A short history of the University

The Academy of Oxenfurt was founded in 1583 by letters patent, with money left by Edmund Arncliffe, a merchant who traded on the Pontar and who wanted, in the words of his will, “a school of learning on this side of the water, so that the young men of this place need not cross it to be taught”. It took over the chapter house of a priory dissolved forty years before, and taught divinity, law and physic to about forty students.

For two and a half centuries the Academy taught but could not award degrees, and its students who wanted one took it at a university elsewhere. Its Rectors petitioned for the right at least eleven times. It came at last with a Royal Charter in 1851, which allowed the Academy to confer degrees under the name of Oxenfurt University. The charter did not rename the corporation, which is why the University still signs its contracts, holds its licences and owns its buildings as Oxenfurt Academy.

The University grew with the city in the twentieth century, opening its Riverside site for the sciences in 1962 and building halls of residence along the river. It kept its older habits too: the Library has not given up a book since 1611 that it did not have to, logic is still compulsory for first-year philosophers, and the Academy bell, cast in 1609, is still rung for Congregation.

Timeline

1583

Letters patent found the Academy of Oxenfurt, endowed by the will of Edmund Arncliffe, a Pontar merchant, to teach divinity, law and physic in the chapter house of the dissolved priory of St Aldwyn, on Ferry Lane.

1611

The second Rector gives the Academy 1,100 books, the foundation of the Library. Logic becomes a compulsory subject for first-year students, and remains one in philosophy.

1726

The Old Schools are completed on Bellhouse Lane, with the clock tower and, beneath them, the Treasury, built in 1724 to keep the Academy’s money and records.

1768

The Old Library is built to hold the books, which have outgrown the Chapter House.

1851

A Royal Charter gives the Academy the power to award its own degrees, under the name Oxenfurt University. The corporation keeps its name.

1875

Oxenfurt University Press prints its first book, a grammar of the Pontar dialect.

1897

The Ferry Bursary is founded, to pay for students who live in Novigrad to cross the river.

1940

The first volume of the Oxenfurt Philosophical Review is published.

1953

The Pontar floods reach the steps of the Old Library. The lower stacks are moved to the first floor, where they still are.

1962

The Riverside site opens for the sciences. The Academy’s charters move from the Treasury chest to the University Archives.

1979

The Computer-Assisted Learning Unit is founded. Its 1,412 teaching programs, written until 1996, are now in Special Collections.

1998

The Library deposits its first digital collections with Lazarus, Frothly’s digital archive.

2003

The University’s night patrol system for the Treasury and the Old Library, GOLEM, is licensed by the Turing Registry.

2019

Saltings, the University’s seventh hall of residence, opens with 612 rooms.

2022

The Centre for the Ethics of Perception is founded in the Faculty of Philosophy.

2026

The Upper Reading Room of the Old Library reopens. The University and Frothly announce a fellowship in machine ethics.

The University Archives, in Special Collections, hold the Academy’s records from 1583. The account above draws on Chartered Bodies (2014) by Alison Treadwell and the Archives’ own catalogue.