THE CITY OF OXFORD
Oxford lies c. 60 miles west of London at the confluence of the rivers
Thames and Cherwell, in a semi-circle of hills running from Wytham in
the north-west to Headington in the east. To the north the ground
between the two rivers rises gently towards the uplands of north
Oxfordshire, while around the city lies the rich farming country of the Thames valley
and central Oxfordshire. The town developed on the gravels of the Summertown-Radley terrace; there was some early suburban expansion on alluvial land to
the west, but otherwise building activity in Oxford was restricted until the later 19th
century by the wide flood plains of the Thames and Cherwell. (fn. 1) To the east, across
the Cherwell, the small suburb of St. Clement's was established in the early Middle
Ages, but it was not taken into the city until 1835.
Before it became a university town, 'the city of dreaming spires', and eventually a
centre of the motor industry, Oxford was an important Anglo-Saxon and medieval
town. It was a royal foundation on the ancient demesne, and its position as the
county town was well established by 1086. (fn. 2) In the 11th and 12th centuries its
inhabitants were sometimes called citizens, (fn. 3) but from the 13th century they were
always called burgesses and the town was described as a vill or borough. (fn. 4) More
significant than its title were its extensive privileges: (fn. 5) the burgesses were granted the
fee farm in 1199, and from the early 13th century Oxford was governed by a mayor;
the town's liberties, based on those of London, became the model for those of several
other towns. (fn. 6)
With the creation of the see of Oxford, first at Oseney in 1542 and then at Christ
Church in 1546, Oxford became a city. From 1889 it was a county borough and
from 1974 a district, retaining its lord mayor and the title of a city. (fn. 7)
By the mid 14th century the university had acquired extensive powers not only
over its own members but over the town in such matters as the regulation of trade
and the policing of the streets. Gradually its buildings replaced and overshadowed
the houses of the townspeople, who remained economically dependent upon the
university until the rise of the motor industry. So dominant was the university in
Oxford that the place-name without qualification was assumed usually to mean the
university. Few places, if any, have been the subject of so many books, (fn. 8) but only a
handful of the novels, reminiscences, travellers' tales, and histories relate to the town
or its people.
The present volume describes the history of the city and its institutions, but the
complex and sometimes violent relationship between town and gown is central to its
theme. The institutional history of the university is treated elsewhere. (fn. 9) The area
described in this volume is first the medieval town and its liberty, whose boundary
was the city boundary until 1835, and then the area of the city as extended in 1835,
1889, 1929, and 1957. (fn. 10) The history of parishes brought into the extended city is
treated mainly from the date of their incorporation, but the building up of East
Oxford is described as part of the development of the city. The earlier history of the
parishes belongs to that of the hundreds in which they lay: St. Clement's, and parts
of Cowley, Headington, Iffley, and Marston in Bullingdon hundred, (fn. 11) Wolvercote
and Cutteslowe in Wootton hundred. (fn. 12)