Following friom previous posts – and in a slightly flippant vein – I’m trying to find the purpose of libraries by browsing the web and starting with Oxford. I can’t find much stated purpose for the Bodleian library, so I’m trying to find the purpose of the University Of Oxford Off to Wikipedia…
The expulsion of foreigners from the University of Paris in 1167 caused many English scholars to return from France and settle in Oxford. The historian Gerald of Wales lectured to the scholars in 1188, and the first known foreign scholar, Emo of Friesland arrived in 1190. The head of the University was named a chancellor from 1201, and the masters were recognised as a universitas or corporation in 1231. The students associated together, on the basis of geographical origins, into two “nations”, representing the North (including the Scots) and the South (including the Irish and the Welsh). In later centuries, geographical origins continued to influence many students’ affiliations when membership of a college or hall became customary in Oxford. Members of many religious orders, including Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and Augustinians, settled in Oxford in the mid-13th century, gained influence, and maintained houses for students. At about the same time, private benefactors established colleges to serve as self-contained scholarly communities. Among the earliest were John I de Balliol, father of the future King of Scots; Balliol College bears his name. Another founder, Walter de Merton, a chancellor of England and afterwards Bishop of Rochester, devised a series of regulations for college life; Merton College thereby became the model for such establishments at Oxford as well as at the University of Cambridge. Thereafter, an increasing number of students forsook living in halls and religious houses in favour of living at colleges.
So my hypothesis that universities and therefore libraries are founded to promote God and his Kngdom starts with a good foundation. Let’s try and find the stautes…
Googling for “statutes of the university of Oxford” yields an act of parliament. It dates from 1859, is Crown Copyright (so I will be taken to the Tower if I reproduce it) but basically it repeals the taking of Oaths in Oxford and Cambridge. The Oaths are not mentioned but we can assume that God features prominently. It’s from OPSI – the Office of Public Sector Information – but although the document references changes to an act, the act that is changed is not hyperlinked – and I am not going to search for it.
Oxford University pages on governance are clearer
1. Legal status of the University
The University of Oxford is a lay corporation first established at common law by custom or prescription and later formally incorporated by statute. It has no founder and no charter. The early history of the University1 shows that it evolved from a group of Masters and students residing in Oxford in the latter part of the twelfth century. The academic society which they collectively brought into life paralleled similar associations at other centres of learning in Europe, notably Bologna and Paris. The term originally used throughout Europe to describe such a society was studium generale. The purpose of the studia generalia was to provide instruction in the seven liberal arts – grammar, logic, and rhetoric (the trivium) and arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music (the quadrivium). Graduates in arts could embark upon a higher course of study leading to degrees in law, medicine, or theology.
and tellingly it indicates…
The establishment of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge may be contrasted with the foundation of their colleges. All the colleges are founded by charter. With the exception of the more modern foundations they are eleemosynary corporations, that is to say they were established and endowed for the perpetual distribution of the bounty of the founder and were frequently charged with the duty of saying masses or prayers for the founder and his or her kin.8
PMR: The lack of charter at least gives Oxford the chance to adjust with the times. It’s frustrating that although this document has many references and many of these point to potentially e-paper documents (such as Acts of Parliament), none of them is hyperlinked. I’d like to read the Act – perhaps it doesn’t mention God. But clearly the colleges – and presumably their libraries – are devoted to the furtherance of God’s purpose… so I’ll be browsing Balliol College…
Note that what I am doing might be considered as either learning (being a student) or scholarship. Is that something that libraries – whatever they are – should be involved in?