Oxford University - Third Oldest in the World?

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Oxford University, an hour’s drive north-west of London, England en route to Wales is not only believed to be the third oldest university in the world still busy teaching, but is also the oldest English speaking university anywhere. Oxford University The exact date when students first gathered in the town is unknown - however there is evidence of teaching having taken place there in 1096. Things only really took off though, when King Henry the 2nd enacted a law preventing English students from patronizing Paris University.

The dons and students lived in relative harmony with the townspeople until the 13th Century when the locals grew as tired of student behavior as did the students of exorbitant lodging rates. Rioting between town and gown led to the construction of basic temporary facilities followed by Medieval Halls of Residence including Baliol and Merton.

Within a century, Oxford University had gained the reputation of being the finest place of learning Oxford University anywhere, with Popes, Kings, and Sages praising its antiquity, curriculum and doctrine. As a consequence the third oldest university in the world was already attracting the sons and daughters of the most rich and famous, and acting as a springboard to success as it still does today.

Throughout the years that followed, the University remained a magnet for controversial debate. Role players ranged from John Wycliff who argued for a Bible in the English vernacular to members of the Oxford Movement who refused to die for king and country before the second of last century’s two great wars. Less successful in their pleas were religious reformers Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley who were burned for heresy at the stake in the 16th Century.

Oxford University By the beginning of the 18th Century the University had abandoned playing politics in favor of the new twin rising academic stars of science and religious study. It was there that Edmund Halley predicted the return of his comet, and John and Charles Wesley held the first meetings of their Methodist Church. Religious controversy continued as dons of what was already the third oldest university in the world vacillated between the re-introduction of Catholic traditions in the English Church and attending debates between Thomas Huxley and Bishop Wilberforce on the subject of Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and other highly controversial matters.

Oxford University The sexism debate that saw women admitted first in 1878 albeit to separate academic halls raged on for nigh on fifty years before equal status was granted them in 1920. Since then Colleges have gradually admitted both men and women, although St Hilda’s College only buckled under in 2008 when it accepted its first male.

During these times of change Oxford University has also added new major research facilities in science and medicine to enhance its humanistic core. Its dons and students remain convinced that although it is only the third oldest university in the world, it is still the world’s best.

 

 



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