Frideswyde had lived but loosely
(pro libito viverunt), says William of Malmesbury, and were to be
superseded by regular canons, under the headship of one Guimond, and
the patronage of the Bishop of Salisbury. Whoever goes into Christ
Church new buildings from the river-side, will see, in the old
edifice facing him, a certain bulging in the wall. That is the mark
of the pulpit, whence a brother used to read aloud to the brethren in
the refectory of St. Frideswyde. The new leaven of learning was soon
to ferment in an easy Oxford, where men lived pro libito, under good
lords, the D'Oilys, who loved the English, and built, not churches
and bridges only, but the great and famous Oseney Abbey, beyond the
church of St. Thomas, and not very far from the modern station of the
Great Western Railway. Yet even after public teaching in Oxford
certainly began, after Master Robert Puleyn lectured in divinity
there (1133; cf. Oseney Chronicle), the tower was burned down by
Stephen's soldiery in 1141 (Oseney Chronicle, p. 24).
CHAPTER II--THE EARLY STUDENTS--A DAY WITH A MEDIEVAL UNDERGRADUATE
Oxford, some one says, "is bitterly historical." It is difficult to
escape the fanaticism of Antony Wood, and of "our antiquary," Bryan
Twyne, when one deals with the obscure past of the University.
Indeed, it is impossible to understand the strange blending of new
and old at Oxford--the old names with the new meanings--if we avert
our eyes from what is "bitterly historical.
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