Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/399

 OXENHAM

365

OXFORD

heart failure in 1877. Eighteen months earlier he had been received into the Church.

An appreciative sketch of his life appeared in the "Times" of 23 Feb., 1877. The writer extols his originality and scholarship: "As an appreciator of others, and as a quick discoverer of anything new likely to exercise a future influence on thought he had few equals". The value of Oxenford's criticism, however, is somewhat lowered by a too great leniency, proceeding from his natural kindliness. In private life he was much beloved. His conversational powers were remarkable; and he possessed an "unsurpassed sweetness of character and self-forgetting nobleness and childlikeness".

AtheiKEum, II (London, 1877), 258; Annual Register, II (Lon- don, 1877),- Catholic Standard and Weekly Register (7 April, 1877).

K. M. Warren.

Ozenham, Henry Nutcombe, English controver- sialist and poet, b. at Harrow, 15 Nov., 1S29; d. at Kensington, 23 March, 1888; was the son of the Rev. William Oxenham, second master of Harrow. He was educated at Harrow School and Balliol College, Oxford, taking his degree in 1850. After receiving Anglican orders, he became curate first at Worminghall, in Buck- inghamshire, then at St. Bartholomew's, Cripplegate. While at the latter place, he was received into the Church by Monsignor (afterwards Cardinal) Man- ning. For a time he contemplated becoming a priest, for which purpose he entered St. Edmund's College, Old Hall, but after receiving minor orders, he left : it is said that his reason was that he believed in the validity of Anglican orders, and considered himself already a priest. He continued to dress as an ecclesiastic and in this anomalous position he spent the remainder of his life. His ambition was to work for the reunion of the Angli- can with the Catholic Church, with which end in view, he published a sympathetic article, in answer to Pusey's "Eirenicon", in the shape of a letter to his friend and fellow-convert. Father Lockhart. After the Vatican Council his position became still more anomalous, for his unwillingness to accept the doctrine of Papal Infallibility was known. Though influenced by the action of Dr. DoUinger, with whom he was on intimate terms, he never outwardly severed his con- nexion with the Catholic Church, and before his death received all the sacraments at the hands of Father Lockhart.

His published works include: "The Sentence of Kaires and Poems" (3rd ed., London, 1871); Transla- tion of Bollinger's "First Age of Christianity" (Lon- don, 1866, 2 vols: two subsequent editions) and "Lectures on Reunion" (London, 1872); "Catholic Eschatology" (1876; new edition, enlarged, 1878); "Memoir of Lieut. Rudolph de Lisle, R. N." (London, 1886); numerous pamphlets and articles, especially in "The Saturday Review", over the initials X. Y. Z.

RiGO in Diet, of Nat. Biog.: Gillow, Bibl. Diet, of Eng. Calk.; obituarv notices in The Saturday Review. The Athena-um, The Manchester Guardian, etc. BERNARD WaRD.

Oxford, one of the most ancient cities in England, grew up under the shadow of a convent, said to have been founded by St. Frideswide as early as the eighth century. Its authentic history begins in 912, when it was occupied by Edward the Elder, King of the West Saxons. It was strongly fortified against the Danes, and again after the Norman Conquest, and the mas- sive keep of the castle, the tower of St. Michael's Chvirch (at the north gate), and a large portion of the city walls still remain to attest the importance of the city in the eleventh century. West of the town rose the splendid castle, and, in the meadows beneath, the no less splendid Augustinian Abbey of Oseney: in the fields to the north the last of the Norman kings built the stately palace of Beaumont; the great church of St. Frideswide was erected by the canons-regular who succeeded the nuns of St. Frideswide; and many fine

churches were built by the piety of the Norman earls. Oxford received a charter from King Henry II, grant- ing its citizens the same privileges and exemptions as thoee enjoyed by the capital of the kingdom; and vari- ous important religious houses were founded in or near the city. A grandson of King John estabhshed Rew- ley Abbey (of which a single arch now remains) for the Cistercian Order; and friars of various orders (Do- minicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, Augustinians, and Trinitarians), all had houses at Oxford of varying im- portance. Parliaments were often held in the city dur- ing the thirteenth century, but this period also saw the beginning of the long struggle between the town and the growing university which ended in the subjuga- tion of the former, and the extinction for centuries of the civic importance of Oxford. The accession of thousands of students of course brought it material prosperity, but it was never, apart from the univer- sity, again prominent in history until the seventeenth century, when it became the headquarters of the Roy- alist party, and again the meeting-place of Parlia- ment. The city of Oxford showed its Hanoverian sympathies long before the university, and feeling be- tween them ran high in consequence. The area and population of the city remained almost stationary un- til about 1830, but since then it has grown rapidly. The population is now (1910) about 50,000; the munic- ipal life of the city is vigorous and flourishing, and its relations with the university are more intimate and cordial than they have ever been during their long his- tory.

Oxford is the cathedral city of the Anglican Diocese of Oxford, erected by Henry VIII. Formerly included in the vast Diocese of Lincoln, it is now part of the Catholic Diocese of Birmingham. The handsome Catholic church of St. Aloysius (served by the Jesuits) was opened in 1875; the Catholic population numbers about 1200, besides about 100 resident members of the university; and there are convents of the following orders— St. Ursula's, Daughters of the Cross, Sisters of Nazareth, Sisters of the M. Holy Sacrament, and Sis- ters of the Holy Child. The Franciscan Capuchin fa- thers have a church and college in the suburb of Cow- ley, as well as a small house of studies in Oxford; and the Benedictines and Jesuits have halls, with private chapels, within the university.

Parker, Early History of Oxford (Oxford, 1885); Wood, Survey of the ArUiquities of the City of Oxford (1889-99); Green and Robertson, Studies in Oxford History (Oxf., 1901); Turner, Records of City of Oxford (Oxf., 1880) ; and the publications of the Oxford Historical Society (Oxford, various dates).

D, O. Huntbr-Blair.

Oxford, University of. — I. Origin and History. — The most extraordinary myths have at various times prevailed as to the fabulous antiquity of Oxford as a seat of learning. It is sufficient to mention that the fifteenth century chronicler Rous assigns its origin to the time when "Samuel the servant of God was judge in Judaea"; while a writer of Edward Ill's reign asserts that the university was founded by "certain philosophers when the warlike Trojans, under the leadership of Brutus, triumphantly seized on the Is- lands of Albion". A much more long-lived fiction — one, indeed, which, first heard of in the middle of the fourteenth century, persisted down to the nineteenth — was that King Alfred, well-known as a patron of ed- ucation, was the real founder of Oxford University. The truth is that it is quite impossible to assign even an approximate date to the development of the schools which in Saxon times were grouped round the monastic foundation of St. Frideswide (on the site of what is now Christ Church) into the corporate institution later known as Oxford University. Well-known scholars were, we know^ lecturing in Oxford on the- ology and canon law before the middle of the twelfth century, but these were probably private teachers at- tached to St. Frideswide's monastery. It is not im-