Oxford has a long and varied history. There are contradictory accounts of when the area was first settled, (some claim that it was a Roman outpost), but it was most definitely an established settlement as early as 700 AD. Prior to this, the area was used by the Romans, who used the natural abundance of clays, sand and fuel to make pottery. The settlement formed when St. Frideswide, daughter of King Didan, founded a priority at the present day site of Oxford. As shown in the timeline of Oxford, the first recorded mention of the name Oxford was in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in 912, when it was referred to as a place of importance, because of its strategic location, and the presence of the Abbey of St. Frideswide. It was also an occasional capital city. Within a decade of the Norman conquest they built a castle there. Henry I built Beaumont Palace there in the eleventh century, which started a royal connection which reached its height during Stuart times. Robert d'Oilly was appointed the first Norman governor of Oxford and was responsible for building Oxford Castle, of which all that remains is the motte (mound) and the tower of the Church of St. George in the castle. The site today is occupied by a county council building, previously a prison. Robert also built Oxford's first bridges (Magdalen, Folly, and Hythe). The Normans constructed a stone wall around the settlement. This wall enclosed an area of approximately 95 acres (38 hectares). Little now remains of it except for a few short sections, such as that standing in the grounds of New College.

The future of the town changed greatly in 1167, when there was a great movement to keep the English scholars in England. Previously, they had almost exclusively attended the university of Paris, and claims have been made that they either were expelled or recalled by Henry II, but thereafter they got their education in England. There were already a community of scholars in Oxford at the time, but it is important to note that they were not the only choice available to the English medieval student. There were also schools of importance at York, Hereford, and Lincoln, but these did not survive as university towns. It has been postulated that the combination of good position and a royal presence made Oxford the most successful of these communities. In any case, it has developed into one of the premier universities in the world, and the link between the college and the town has been incredibly important to both the history and the Urban development of the city. The first colleges built were University College (1249), Balliol (1263), and Merton (1264).

Town and Gown

Although the town and the college have shared Oxford since the beginning of the University in 1249, there has not always been a good relationship between the two. The first students lived almost entirely separately from the town, in residence halls. This separation of "town" and "gown" led to trouble at times,

Oxford's oldest building,St Michael's Churchtower, dates to around 1050.

It was built as a lookout point for the Danes.

especially in the first hundred or so years of the University's existence in Oxford. The students were largely from other areas of England, and xenophobia may have been one of the major causes of the rift between the two groups. Even prior to the first colleges, there were a substantial number of students in Oxford, studying at the monasteries of St. Frideswide and Osney Abbey, as well as several "Masters" who would rent out halls and teach and live with their students. Several unscrupulous property owners, traders, and Masters could abuse their positions, and animosity was present between town and gown from the very beginning. In 1209, relations took a turn for the worse, when a student (some say accidentally) killed a woman in the town. The townsfolk responded by hanging two of the students (although we can't determine who, exactly). The students, fearing for their lives in such a dangerous town, fled to Cambridge and set up schools there. Therefore, the "sister Universities" are perhaps better described as mother and daughter. The students left and didn't return for five years, at which time the King stepped in and mandated a number of taxes and penalties upon the town. These taxes were, incidentally, the first endowment for the Universities. The relations worsened in 1355, with the occurrence of the St. Scholastica Feast. Fighting began in a pub between a student and the landlord, and after each side summoned more support, there was a full out battle in the streets. Sixty students were killed, and the rest fled for safety. The King was on the side of the scholars, however, and as punishment for the deaths of the students, he established St. Scholastica's Day, 63 townsfolk had to pay a fine on every anniversary of the massacre for the nest five hundred years. Once again, the town was forced to support the University.

King Charles I and his run from Parliament

Charles Stuart I was born as a prince of Scotland, but following the union of Scotland and England in 1601 he was to become prince of all of England upon his succession in 1625. He was a weak and stubborn leader, unwilling to recognize the growing movement to give more power to parliament. He believed that Kings had a divine right to rule, and attempted to recall the parliament in 1640. In late 1642, war was declared between the King's Royalist army and the Parliament. He fled London, and made Oxford capitol of all of England, bringing his army with him to live in the city. Oxford was an attractive locale for the King because of its comfortable lodging in the University's halls, strategic location, and the wealth in the Universities. The Universities were ordered to surrender their gold and silver and the town was overcrowded with some five thousand soldiers. Plague and Typhus ran rampant, and morale was very low. The town was encircled by Parliament troops for a year before the somewhat anticlimactic end to the war in 1646. Prince Charles fled in disguise at night from his capital, and the town surrendered following a memorable speech from Parliamentarian General Fairfax, saying he "very much desired the preservation of that place (so famous for learning) from ruin, which inevitably is likely to fall upon it except you concur". Charles later became the only British monarch to be put to death at the hands of the state.

Diversification & Expansion

Oxford's growing importance as an academic capitol of the world brought many outside influence to the town. In 1801 Oxford was still a small market town of about 12,000 persons, many of whom depended on the university for a livelihood, but by the beginning of the 20th century printing and publishing industries had become firmly established in the town, and the manufacture of preserves (especially marmalade) was also important. During the 18th century a canal network linking Oxford with various parts of the country was developed, and in 1835 the Great Western Railway from London to Bristol was begun, bringing even more people with it. By 1901 the population had grown to over 50,000 people, and in 1912 William Morris, later Lord Nuffield, opened Morris Motors at Cowley in Oxford. In the same year the first Morris car was produced and Morris's company quickly expanded. Pressed Steel followed and began their production of car bodies, and MG opened in nearby Abingdon. Oxford, most famous until then for its renowned university was transformed from simple college town into a center for industrial and economic growth. Now there are numerous high-tech industries located on the ring road around Oxford, providing jobs to the citizens and new technologies to us all.