The History and Pre-History of Hertford College, Oxford: Survival and Renewals

Modern Hertford is one of Oxford’s least famous colleges. Its chief claims to attention are its pioneering egalitarian reforms of its admissions system in the 1960s and 70s, its early embrace of co-residence in 1974, and its deliberate transformation from a poor, obscure, dilapidated, ill-favoured, and introspective conservative backwater to an open, outward-looking, financially secure, and academically sound partner in the collegiate university - such rapid transformations being somewhat rare in Oxford.

It is also one of Oxford’s youngest colleges and, having been founded only in 1874, ostensibly unsuitable for a book-length history. But behind modern Hertford sits an institutional history reaching back to the thirteenth century and the early days of the university itself, the direct residual legatee of two medieval academic halls (usually precarious, non-corporate licensed student hostels that dominated Oxford’s first quarter millenium, providing teaching, accommodation, and the model for later more solidly established endowed colleges) Hart Hall (c. 1280-1740) and Magdalen Hall (c. 1480-1874) and the failed first Hertford College (1740-1816). On a small, intimate but precise scale, Hertford and its precursors map not only the internal history of the university but also the wider social, political, religious and educational settings over seven centuries: the creation of a medieval literate clerisy; sixteenth century humanism, gentrification and Reformation; seventeenth century religious and political upheaval and Civil War; the post-Restoration triumph of Tory Oxford; the latitudinarian eighteenth century; the beginnings of empire; nineteenth century, imperialism, plutocracy and reform; twentieth century slow democratisation; and twenty-first century technology. Based at every stage on deep trawls through rich, much hitherto unexplored archival evidence, and lit by close portraits of dons, grandees, scholars, students, and staff through the centuries, this book charts a story of repeated dislocation, precarity, ingenuity, and renewal, very different from the more familiar image of Oxford’s established grandeur and serene progress towards modernity.

Christopher Tyerman, Professor Emeritus of the History of the Crusades and Emeritus Fellow, Hertford College, University of Oxford

Christopher Tyerman is Professor of the History of the Crusades at the University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow at Hertford College. His research and publications have revolved around the crusades, medieval England and France, and English educational institutions.