The Blackfriars at Oxford

When a little band of Dominicans, led by Friar Gilbert de Fresney, arrived in Oxford on the feast of Our Lady’s Assumption, August the 15th, 1221, the University was already rising to fame. Oxford, however, at that date was in no sense the rival of Paris. Her glory was yet to come—a glory to which the newly arrived friars were to contribute considerably. Oxford gave Gilbert and his brethren an enthusiastic welcome and in a short time they were able to erect a small convent and schools in the Jewry. Their fame spread, their numbers increased, and in less than three years they had outgrown their accommodation and were forced to seek a new and larger home. At the suggestion of King Henry III they chose for their new site a river-island in the south suburb of the town, outside the Water Gate in the parish of St. Ebbe. The king himself owned this property, which he generously made over to the friars. And Isabel Bolbec de Vere, the widowed Countess of Oxford, undertook to build them a new priory. It is interesting to note that, fifty years later, another widowed Countess of Oxford, Alice de Vere, rebuilt the convent of the Dominicans in the sister University of Cambridge. Walter Mauclerk, Bishop of Carlisle and Treasurer of England, also proved a signal benefactor to the community amongst whom he entered as a novice in 1246. Countess Isabel died in 1245, a few months before the friars entered their new abode.