OXFORD, UNIVERSITY of. — In England. It comprises about 7,000 students, of whom 1,500 are women; Catholic students now number about 400 among graduates and undergraduates (of these, about 50 are women), whereas in 1911 they did not exceed one hundred.
The University appears in the second half of the 12th century and grew through the exodus from the University of Paris in 1167, when King Henry II recalled his subjects from that seat. The Chancellor is first mentioned in 1214, but until 1368 there was also, as a papal legate, an official of the episcopal curia of Lincoln, in whose territory Oxford lay (today Oxford belongs to the archdiocese of Birmingham). In 1395 Boniface IX exempted the University from every episcopal visitation; this privilege, revoked by John XXIII, was restored by Sixtus IV in 1479.
Study halls in Oxford were opened in 1221 by the Dominicans, in 1224 by the Franciscans, followed before 1300 by the Carmelites, Benedictines, and Cistercians. The other students were scattered in various lodgings, causing a lack of discipline and moral disorders. To remedy this, colleges for lay students were established, modeled on the religious ones. Thus arose in 1249 University College, about 1262 Balliol; in 1264 Merton, transferred from Surrey to Oxford in 1274; this is the first true college and served as a model for those that followed, namely Exeter in 1314, Oriel in 1326, Queen’s in 1340, New College in 1379, Lincoln in 1427 to combat the heresy of Wycliffe; All Souls in 1437; Magdalen in 1458; Brasenose in 1509; Corpus Christi in 1516; Christ Church in 1525; there were also many “public halls,” of which only St. Edmund’s (1269) remains. Under the pious Queen Mary, the Cistercian College of St. Bernard was refounded as St. John’s College (1555), and the Benedictine Durham College as Trinity College (1554). After the apostasy of Queen Elizabeth, Jesus College was founded in 1571, principally for the Welsh; Wadham in 1613; Keble in 1870, always exclusively Anglican. The ancient Broadgates Hall became Pembroke College (1624); the Benedictine Gloucester College was transformed into Worcester College (1714); and Hart Hall (1284), renamed Hertford in 1740, was suppressed in 1818 and reopened in 1840. Women were admitted to degrees in 1920.
The University was incorporated in 1571 (Act of Parliament) and remained exclusively Anglican until 1870, when the religious examination was abolished. Catholics were thus readmitted in 1896 with the approval of the English bishops, and Campion Hall was then founded; followed in 1897 by St. Benet’s Hall for Benedictine students.
In the 13th–14th centuries Oxford flourished with professors and students such as Robert Grosseteste, Adam Marsh, Alexander of Hales, Roger Bacon, John Pecham (Archbishop of Canterbury), Duns Scotus, William of Wykeham, and in the 15th–16th centuries William Waynflete, Wolsey, Lily Linacre, Grocyn, Colet, Norton, Warham, St. Thomas More, Cardinal Reginald Pole, and many others. The period 1220–70 is considered by many as the golden age of Oxford, just as the period 1485–1525 is illustrious. Disastrous for Oxford was the apostasy of Henry VIII, who forbade the study of canon law, and under Edward VI (1547–53) some zealous promoters of the “New Learning” sacked libraries. Queen Mary (1553–58) did all she could to restore everything; but the Elizabethan persecution drove out the best students, as even some Protestant writers, both ancient such as Peter Martyr (Vermigli), Jewel, and Pilkington, and modern such as Broderick (1886), Gladstone (1892), etc., admit. Among the exiles for the faith one may recall William Allen (later a cardinal), Robert Parsons, Gregory Martin, Richard Bristow, Thomas Harding, Thomas Stapleton, and many others who took refuge in Louvain, Douai, and Reims, refuting Anglican polemical writers. During the Anglican persecution (1534–1681), the University gave to the Church 63 martyrs, among them St. Thomas More, Bl. Edmund Campion, John Storey, Cuthbert Mayne, Ralph Sherwin, John Roberts.
The University Library, established in the 13th century, was refounded by the great book collector Thomas Bodley in 1603 and is therefore known everywhere as “The Bodleian.”
The University remained loyal under King Charles I but suffered greatly during the Civil Wars (1641–49) and under the Commonwealth (1649–60). Under the Catholic King James II (1685–88)
Oxford. University of — Aerial view of Oxford and the various colleges of the University.
the Holy Mass was celebrated freely in University College, but when the King wished to appoint a Catholic president of Magdalen College, the usurping Anglicans cried out against tyranny. After the Revolution of 1688 the University went into decline; Christian indifference then prevailed, though somewhat interrupted in the 18th century by the Methodism of John Wesley. In 1833 the Oxford Movement began, followed by many conversions to the Catholic Church. Lay students now have their own chapel (oratory) with a resident chaplain (the present one is Mons. V. ELEUSIO; one of his predecessors was Mons. R. Knox). Among the notable converts from Oxford after 1870 are the Benedictines J. H. Chapman and Bede Camm, the Jesuit Fr. G. G. Martindale, the laymen J. S. Phillimore and C. Dawson, and Mons. R. Knox. Among Catholics are H. Belloc, Fr. Urquhart, and Fr. de Zulueta. The University is rich in treasures of architecture, literature, and manuscripts; though there is full freedom for Catholics, the tone of the University is secular.
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- Statuta et Decreta Universitatis Oxoniensis, Oxford, 1909; G. Gibson, Statuta ant. Univers. Oxon., 1913; J. B. Milburn, The Church and the Universities, in Dublin Review, 124 (1899), pp. 314–411; 129 (1901), pp. 73–97; id., O. in Cath. Enc., XI, pp. 365–70; The University of O. and the Reformation, in Month, 110 (1909), pp. 15–26; 161–73; C. B. Dawson, The Mirror of O., Oxford, 1910; C. Mallet, A History of the University of O., 3 vols., London 1924–27; H. Rashdall, F. M. Powicke, A. B. Emden, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, Oxford, 1936; C. H. Haskins, The University of O. and the “jus ubique docendi,” in English Historical Review, 56 (1941), pp. 281–92; Ch. Oman, Memories of Victorian O. and some early years, London, 1941; the collections of the O. Historical Society and those of the O. Colleges Historical Series, Enrico G. Rope.
Oxford Movement — This is the name given to the 19th-century attempt at a Catholic revival within Anglicanism. Toward the end of the 18th century, the social and intellectual aristocracy of England, with few exceptions, held only contempt for the Catholic religion. In such an environment, the Roman Church across the Channel was called “the little Italian mission” or “the little Irish mission.” The cry “no popery” (no Pope) was common among the English of that time; as late as 1770, armed mobs, inflamed by that cry, had sacked and burned Catholic chapels. Only a few villages in Sussex and along the coast, and some castles, still preserved intact the faith of the period before the so-called Reformation.
They contributed freely to the collapse of many prejudices. After the Concordat, most of them returned to their homeland, but some remained in England. In 1811, when J. H. Newman, a ten-year-old London boy, arrived at Ealing School, there was still a French priest among the teachers. The influence of the immigrant clergy, the return of the intellectual portion of the English clergy to the study of the Fathers of the Church and to scientific exegesis, and moreover the disgust that the same Anglican clergy began to feel toward governmental interference in spiritual matters, toward the incipient German criticism, and toward the progressive weakening of religious life, all contributed to preparing the Oxford Movement, the Catholic revival within Anglicanism.
On 14 July, in Newman’s own judgment, was the birthday of this movement. It was the day when John Keble, the most eminent of the fellows of Oriel College, delivered in St Mary’s at Oxford, an Anglican church of the University, his sermon on national apostasy. It was a true cry of alarm that penetrated to the depths of souls and aroused an echo in the best part of the University of Oxford. On 9 September, an anonymous pamphlet of three pages was circulated among the public; it began thus: “To my brethren in the sacred ministry, priests and deacons of the Church of Christ in England.” The pamphlet was by Newman: “I must speak because evil times are at hand and no one raises his voice against them.” This call to arms was the first of the Tracts for the Times, which then succeeded one another uninterruptedly for twelve years: from them came the name “Tractarian” initially given to the Oxford Movement. The purpose of these anonymous writings was to restore to honour the dogmas and the Catholic morality betrayed by Anglicanism. Their effect was prodigious. In 1835 Pusey devoted himself to them with great zeal: the Tracts became longer and richer in learning. Tract 90, the last, was published on 27 February 1841. In it Newman demonstrated that the Thirty-Nine Articles of Elizabeth, the Creed of the Anglican Church, although “a product of an anti-Catholic age, were in the providential plan of God not entirely anti-Catholic, indeed did not contradict the Council of Trent” and “could therefore be subscribed to by those who aspired to Catholicism.”
On 9 October 1845, Newman, in the solitude of Littlemore, returned to the true Church at the hands of Fr Domenico of the Mother of God, a Passionist. Of this conversion Disraeli later said: “It has given England such a shock that the whole nation still trembles from it.”
On 29 September 1850, Pius IX restored the English Catholic hierarchy and appointed Wiseman (q.v.) cardinal archbishop of Westminster. Upon his arrival in London a tumult was staged. But Wiseman’s personal qualities succeeded in turning hostile opinion in his favour. In March 1851 Manning (q.v.), an Anglican pastor, a graduate of Oxford, and an old friend of Newman, was converted. At Wiseman’s death, Manning succeeded him as archbishop of Westminster.
Pusey, whose erudition was extraordinary, became increasingly the centre of the Oxford Movement: he showed himself opposed to individual conversions made in a haphazard way, but was in favour of corporate union with Rome, which was the ultimate aim of the movement. Tractarianism became Puseyism. In 1856, Dr Lee, an Anglican clergyman, a graduate of Oxford, shaken by Pusey’s ideas, launched a newspaper under the title The Union. Its purpose was to promote union with the Holy See. The following year, Lee founded the Association for the Promotion of the Union of Christendom. Some Catholics joined this crusade of prayer. Among them distinguished themselves Lockhart and above all Ambrose Phillipps. Despite the sympathy shown by Cardinal Wiseman, on 16 September 1864, following certain incidents, the Holy Office condemned the A.P.U.C.; on 8 November 1865, in reply to a letter sent by 198 unionist Anglicans, a second decree of the Holy Office ratified the condemnation. The Association then remained composed only of Anglicans. From it, in 1877, there emerged the Order of Corporate Reunion, founded by Dr F. G. Lee. He asked for episcopal consecration from Old Catholic bishops who undoubtedly possessed the apostolic succession. Two members of the O.C.R., the Rev. Moseman and Dr Seccombe (some add the name of G. Leycester Lyne), joined Lee and likewise received episcopal consecration from the same bishops. Lee and Moseman entered the Catholic Church shortly before their death.
In September 1865 Pusey published a writing entitled Eirenicon, The Church of England, Part of the One, Holy, Catholic Church of Christ, and a Means of Restoring Visible Unity; in 1869 he published a second Eirenicon and a third in 1870. Unfortunately the definitions of the Vatican Council were presented to Anglicans in an exaggerated and inexact manner. Pusey too had to renounce any hope of union. Later he wrote: “The majority of the Council has fooled me; since then I have not touched any book of Roman controversy.” And again: “The Vatican Council has been the greatest sorrow of my life.”
From 1870 to 1894 the Catholic revival continued in a latent state; but it was only in 1894 that a new concrete orientation toward union between Rome and Canterbury emerged, the supreme aim of the Oxford Movement, which day by day took the name of the Anglo-Catholic Movement. This concrete orientation, born of the meeting in 1890 between a French Lazarist priest, M. Portal, and Lord Halifax, president of the English Church Union, after arousing great hopes, despite the tenacious opposition of Cardinal Vaughan, suffered a setback in 1896. On 13 September of that year Leo XIII issued the bull Apostolicae curae on the invalidity of Anglican ordinations. The Oxford Movement did not, however, cease to exist. In particular, the reform of monastic life and the development of scientific exegesis reached in Anglicanism, in the first half of the twentieth century, a great development.
On 8 August 1920 the English press published the Appeal of Lambeth, signed by all the Anglican bishops, for the union of the Churches. Lord Halifax saw his dearest hopes revived: with the help of the indefatigable M. Portal and under the direction of Cardinal Mercier he organized the Malines Conversations (q.v.), which took place from 9 December 1921 to 12 October 1926: a new attempt at rapprochement between Rome and Canterbury. On 1 October 1932, in preparation for the centenary of the Oxford Movement, 51 of the leaders of the contemporary Anglo-Catholic Movement signed a Manifesto. From February 1933 more than 359 new subscriptions by Anglican clergymen were added to the previous ones. The purpose of the Manifesto was to draw attention to the deviation of Anglo-Catholicism and to refute the true path traced by Keble and Pusey in order to bring back those who had strayed from II.
Giacomo de Bivort de la Saudée