Oxford | Page 6

extra moenia aulam regiain
in suburbio positam introivit. In 1280, however, he seems to have
plucked up courage and attended a
Chapter of

Dominicans in Oxford.
The last of the meetings between North and South was held at Oxford
in October 1065. "In urle quae famoso nomine Oxnaford nuncupatur,"
to quote a document of Cnut's. (Cod. Dipl. DCCXLVI. in 1042.) There
the Northumbrian rebels met Harold in the last days of Edward the
Confessor. With this meeting we leave that Oxford before the Conquest,
of which possibly not one stone, or one rafter, remains. We look back
through eight hundred years on a city, rich enough, it seems, and
powerful, and we see the narrow streets full of armed bands of
men--men that wear the cognisance of the horse or of the raven, that
carry short swords, and are quick to draw them; men that dress in short
kirtles of a bright colour, scarlet or blue; that wear axes slung on their
backs, and adorn their bare necks and arms with collars and bracelets of
gold. We see them meeting to discuss laws and frontiers, and feasting
late when business is done, and chaffering for knives with ivory
handles, for arrows, and saddles, and wadmal, in the booths of the
citizens. Through the mist of time this picture of ancient Oxford may
be distinguished. We are tempted to think of a low, grey twilight above
that wet land suddenly lit up with fire; of the tall towers of St.
Frideswyde's Minster flaring like a torch athwart the night; of poplars
waving in the same wind that drives the vapour and smoke of the holy
place down on the Danes who have taken refuge there, and there stand
at bay against the English and the people of the town. The material
Oxford of our times is not more unlike the Oxford of low wooden
booths and houses, and of wooden spires and towers, than the life led in
its streets was unlike the academic life of to-day. The Conquest brought
no more quiet times, but the whole city was wrecked, stormed, and
devastated, before the second period of its history began, before it was
the seat of a Norman stronghold, and one of the links of the chain by
which England was bound. "Four hundred and seventy-eight houses
were so ruined as to be unable to pay taxes," while, "within the town or
without the wall, there were but two hundred and forty-three houses
which did yield tribute."
With the buildings of Robert D'Oily, a follower of the Conqueror's, and
the husband of an English wife, the heiress of Wigod of Wallingford,
the new Oxford begins. Robert's work may be divided roughly into two
classes. First, there are the strong places he erected to secure his

possessions, and, second, the sacred places he erected to secure the
pardon of Heaven for his robberies. Of the castle, and its "shining
coronal of towers," only one tower remains. From the vast strength of
this picturesque edifice, with the natural moat flowing at its feet, we
may guess what the castle must have been in the early days of the
Conquest, and during the wars of Stephen and Matilda. We may guess,
too, that the burghers of Oxford, and the rustics of the neighbourhood,
had no easy life in those days, when, as we have seen, the town was
ruined, and when, as the extraordinary thickness of the walls of its
remaining tower demonstrates, the castle was built by new lords who
did not spare the forced labour of the vanquished. The strength of the
position of the castle is best estimated after viewing the surrounding
country from the top of the tower. Through the more modern
embrasures, or over the low wall round the summit, you look up and
down the valley of the Thames, and gaze deep into the folds of the hills.
The prospect is pleasant enough, on an autumn morning, with the
domes and spires of modern Oxford breaking, like islands, through the
sea of mist that sweeps above the roofs of the good town. In the old
times, no movement of the people who had their fastnesses in the fens,
no approach of an army from any direction could have evaded the
watchman. The towers guarded the fords and the bridge and were
themselves almost impregnable, except when a hard winter made the
Thames, the Cherwell, and the many deep and treacherous streams
passable, as happened when Matilda was beleaguered in Oxford. This
natural strength of the site is demonstrated by the vast mound within
the castle walls, which tradition calls the Jews' Mound, but which is
probably earlier than the Norman buildings. Some other race had
chosen the castle site for its fortress in times of which we know nothing.