axes slung on their backs, and adorn their bare necks and arms with
collars and bracelets of gold. We see them meeting to discuss laws
and frontiers, and feasting late when business is done, and
chaffering for knives with ivory handles, for arrows, and saddles,
and wadmal, in the booths of the citizens. Through the mist of time
this picture of ancient Oxford may be distinguished. We are tempted
to think of a low, grey twilight above that wet land suddenly lit up
with fire; of the tall towers of St. Frideswyde's Minster flaring
like a torch athwart the night; of poplars waving in the same wind
that drives the vapour and smoke of the holy place down on the Danes
who have taken refuge there, and there stand at bay against the
English and the people of the town. The material Oxford of our times
is not more unlike the Oxford of low wooden booths and houses, and of
wooden spires and towers, than the life led in its streets was unlike
the academic life of to-day. The Conquest brought no more quiet
times, but the whole city was wrecked, stormed, and devastated,
before the second period of its history began, before it was the seat
of a Norman stronghold, and one of the links of the chain by which
England was bound. "Four hundred and seventy-eight houses were so
ruined as to be unable to pay taxes," while, "within the town or
without the wall, there were but two hundred and forty-three houses
which did yield tribute."

With the buildings of Robert D'Oily, a follower of the Conqueror's,
and the husband of an English wife, the heiress of Wigod of
Wallingford, the new Oxford begins. Robert's work may be divided
roughly into two classes. First, there are the strong places he
erected to secure his possessions, and, second, the sacred places he
erected to secure the pardon of Heaven for his robberies. Of the
castle, and its "shining coronal of towers," only one tower remains.