Discover Oxford
Oxford topics of interest and background information to help you learn more about the city
Oxford topics of interest and background information to help you learn more about the city
How Oxford's spires (and pints in a local pub) helped inspire Tolkien's Middle Earth
The original tea party on an Oxford riverbank inspires a beloved fantasy realm
This late 19C Romantic offshoot offered a, well, a romanticized reinterpretation of the Medieval style
In 1209, an Oxford "clerk" (university student) accidentally killed a woman and fled the scene. The enraged townspeople, unable to find the perpetrator, dragged his three roommates to prison and then, upon the order of King John (who was in a dispute at the time with the Pope, and therefore the University), hanged all three clerks. Rioting ensued, and a large number of masters and students left, some to nearby Reading, others to Paris, but most of them to Cambridge, where they started a new university.