied. Teaching depended on tradition and authority, innovation was often cautious, and ecclesiastical oversight could narrow the range of acceptable thought. Church condemnations of certain propositions in the thirteenth century at Paris and Oxford show that some teachings were restricted. The Black Death and later religious controversy disrupted the university at points. What remains clear is that Oxford was among the leading intellectual centers in Europe for much of the later Middle Ages.