From Studium Generale to Modern Research University: Eight Hundred Years of Oxford History

This chapter reviews the book The University of Oxford. A History (2016), by Laurence W. B. Brockliss. The book is divided into four parts: the ‘Catholic University’ (c.1100–1534), the ‘Anglican University’ (1534–1845), the ‘Imperial University’ (1845–1945), and the ‘World University’ (1945–2015). Brockliss’s account broadly endorses the idea that the 400 years or so between the high middle ages and the Victorian era of reform were a time of decline for Oxford, reaching the lowest point under the Hanoverians. Yet this interpretation has been seriously questioned by others, including Lucy Sutherland and Leslie Mitchell. The book tackles a range of topics related to Oxford, including its undergraduate curriculum, student population, research, funding, and institutional obstacles to reform.