Native Instincts Flashcards
What did D’Oyly do after the Norman Conquest and the construction of Oxford Castle?
He settled in England marrying an Englishwoman and inheriting large estate from her father (Like I said, he was a smart man)
How did D’Oyly start performing good deeds around Oxford and why did he start doing this?
He had a nightmare where the Virgin Mary haunted him for his sinful ways at how he conquered the Oxford areas and the violent ways he went about this. He made a name for himself as a builder of local monastic buildings including a church inside St George’s Tower. The collegiate church of St George was founded in 1074 by D’Oyly and all that remains of the church today is the Crypt.
How was St George’s Tower the foundation for education in Oxford?
The church in St George’s Tower was the first place in Oxford used for education to support the small community of students a century before the university was founded and these students would often visit the church to learn from the great medieval scholars Theodore D’Etampes and Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote the legend of King Arthur and Merlin for the first time in the church in 1136.
What was Oxford like before the Castle was built?
Saxon Oxford was more like a small but prosperous town pf a few hundred houses, set at a river crossing in the middle of a damp, misty flood plain
How was Oxford protected as a town before the Castle was built?
The town was well defended to the East and West by the River Thames and Cherwell. To the South of the town, an attacking army, such as the Danes who beset Oxford in 1009, would have been confronted by another natural barrier being the marshy ground dotted with little islands and crossed only by wooden bridges with gates
What guarded the West side of the town before the Castle was built?
St George’s Tower which was discovered by archaeologists to be of a different structure to other Normandy buildings as the type of great stone used to build St George’s Tower was much different to the materials used by the Normans. This means that St George’s Tower is the oldest standing secular structure in England
