Catholic Oxford

Two plaques in St Mary the Virgin, the University Church

2008-08-30T14:12:00.007+01:00

Two modern plaques in the University Church, St Mary the Virgin in the High Street.

One commemorates the Oxford lectures of Blessed John Duns Scotus, the Fransiscan philosopher best known for championing the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Explaining that the doctrine meant that God applied the graces of Christ's passion to Our Lady at the moment of her conception, he famously said 'He could do it, it is fitting, so He did do it.'

The other commemorates the 'martyrs of the Reformation', whatever that phrase might mean. The list of 22 men executed between 1539 and 1681 for broadly religious reasons includes five executed by Queen Mary Tudor and 17 executed under various Protestant governments, including the High Anglican Archbishop Laud, executed under the Puritan Commonwealth in 1645, and the 'Protestant joiner', Stephen College, enraged by Charles II's tolerance of Catholicism, executed for speaking against the King in 1681.

The rationale of the list is hard to fathom. The three 'martyrs' of 1549 died for the Catholic cause, but, unlike the other Catholics on the list, have never been beatified. The reason is that they are not martyrs at all: they were executed for their part in an armed uprising against the 1549 Prayer Book. On that basis, all the soldiers, of both sides, killed in the English Civil War ought to be included, since this conflict also had a religious character. For the full list of the names and short biographies see here.

This Website

2007-01-03T17:24:00.000Z

A TOUR OF OXFORD

The sections below are taken from

Monsignor Laurence Goulder:The Universities: Oxford and Cambridge, in the Pilgrimage Pamphlets series, published by the Guild of Our Lady of Ransom (Second Edition, 1963).

The are placed on-line by kind permission of Goulder's literary executor and the Guild of Our Lady of Ransom.

They follow a walking tour of Central Oxford, and to some extent the entries refer to this order.

To open the whole tour on one page, click here.

Individual entries can be accessed from the side-bar list. They can be searched throught the facility in the bar at the very top of the page; 'labels' have been added to enable readers to see related entries together (click on 'College' at the bottom of an entry on a college, for example, and see all the posts on colleges together).
Additional and more up-to-date commentary has been provided in most cases in green. This is periodically expanded and updated. Recent updates include:

Sheldonian Theatre: build by the Catholic architect Gibbs
The Castle: scene of execution of the 'Protestant joiner' by the famous Jack Ketch
St Giles: near scene of burning of a female murder in the 18th C.
Campion Hall: built by Sir Edwin Lutyns

Also new are the opening sections of Goulder's guide, on the Town Walls and two outlying places of interest, Dorchester and Littlemore.

Soon to be added: material on other out-lying sites, including Iffley and Godstow.

Dorchester

2007-01-03T17:10:00.000Z

From Goulder Chapter I: Places Visited on the Way to Oxford, Part 1.

This is not, of course, Dorchester in Dorset, but the town of the same name which is situated on the River Thame, half a mile north of its confluence with the Thames.

HISTORY

There was a settlement at Dorchester during most of the last two thousand years before Christ. Indeed, it appears to have been one of the most important inhabited sites in the neighbourhood. The Romans fortified it, and traces of their ramparts still remain on the west and south sides of the town. A track, now overgrown with grass, can be distinguished branching off the main road at the north end of the place. It was the Roman road to Alchester near Bicester.
In the first quarter of the seventh century, Pope Honorius I[1] charged a monk of St Andrew’s monastery on the Coelian Hill in Rome with the task of converting the people inhabiting the middle districts of England. His name was Birinus and he was consecrated a bishop by Asterius[2] of Milan. In 634, he landed at the head[3] of Southampton Water and, finding that the West Saxons living near the coast had not yet been converted, he turned his attention to them. In the same year, he baptized Cynegils,[4] king of Wessex. The ceremony took place at Dorchester, and St Oswald[5] of Northumbria, who was in the town to negotiate a marriage, acted as sponsor to Cynegils.
St Birinus set up his cathedral at Dorchester and died there about 650. Soon after he was dead, his vast missionary diocese was divided. Hampshire and Dorset were cut off and put under two new bishops, one at Winchester, the other at Sherborne. This move was partly dictated by politics. Things had been going badly for Wessex. The empire conquered by Cynegils’ predecessor, Ceawlin,[6] was breaking up under constant attacks by Mercian armies. Bythe middle of the seventh century, the whole of the territory which the West Saxons had ruled north of the Thames had passed into Mercian control. Dorchester had become a Mercian town and it was obviously impossible to maintain a West Saxon bishopric there. Henceforth its fortunes were bound up with those of the Mercian kingdom and it was the seat of one of the Mercian bishoprics until, in the course of the great reshuffle of sees which took place after the Norman conquest, Bishop Remigius[7] removed his throne to Lincoln. This was in 1072. The descent of Lincoln from Dorchester explains the surprising fact that Oxford remained in the diocese of Lincoln throughout the middle ages.
In 1140, another chapter in the history of Dorchester began, when Bishop Alexander[8] of Lincoln sent the Canons Regular of St Augustine[9] to take charge of the church which had served as the cathedral of the bishops of Dorchester. The canons, anxious to secure prestige for their monastery, announced in 1224 that they had discovered the body of St Birinus. They tried to refute the common belief that St Hæddi[10] had moved the saint’s relics to Winchester in the last quarter of the seventh century. They put it about that it was the relics of a saint called Bertinus[11] and not those of Birinus which had been translated. It is impossible to say now whether they were right, but the story sounds ben trovato. A furious controversy about the matter raged for many years between the canons and the monks of Winchester. The dispute was eventually referred to the pope, and Cardinal Stephen Langton[12] was appointed to make investigations. He, in turn, delegated the problem to one of his archdeacons. It was decided to examine the question on the basis of miracles – whichever place received the most favour to be declared to possess the saint’s body. In the end, the pope issued a non-committal bull slightly in favour of Dorchester. On the strength of this, the canons built a new shrine and transferred the bones – whosesoever they were – to it.
When Henry VIII[13] suppressed the monasteries, Dorchester Abbey was valued at £190. The church was bought by Richard Bewforeste[14] for £140 and left by him to serve as a parish church.

THE BUILDINGS

The abbey church was dedicated to St Peter, St Paul and St Birinus, and was the successor to the little cathedral built in 634. This church, patched up and enlarged from time to time, did duty throughout the Saxon period and was taken over by the Austin Canons when they arrived in 1140.
By 1175, the canons were ready to build a new church. The Saxon building was demolished and a small church of Norman pattern with an eastern apse and low central tower was put in its place. Some of the masonry from this building still remains in the north wall of the nave and in the transept. The eastern apse ended a short way to the east of the present chancel arch.
In the thirteenth century, an aisle and some chapels were added on the north of the chancel. The north transept was about twenty-five feet longer than it is now, and there was a chapel measuring twenty feet from east to west springing from its eastern side. The transept was shortened and sealed off in post-Reformation times.

Soon after 1300, the central tower went the way of many Norman towers and fell down. The canons used the occasion to build another chapel to the south of the chancel. The south door, now protected by a porch, was constructed at the same time. In 1320, the spacious south aisle was built on to the nave to give more room to the parishioners, who worshipped in the part of the church west of the screen. There are signs of this screen on the great piers west of the transept. During this alteration, the west wall of the south transept was not removed, and forms the curious barrier at the east end of the nave aisle. No north aisle could be built because the cloister ran along the side of the nave. The doors which led to it are now blocked up. In the fourteenth century, the old east end was pulled down and replaced by the present magnificent structure. In the fifteenth century, the wooden porch which covers the south door was erected.

TOUR OF THE CHURCH

Nothing remains of the monastic buildings except the school-house to the west of the tower. Outside the church on the south side are some fine fourteenth-century buttresses and an old preaching cross which has now been restored. These crosses were ruthlessly thrown down at the Reformation and many churchyards contain a pathetic stump.
Inside the church, the first thing which strikes us is the wall which blocks the east end of the south aisle and the unusual height of the altar which stands before it. The wall, as has already been explained, was the west wall of the south transept and, before the aisle was built, was an outside wall. The altar before the screen was built over a crypt, which accounts for its elevation. On the wall, there are some fourteenth-century paintings. Our Lord is shown after death, with fallen head and closed eyes. The pictures have been touched up. Such representations covered the walls of our churches before the Reformation, but they were usually obscured with whitewash when the Faith was suppressed.
There is a Norman font with its original lead basin in the south aisle. The figures on it are those of Our Lord and His apostles. Near the font is a stone bracket for a statue with elaborate carving showing sleeping monks and the devil blowing a horn. Right across from the door by which we came in is the north wall of the nave. It is much as the canons built it in the twelfth century, but there are two windows which were constructed in the fifteenth century. They were made high up so as to clear the cloister roof which lay on the other side.
From the west end of the nave the full splendour of the church can be appreciated. There is a view of the fine east window through the chancel arch. As you go up the nave you will notice the blocked-up cloister doors on your left, and you pass beneath the door in the chancel arch which led into the rood-loft. Under the crossing was the canons’ choir. You can now make out the detail of the east window. The upper three rows of glass date from the fourteenth century and depict the crowning with thorns, the scourging, the carrying of the cross, the Resurrection, Our Lord’s appearance to St Mary Magdalene, and the descent into hell. The lower glass is modern. Glass from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries survives in the window on the south side of the sanctuary. There is a representation of a funeral which some say is that of Our Lady but others hold to be the translation of the relics of St Birinus. The north window is truly marvellous and has a tree of Jesse carved in stone on the mullions, showing the human descent of Christ. It climbs up over the whole interior face of the window.
The sanctuary contains a beautiful sedilia[15] and piscina.[16] There are unusual little windows behind the seats of the former. A splendid double piscina is to be seen to the west of the present sanctuary which doubtless was in use before the church was extended eastwards. On the north side of the space between the stalls and the rails is a brass of an unknown abbot.[17] There is also the matrix of a brass commemorating John de Sutton.[18] It is on the south side almost corresponding to the brass of Bewforeste. Several other matrices for brasses are to be found in the floor.
Between the chancel and the south choir aisle is some beautiful arcading dating from the fourteenth century. This aisle was planned as a resting-place for the relics of St Birinus and there are some fragments of the shrine preserved in wire-netting at the east end of the aisle. Close under the arcading dividing the aisle from the choir is a memorial to the Seagrave family. The name of the cross-legged knight, whose tomb occupies the dividing line between the two south-aisle chapels is not known. The double brass to the south of it commemorates Sir John Drayton[19] and his wife Alice. A little to the east of this, alongside the wall, is a memorial to John de Stonor[20] a famous judge of Edward III’s[21] time. The family arms are repeated four times, at the ends and side of the sepulchre. West of this is the tomb of the Richard Bewforeste who bought the church, and his wife. Finally, behind the southern range of choir stalls is the ‘effigy of an unknown fourteenth-century prelate in full pontificals. The colour still shows in the folds of his vestments.
Before leaving the church, it is worth while comparing the recent wall painting in the Lady Chapel with the medieval figures on the far side of the wall cutting off the south nave aisle. How badly the pallid sentimentality of the modern work stands up against the virility of the medieval ! On the way out, near the line of pillars which separates the nave from the south aisle is another interesting comparison. Could anything be further from the spirit of the Catholic middle ages than the inscription on the tomb of Mrs Sarah Fletcher whose nerves were too delicately spun to bear the rude Shakes and Jostlings which we meet in this transitory World, Nature gave way. She sank and died, a Martyr to Excessive Sensibility. And this lady had committed suicide because her husband ran off with another woman! The coroner’s jury found that she was temporarily out of her mind and so could be buried in church. The date was 1799.

Also very much worth visiting is the small but very fine Catholic parish church of St Birinus. It is in the 'Arts and Crafts' style, and its Altar and elaborate Rood Screen have not been reordered.
For more on the Abbey, see their site.

[1] Pope 625-638.
[2] Archbishop of Milan 630-640. Some authorities hold that the actual consecration took place at Genoa.
[3] Probably his landing-place was Cerdicesora, the modern Totton, where the founder of the West Saxon royal house, Cerdic (reigned 495-534), had landed before him.
[4] King of the West Saxons 611-641. ‘ King of Northumbria 634-642.
[5] King of Northumbria 634-642.
[6] King of the West Saxons 560-593.
[7] Bishop of Dorchester 1067-1072, of Lincoln 1072-1092.
[8] Bishop of Lincoln 1123-1148.
[9] The Canons Regular of St Augustine (bishop of Hippo 396-430) or Austin Canons or Black Canons emerged from obscure beginnings in the early twelfth century. They made their profession to a particular house like monks, not to a province like friars. Their life was similar to that of the monastic orders, but they were not so strictly bound to their cloister. They exercised a limited external ministry. In England they possessed one hundred and seventy houses at the time of the dissolution. The habit consisted of a black tunic, over which a white rochet and a black cloak with a hood were worn in choir.
[10] Bishop of Winchester c. 679-705. He was the fourth successor to St Birinus.
[11] The identification of this saint is guesswork. There was a St Bertin or Bertinus who died about 709. He was abbot of St Omer and spent most of his life as a missionary in the Pas-de-Calais. It is just possible that Dorchester might have acquired a relic, but surely not his whole body. More likely, the canons at Dorchester invented the name.
[12] Archbishop of Canterbury 1207-1228. Cardinal 1206.
[13] Reigned 1509-1547.
[4] Died 1554.
[15] Seats for the celebrant, deacon and subdeacon at Mass. In medieval English usage, they sat in the order given above with the celebrant in the eastern seat. According to Roman custom the celebrant sits in the middle with the deacon on his right, the subdeacon on his left.
[16] In the early middle ages, piscine were used for two purposes : (1) for the washing of the priest’s hands at the offertory, and (2) for the disposal of the ablutions after the Communion of the celebrant. In the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, the custom arose of drinking the ablutions as is done now. During the early period many double piscine were built, with one drain for the washing of the hands and another for the ablutions. In the later period, one drain alone was necessary, i.e. for the washing of the hands, and single piscine became the rule. The water was carried off through a lead pipe which led directly into the earth.
[17] A brass plate near this tomb bears the words Here lieth Sir Richard Bewforeste. It gave, rise to the belief that there were two Bewforestes-the man who bought the church after the suppression and this abbot. The theory is, of course, possible. But it is more probable that the plate has been moved from the lay Bewforeste’s tomb on the other side of the church.
[18] Abbot of Dorchester 1333-1349.
[19] Died 1417.
[20] Died 1354.
[21] Reigned 1327-1377.

Littlemore

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From Goulder Chapter I: Places Visited on the Way to Oxford, part 2.

Going from Dorchester to Littlemore, we pass abruptly from the middle ages to the nineteenth century. The contrast between the buildings is great enough – at Dorchester a magnificent abbey church, glorious even in its declining years; at Littlemore, a row of one – storeyed cottages. But the difference between the men is greater still – Birinus, a missionary saint belonging to the age of the Anglo-Saxon settlements, powerful no doubt in the conversion of Wessex, but to us remote and shadowy; John Henry Newman,[1] a man who lived in a period which was on the very door-step of our own, whose thoughts are close to our thoughts, whose world did not differ very much from our world. All the same, the buildings at both places served Catholic truth; and the men, so far apart in time, are united in Catholic faith.

THE BUILDINGS

There is not much to be seen at Littlemore; in fact, the unsuspecting might pass it by without realizing that here was played out one of the most dramatic events in the religious history of modern England. There is a row of cottages shaped like an L. A tablet, let into the outside wall, announces that John Henry Newman, Fellow of Oriel College, Vicar of St Mary the Virgin, afterwards Cardinal, used this building in the years 1842-6, as a place of retreat, study and prayer.
The cottages were bought by the Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory – which was founded by Newman – in 1951, though some of the almspeople who have lived there ever since he left, still remain. In 1960, the place was thoroughly restored. The entrance is now through a large doorway under the gable halfway along the side of the L fronting the cul-de-sac. To the left, as you enter, at the far end of the little quadrangle, is the hall which served as a library in Newman’s day, and there is an upstairs room at the end of it which was probably used for guests. To the right, at the far end of the range of dwellings, are Newman’s own room and the chapel, the latter being at the very extremity of the building. It has been restored as he had it, with crimson damask hangings, and a white frontal to the altar represents the white curtain which hung from the shelf on which stood Newman’s crucifix and candlesticks. There is also a reading-desk which was used by him. In his bedroom next door is a fender made for him by the local blacksmith.
It was at one time thought that the oratory in which the future cardinal was received into the Church was the room in the angle of the L but, after the discovery of a plan of the cottages as they were at the time, this theory had to be abandoned. The famous oratory is, in fact, the last room at the far end of the cul-de-sac front.
In the quadrangle, the pentise, which enabled members of the community to keep dry as they moved from one part of the building to anther in wet weather, has also been put in order. It has been neatly laid out and the squalid jumble of cabbage plots and broken-down fences, which marred the place until recently, has been been cleared away. The tree which Newman planted, though sadly mangled some years ago when neighbours complained that it shut out the light, still adorns the garden.
Close by the cottages is the modern Catholic church, serving a rapidly growing suburb. Nearer the main road is the church which Newman built as a chapel of ease to St Mary’s – the scene of his sermon on the parting of friends. It is a fine building of its type and several relics of the founder are on view at the west end. It is naturally in Anglican hands.

THE CONVERSION

Newman’s attempt to visualize the Church of England as a part of the Catholic Church had failed. The Tracts for the Times, which he had so assiduously distributed, had caused much resentment. The publication of Tract 90 in the series, in which he claimed that the Thirty-nine Articles of the Book of Common Prayer could bear a Catholic interpretation, brought about a storm in academic circles. Heads of colleges condemned it, and the bishop of Oxford prevailed on Newman not to publish any more tracts. These men were sturdy Protestants, and not ashamed of it.
Newman bowed to the storm and, on April 19th, 1842, retired to Littlemore. He was joined by several like-minded young clergymen – F. S. Bowles, J. B. Dalgairns[2] and Ambrose St John;[3]and later on, by Richard Stanton. Albany Christie and John Walker – both destined to be Catholic priests – were frequent visitors. In the following September, Newman resigned St Mary’s.
Meanwhile a strict, community life was developed at Littlemore. “The inmates of the house at Littlemore were leading a life of the utmost self-denial and simplicity. Divine Office was recited daily. There were two meals in the day-breakfast, consisting of tea and bread and butter, taken standing up, and dinner. In Lent, no meat was eaten. The rules of the community prescribed silence for half the day. Reading, writing and praying, were the occupations of the morning; and later, Newman would often take his disciples for a walk.”[4] In the midst of these activities, he was working out his position by writing An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine ; and it became daily more apparent to him that he could find a place in the Church of England no longer. Early in 1845, W. G. Ward’s[5] Ideal of a Christian Church was condemned by convocation, and Newman’s followers began to get restless. During the autumn, some of them submitted to the Holy See. Dalgairns was received at Aston by Father Dominic Barberi[6] of the Passionist Congregation, and St John became a Catholic at Prior Park. On October 3rd, Newman severed his last remaining link with official Oxford and resigned his Oriel fellowship. There was widespread speculation about his next move. Dalgairns, full of zeal for his new-found Faith, had invited Barberi to visit Littlemore; but Newman still hesitated. “Fr Dominic, the Passionist ... is coming here” he wrote on October 4th. “It is likely that he will admit me, I am not sure however ... I am not certain.”[7]
The final scene is nothing if not dramatic. Newman, sitting waiting for the coming of Barberi, writing letter after letter of farewell to his Anglican friends, preparing for a break which would be absolute; and in the intervals of his writing, getting ready for the long general confession which he thought necessary. At last the moment of decision was reached. Dalgairns had already taken his hat and stick for the walk across the fields to meet the Passionist in Oxford. As he was leaving the house, Newman stopped him. “When you see your friend,” he said, “will you tell him that I wish him to receive me into the Church of Christ?”[8] It was three o’clock in the afternoon of October 8th, 1845, and beginning to rain.
In Oxford, Dalgairns was joined by St John, and together they met Father Dominic’s coach at the Angel Inn[9]in the High. The rain was falling more heavily and the priest alighted, soaked to the skin but rejoicing to hear the news. At Littlemore, Newman sat alone in the gloom of that miserable October afternoon. I picture him there, his mind exhausted with his long struggle, no longer capable of profound thought, but busily engaged on a thousand little details, thinking of the friends who would be friends no longer, of the familiar places he would never see again, the end of the world in which he had for so long held an honoured place. Beyond this was the unknown, an uncharted world, completely unfamiliar, with new dangers, new faces. To the converts of the present day, the break is often bitter enough; to Newman in 1845, it was agonizing.
At length came the sound of voices, the opening and shutting of doors. Dalgairns had taken Barberi to the library fire, and the good priest was trying to get dry, a cloud of steam rising from his wet clothes. Newman came to him as he sat there, knelt down and began his confession. He went on and on. At length, the priest, doubtless moved by compassion for his penitent and, perhaps, fearing a little the consequences to himself if he sat in wet garments much longer, suggested an adjournment. The confession was finished in the oratory next morning. In the evening of the same day – October 9th – Father Dominic received Newman and his friends, Bowles and Stanton, into the Church. The ceremony took place in the oratory. Dalgairns wrote : “Never shall I forget being present at his making his profession of faith in our oratory.”[10]So it was, that John Henry Newman came to rest in the Church, where he was to find many difficulties, but not one doubt.
On the morning of October 10th, Father Dominic celebrated Mass in the oratory with vessels, altar-stone and vestments he had borrowed from the Catholic church in St Clement’s Street,[11] and the converts made their first Holy Communion. On Sunday, October 12th, Newman, Dalgairns and Stanton went to Mass at the church in St Clement’s, and they were there again four days later for Holy Communion. Newman received the sacrament of Confirmation at the hands of Dr Wiseman[12] at Oscott on October 31st. He left Littlemore for good on February 22nd, 1846. “I quite tore myself away,” he wrote to Copeland,[13] “and could not help kissing my bed and mantelpiece, and other parts of the house. I have been most happy there, though in a state of suspense. And there it has been that I have both been taught my way and received an answer to my prayers.”[14] He was ordained priest in Rome in 1848.

Littlemore is now disfigured by a modern Catholic church dedicated to Bl. Dominic Barberi, a few yards from the buildings described here.

[1] Lived 1801-1890. Cardinal 1879.
[2] Died 1876.
[3] Died 1875.
[4] The Life of John Henry, Cardinal Newman, by Wilfrid Ward, vol. I, p. 84.
[5] Lived 1812-1882.
[6] Lived 1792-1849.
[7] From an unpublished letter, quoted in an article by Father Henry Tristram of the Birmingham Oratory, in Homage to Newman (published under the auspices of the Westminster Cathedral Chronicle in 1945), p. 31.
[8] Homage to Newman, p. 32.
[9] The Angel stood on the south side of the High, immediately to the west of the present Examination Schools.
[10] Homage to Newman, p. 32.
[11] This little church still exists and is used as a school. It stands a little back from St Clement’s Street on the south side, between Jeune Street and Pembroke Street.
[12] Archbishop of Westminster, 1850-1865. Cardinal 1850.
[13] Lived 1804-1885. Editor of Newman’s Parochial and Plain Sermons. William John Copeland.
[14] The Life of John Henry, Cardinal Newman, by Wilfred Ward, I, p. 117.

The Town Wall of Oxford

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From Goulder, Chapter II

Before the Norman Conquest, Oxford was protected by earth defences reinforced by timber stongpoints. These were repaired and improved by Robert d'Oilly soon after 1066, and are mentioned in the Doomsday survey. It is probably that some, at least, of the stone wall was built about this time, the whole of it being finished by 1100.

An area of between one hundred and ten and one hundred and twenty acres was enclosed. Starting at the North Gate,[1] which joined the north side of St Michael’s tower in Cornmarket Street, the wall ran eastward a little way behind the houses which now line Broad Street to where the southern end of the Sheldonian Theatre stands. A postern pierced it at the north end of Turl Street. From there, it went north-west across Catte Street to a point just south of the octagonal chapel which is now the junior common room of Hertford College. The Smythgate spanned Catte Street. The wall continued parallel to the first part of New College Lane, running a few yards to the north of it into the grounds of New College, where a long section is still intact. The corner bastion, joining the north to the east wall, is in New College garden.

The wall went almost due south to the High Street, following the line of Long Wall Street. The East Gate[2] stood immediately east of the point where Merton Street joins High Street. Between the Smythgate and the East Gate there was apparently an outer wall some thirty-three feet beyond the main defences. From the East Gate, the wall turns west. The section beyond the corner of the street is intact. It continues until it meets the path on the north side of Merton Fields and then goes west. A fine range survives here. The wall then ran south to include St Frideswides’s Priory and on to St Aldate’s, where the South Gate[3] crossed the road just north of the point where Brewer Street comes in. This street was outside the wall, some masonry of which remains on the north side.

There was another gate—the Littlegate—where Brewer Street meets Littlegate Street. It stood immediately north of the crossing. Beyond this, the wall gets somewhat lost amongst the existing houses, but it ran west from the Littlegate to the Greyfriars’ monastery west of St Ebbe’s Church. The friary occupied both dies of the wall and had a private gate through it. The wall then curved to the north-west until it met Church Street at the place where Castle Street comes in from the north-east. Here was the West Gate,[4] after which the wall connected up with the defences of the castle.

To rejoin the wall, it is necessary to up to Castle Street into Bulwark Lane, which is the first turning on the left in that Street. The lane leads t New Road and, after crossing it, curves round the site of the outer curtain wall of the castle. The north wall joined the castle walls just past the point where Bulwark Lane turns abruptly to the right. A portion survives here, veering slightly to the east till it meets New Inn Hall Street. Here there was a postern. From this point, the wall went behind the existing houses on the north side of St Michael’s Street until it joined up with the North Gate across the Cornmarket.

Note that Church Street, ajoining Castle Street, is now an extension of Paradise Street.

[1] Demolished in 1772.
[2] Demolished in 1772.
[3] Pulled down by Wolsey when Christ Church was being built.
[4] Demolished in 1600.

THE WAY IN

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The Guild of Ransom tours to Oxford enter the town through the Iffley Road, pass over Magdalen[1] Bridge, turn right into Long Wall Street, again right into St Cross Road, left into South Parks Road, right into Parks Road, then left through Keble Road and left into St Giles’ Street. Here the coaches stop and the tour is continued on foot. In the course of its journey through these streets the coach passes the following places of interest. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

[1] At the ancient universities the name is pronounced Maudlin.

THE MODERN GREYFRIARS, IFFLEY ROAD

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The new church of St Edmund of Abingdon[1] and St Frideswide[2] stands south of the point where Jackdaw Lane joins the Iffley Road. It was designed by Father Benedict Williamson as a chapel of ease to the Jesuit church of St Aloysius.[3] It was handed over to the Capuchins[4] in 1931 when they opened a house of studies next to it. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

Greyfriars is now a ‘Permanent Private Hall’ (a small college) of Oxford University, and the church has been promoted to the status of a parish church. See their site.

[1] Archbishop of Canterbury 1234-1240. Edmund Rich.
[2] For information about her see pp. 27-28 infra.
[3] Lived 1568-1591. Jesuit. Aloysius Gonzaga. The Society of Jesus was founded by St Ignatius Loyola (lived 1491-1556) in 1539.
[4] Capuchin reform of the Franciscan order dates from 1525. Like most reforms, it claimed to be a return to more primitive observance. The tunic is a lighter brown than that of the Friars Minor and has the hood joined to it, not separate as with other Franciscans. The usual cord and sandals are worn and the friars are bearded.

THE COWLEY FATHERS’ CHURCH, IFFLEY ROAD

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On the opposite side of Iffley Road, between James Street and Marston Street, are the headquarters of the Anglican community known as the Cowley Fathers, founded by Richard Meux Benson.[1] The handsome church was designed by Bodley.[2] The members of the community occupy themselves with retreat and mission work. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

The buildings belonging to the Cowley Fathers now house St Stephen’s House, an Anglican theological college in the ‘high church’ tradition, which is now (2004) a Permanent Private Hall of the University. For more history, see their site.

[1] Lived 1824-1915.
[2] Lived 1827-1907. Pupil of Sir George Gilbert Scott (lived 1811-1878), the Gothic revival architect.

ST CLEMENT’S, MARSTON ROAD

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St Clement’s now stands in Marston Road, a turning on the north side of St Clement’s Street. The medieval church stood in the middle of the roundabout at the point where Iffley Road, the Cowley Road and St Clement’s Street unite for the crossing of Magdalen Bridge. It was pulled down and a new church was erected on the present site in 1828. The old church had Newman as its curate until two years before it was demolished. He took the services for an invalid rector, Dr Gutch.[1]
(From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

It was in St Clement’s that the chapel of St Ignatius, with a presbytery, was built, in 1795, soon after the Catholic Relief Act of 1791 made it legally possible to do so. Mass had previously been said in hotels and public houses, notably The Mitre in the High Street, and in Catholic houses outside Oxford, such as Waterperry. Fr Charles Lesley SJ, who had been running the Oxford Mission from Waterperry, was the priest in charge of this project, which cost the considerable sum of £994 3s 4d. Newman walked to this church from Littlemore in order to hear Mass after his reception into the Church. It was the only Catholic church in Oxford until the building of St Aloysius in 1875 (for which see below). The last Mass was said in St Ignatius’ in 1911, although the site continued for some time as a Catholic School. Some of the buildings still survive, converted to other uses, behind railings on the east side of St Clement’s, next to the Port Mahon public house.

[1] Lived 1746-1831.

FROM ST CLEMENT’S TO MANCHESTER COLLEGE

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Just before Magdalen Bridge, there is a cul-de-sac on the left, called Cowley Place. In it stands St Hilda’s College for women, founded in 1893. As the coach crosses Magdalen Bridge, there is a fine view of the college after which it is named and also of the famous High with its long line of colleges – the Queen’s College, All Souls’ College, the university church and Brasenose College on the right; the Examination Schools and University College on the left. Past Magdalen, we turn into Long Wall Street which runs outside the town walls, remnants of which are visible through gaps in the houses on the left. Immediately before we reach St Cross Road, we pass the site of the town gallows.

Before crossing Magdalen Bridge, on the left, is Magdalen College School. During the improved conditions for Catholicism under King Charles II, a Catholic master of the school was said to have made more than 60 converts; this so enraged the Protestant locals that he was driven from the city.

This town gallows is where four Catholic martyrs were hanged, drawn and quartered on the 5th July 1589. They were George Nichols and Richard Yaxely (priests), and Thomas Belson and Humphrey Pritchard (laymen). They were executed for being, or harbouring, a Catholic priest. Thomas Belson was a local gentleman who had been acting as the priests’ guide; Humphrey Pritchard was an inn servant who worked in The Catherine Wheel, the inn where the men were seized (for which see under Balliol, below). The landlady of The Catherine Wheel, whose name is not recorded, suffered life imprisonment. After being seized in Oxford, the men were tortured in London, without result, and taken back to Oxford for execution. The four named were beatified on 22nd November 1987. Orate pro nobis.

The site of execution is now a place of pilgrimage: the first procession to it, organised by the Latin Mass Society, from the Oxford Oratory, took place in 2005. See the local LMS site.

MANCHESTER COLLEGE

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Manchester College is not part of the university, but a post-graduate college for Nonconformist ministers. It was founded in Manchester in 1786, transferred to York in 1803, after which it returned to Manchester. It was for a time in London and finally came to anchor in Oxford in the nineties. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

(That is, the 1890s.) Now Harris Manchester College, it is a college of Oxford University. Its foundation was Unitarian. For more of its history see their site.

ST CROSS, ST CROSS ROAD

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The church stands at the point where Manor Road leaves St Cross Road. St Cross has a twelfth-century chancel. There is evidence that the building at this period was almost as large as it is at present. The west tower and the original north and south aisles date from the mid-thirteenth century. The north arcade and aisle were rebuilt in the middle of the fourteenth century, and the top stage of the tower was added about the same time. Both the aisles were pulled down at some unknown date in the sixteenth century, but the west bay of the north aisle and the east part of the south aisle were left untouched. There was a thorough restoration in the nineteenth century. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

For more on the history of St Cross Church, see their site.

HOLYWELL MANOR, MANOR ROAD

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The ancient manor house of Holywell, now a hostel for Balliol College, stands close to the church. It has passed through many vicissitudes. In penal times, it was held by the Napier or Napper family. A son of the house – George Napier – was trained for the priesthood at Douai, ordained in 1596 and worked in his native country. He was arrested and martyred in Oxford in 1610, probably at the gallows at the corner of Long Wall Street.

The well which gave the name to this district is in the basement of the manor house. Little is known of its history.

It seems more likely that Blessed George Napier was executed on the gallows next to the Castle, where the New Road now runs. He was born in 1550, and attended Corpus Christi College in Oxford, but was ejected for being a Catholic, in 1568. Having been ordained at Douai, he came on mission to England in 1603. He was arrested in Kirtlington, 19th June 1610, and was held in the Castle, where he reconciled a fellow prisoner to the faith. He was hanged, drawn and quartered on 9th November 1610. He was beatified in 1929. Ora pro nobis.

Much of the Manor house is of later date, but the grey stone block nearest the road is 16th Century; there is the remains of a priest-hole in the ceiling. Mass continued to be said in the house into the mid-18th Century.

MANSFIELD COLLEGE MANSFIELD ROAD

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As the coach proceeds along St Cross Road, Mansfield College can be seen across the playing-fields to the left. Its status is similar to that of Manchester College. It started its career in Birmingham and arrived in Oxford in 1886. It is named after the family which endowed it.

Mansfield is also now a college of the University, and still trains ministers for the United Reformed Church.

In the early 20th Century it had as Principal the eccentric Dr W. E. Orchard, who, in an ecumenical spirit, pioneered what he called 'Free Catholicism', meaning the Free Church (Non-Conformist, presbyterian) with large elements of High Church liturgy and theology. Although ordained as a Free Church minister, he even obtained orders from an Anglican bishop. His group, the Society of Free Catholics, did not long survive his conversion to Catholicism, which took place in 1934; he was ordained a Catholic priest in 1936 and died in 1955.

See their site.

KEBLE COLLEGE

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At the top of St Cross Road, we turn left and go through South Parks Road with its line of laboratories, and then turn right into Parks Road. On the left, opposite one of the university museums, is Keble College. It was founded in 1870 in memory of John Keble,[1] one of the worthies of the Oxford Movement. At first, only members of the Established Church were admitted, though the college itself enjoyed full membership of the university from the beginning. The religious test has now been abolished.
Architecturally, the college is a contradiction. The proportions are fine, but the vast expanse of red brick – and ugly red brick at that – is overwhelming. The architect was William Butterfield.[2] (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

[1] Lived 1792-1866.
[2] Lived 1814-1900.

ST GILES’ STREET

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The coach turns into Keble Road and thence into St Giles’, from which point the tour is continued on foot. The great open space, known to undergraduates as the Giler, was once a market ground, lying outside the North Gate. It takes its name from the church of St Giles at its northern end. Near the church, where the war memorial cross now stands, was a large pond for the refreshment of the animals being sold in the market.

Along the west side of the street are several buildings of interest. Beyond St Giles’ Church, at the beginning of the Woodstock Road, is Somerville College for women, founded in 1879. The other two women’s colleges – Lady Margaret Hall, founded in 1878, and St Hugh’s, founded in 1886 – lie in the suburban streets farther north. A little distance to the south of Somerville are St Benet’s Hall, a house of studies for the monks of Ampleforth; Pusey House, a library for students for Anglican orders ; and the new Blackfriars,[1] a magnificent priory to which we shall return at the end of our pilgrimage. On the north corner of Beaumont Street is the Ashmolean Museum, with what is probably one of the finest archaeological collections in the country.

In the middle of the market, to the north of St Mary Magdalene’s, stood a small chantry dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. It was supported by the rents of eleven tenements mostly in St Giles’. The great memorial, in the form of a medieval cross, close to St Mary Magdalene’s Church, was erected in memory of the Protestant divines – Cranmer,[2] Ridley[3] and Latimer.[4] It was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, and was put up in protest against the Oxford Movement. It does not mark the site of the three bishops’ execution, which took place round the corner in Broad Street. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

A little further North from Keble Road, St Margaret's Road, between the Woodstock and Banbury Roads, is one of the city's ancient places of execution, the 'Green Ditch'. Some rebels were hanged here in 1400; it continued in intermittent use until the late 18th Century. Burning continued to be used as the form of capital punishment indicated for certain cases, notably for female murders: one, Hannah (or Joanna) Mead was burned in the Green Ditch 17th May 1723, for murdering her husband.

The ‘Martyrs’ Memorial’, though Protestant in motivation, is Catholic in design, being based on Edward I’s memorial for his Queen, Eleanor, in Waltham, Essex.

St Benet’s Hall (Benedictine), like Blackfriars (Dominican, see below), Campion Hall (Jesuit, see below), and Greyfriars (Capuchin Franciscan, see above), are now Permanent Private Hall of the University.

All the women’s colleges mentioned here now admit men.

[1] The Blackfriars or Dominicans were founded by St Dominic (lived c. 1170-1221) and received the approval of the council of the Lateran in 1215. The rule was founded on that of St Augustine. The tunic, scapular and capuce are white in the case of the priests, but the lay-brothers wear a black scapular and capuce. A black capuce and cloak are worn in choir and out of doors. The Dominicans possessed fifty-eight houses in England at the time of the suppression.
[2] of Canterbury 1533-1556. A faithful tool of Henry VIII even to the point of violating his own conscience. Deposed, condemned for heresy and burned at the stake under Mary (reigned 1553-1558).
[3] Intruded into the see of London which he held 1550-1554. Deprived, condemned for heresy and burned at the stake in 1555.
[4] Bishop of Worcester 1535-1539. Resigned because he could not subscribe to Henry VIII's attempt to check the Protestant trend. Condemned for heresy and burned at the stake in 1555.

ST GILES’, ST GILES’ STREET

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This church has a late thirteenth-century tower. The nave, the porch and the south wall of the chancel are early thirteenth-century, while the north and east walls of the chancel belong to the latter part of the same century. There is a consecration cross still visible in the north-west respond[1] of the tower.

Like many Medieval churches and hospitals dedicated to St Giles, this church is located a safe distance outside the city walls (see the section on the Walls). St Giles is the patron of lepers, and his institutions were able to serve lepers who were not allowed into cities. For more on St Giles’ Church see their site.

[1] A half-pillar at the end of an arcade or abutting a single arch.

ST ALOYSIUS’, WOODSTOCK ROAD

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The church stands close to the southern end of the Woodstock Road and is the principal Catholic church of Oxford. The mission was founded in 1785 and the present building dates from 1875. The parish is served by priests of the Society of Jesus.

In its early days St Aloysius was so successful in attracting converts that it was attacked by a cartoon, depicting Jesuits fishing for mortar-boarded and coronetted souls in a pond. The caption read: ‘Members of the Romish Church are requested not to trespass in Protestant waters and on no account to tamper with the Gold Fish’. Particular scandal was caused by the conversion of the Marquis of Bute, who had been an undergraduate at Christ Church and was later a generous benefactor to St Aloysius. The Jesuits left St Aloysius in the 1980s, though not before destroying its impressive collection of relics, historical vestments and so on. Since 1990 it has been served by a new community of Oratorians, founded from the Birmingham Oratory. See their site.

ST JOHN THE BAPTIST’S COLLEGE

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The college of St John the Baptist was founded in 1437 as St Bernard’s College by Henry Chichele,[1] archbishop of Canterbury. It was intended to be a house of studies for the Cistercians.[2] In Henry VIII’s reign, it was dissolved with the rest of the monasteries, but was revived for secular students under its present title by Sir Thomas White[3] in 1555.
There is a statue of St Bernard on the outside of the gatehouse fronting St Giles’ Street, and one of the Baptist on the inside. The chapel, hall and parts of the first quadrangle date from monastic times. The second quadrangle and the beautiful garden front were built by Archbishop Laud.[4] Both he and Bishop Juxon,[5] who attended Charles I[6] on the scaffold, were buried here. Edmund Campion[7] and Cuthbert Mayne[8] the future martyrs, were members of the college.

With Trinity, St John’s was founded under the Catholic Queen Mary Tudor, to go some way to restore University life, religious and academic, after the depredations of the previous two reigns. After the restoration of Protestantism under Queen Elizabeth, it produced many Catholic martyrs, not only St Edmund Campion, SJ, who became convinced of the truth of Catholicism in the course of his studies at St John’s (martyred 1581), and St Cuthbert Mayne (proto-martyr of seminary priests, martyred in 1577), but also Blessed Edward Stransham (1585), St John Roberts, the first superior of the Benedictine community now at Downside (1610), Blessed Thomas Hemerford, Blessed Edward James and Martin Sherton.

Bl William Hartely, a student of St John's ejected for being a Catholic in 1579, became a seminary priest and was posted to Oxford in 1580 to promote vocations. It was Hartely who was responsible for distributing Campion's Decem Rationes on the pews of St Mary's. He was martyred at Tyburn in 1588.

St John’s College was a strong supporter of King Charles I in the Civil War, and his son Charles II in the Restoration. So firm were the men of St John’s against Cromwell, that, of 44 Fellows, commoners and servants examined by a Cromwellian commission, only four submitted to the new government’s demands. The rest were ejected from the college by force, many going into exile. Many returned in the Restoration.

For more history of St John’s, see their site.

[1] Archbishop of Canterbury 1414-1443.
[2] The Cistercians or White Monks were a reform of the Benedictines. The abbey of Cîteaux was founded by St Robert of Molesme (lived c. 1029-1111) in 1092, but the system was codified by St Stephen Harding (lived c. 1050-1134), the third abbot of Cîteaux and an Englishman. The reform was really a return to primitive Benedictinism, but it introduced a centralized form of government for those houses which belonged to the movement. The tunic, cowl and hood are white, the scapular black. There were a hundred monasteries belonging to the Cistercians in England at the time of the dissolution.
[3] Lived 1492-1567.
[4] President of St John's 1611-1621, bishop of St David's 1621-1626, of Bath and Wells 1626-1628, of London 1628-1633, archbishop of Canterbury 1633-1645.
[5] President of St John's 1621-1633, bishop of London 1633-1649, archbishop of Canterbury 1660-1663.
[6] Reigned 1625-1649.
[7] Lived 1540-1581. Jesuit priest.
[8] Died 1577. Seminary priest.

ST MARY MAGDALENE’S, MAGDALEN STREET

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The original church on the site was Saxon, and the patrons were the canons of St Frideswide’s. After the Norman conquest, the patronage was transferred first to St George’s in the Castle and then to Osney Abbey.
In 1194, St Hugh of Avalon[1] enlarged the church, building aisles either side of the nave. About 1294, a chapel of St Catherine was established for the use of Balliol College in the north aisle. The Lady Chapel or south chapel was built by the Carmelites,[2] who owned a large area between St Mary Magdalene’s Church and Worcester College, covering the land called Brokenheys, now occupied by the bus station. The chapel, which was dedicated to Our Lady of Pity, was finished about 1320 and served as a choir for the friars. It was built against the existing south wall of the church over a crypt erected by St Hugh and had a west door of its own immediately opposite Friars’ Entry, a lane which still survives on the west side of Magdalen Street. It was through this alley that the friars came to church from their monastery. In the early sixteenth century, the wall between the chapel and the rest of the church was pulled down, and the porch belonging to it was turned to face south, the inner door being blocked at the same time. There are traces of this door in the west wall of the south chapel. In the south aisle was a chapel of St Thomas of Canterbury.
There is some thirteenth-century work at the east end of the chancel, in the south aisle, and in the west wall of the church south of the tower. The south wall is largely fourteenth-century. The tower, the piers of the nave and the west side of the porch are sixteenth-century. The walls of the north chapel are modern.

St Mary Magdalene is famous for its ‘high church’ tradition. See their site.

[1] Bishop of Lincoln 1186-1200.
[2] The Carmelites are first heard of in the twelfth century when they were expelled from the Holy Land by the Saracens. The rule is founded on that of St Basil (bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia 370-379) and it was confirmed by Innocent IV (pope 1243-1254) in 1250. The tunic, scapular and capuce are brown, the cloak and the upper capuce are white. There were about forty English houses at the suppression.

CORNMARKET STREET

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To the south of St Mary Magdalene’s Church is Cornmarket Street, one of the ancient markets of the town. Entry into it was through the North Gate which spanned the roadway by St Michael’s Church. On the west side of the gate was the Bocardo prison in which Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer were confined. There was a pillory in the middle of Cornmarket Street opposite the entrance to Frewin Court. The Cornmarket ends to the southward at Carfax[1] – the central cross-roads of the town.

[1] From the French carrefour meaning cross-roads.

ST MICHAEL’S AT THE NORTH GATE

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The tower of this church is Saxon, and it was probably from it that Cranmer watched the burning of Ridley and Latimer. The chancel and most of the south chapel are of the thirteenth century. The north chapel and transept, and a bit of wall at the west of the south chapel date from the fourteenth, while parts of the south porch and the walls of the north aisle west of the transept were built in the fifteenth century. The east wall of the north chapel is modern. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

St Michael’s tower is open to the public, and gives excellent views of the city.

BROAD STREET

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This used to be a large open space called Horsemonger Street. It lay just outside the north walls and the town ditch. Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer were burned in this ditch, which was dry. The spot is marked by a cross in the middle of the narrower part of the road opposite Balliol College. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

BALLIOL COLLEGE

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The college, occupying the corner between the lane on the east of St Mary Magdalene’s Church and Broad Street, is Balliol. It was founded by Devorguilla, wife of John de Balliol[1] father of the Scottish king[2] of that name, about 1262. It was not then a college in the modern sense of the word – that is, an institution for the pursuit of learning where masters and students live in common. It was merely a hostel for sixteen poor scholars and was ruled by two procurators. Bishop Richard Fox[3] raised the institution to collegiate status in the early sixteenth century.
The buildings are largely modern and uninspiring, but the walls of the old hall – now the library – and the old buttery which has been incorporated into the master’s lodgings, date from the fifteenth century.
John Wyclif[4] was master for a year. Cardinal Morton,[5] one of Henry VII’s[6] archbishops of Canterbury, and Cuthbert Tunstall,[7] bishop of Durham in Reformation times, were students here. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

Despite the Wyclif connection (he was Master in 1360), Balliol stood against Henry VIII’s religious innovations with more determination than any other college, only sealing their oath accepting the Royal Supremacy (of the English Church) after adding the words ‘as far as divine law and the orthodox faith allows’. Later, Robert Persons, who led the Jesuit mission to England with St Edmund Campion, converted to Catholicism while Bursar in 1575. Blessed Thomas Pilcher, a Fellow 1577-8, became a priest and was martyred in Dorchester (in Dorset) in 1587; St Alexander Briant, martyred with St Edmund Campion at Tyburn, had also been associated with Balliol.

In the 19th Century it produced two great Catholic converts from among its Fellows: W.G. Ward and Newman’s friend Frederick Oakley. Henry, Cardinal Manning was an undergraduate here before his conversion, and his portrait hangs in the Hall (see also under ‘Merton’).

For more on the history of Balliol College, see their site.

The Catherine Wheel Inn, the inn where two Catholic priests and two laymen were seized, later to be executed, in 1589, had its site on the part of Balliol College opposite St Mary Magdalen’s church (in fact, directly opposite the alter of St Catherine of Alexandria in that church). With the Star Inn, the Swan Inn, and the Mitre (still standing in the High Street), it was a regular venue for the Mass under the Elizabethan persecution. The inn continued to be a Catholic centre, serving as a venue for Gunpowder Plot conspirators, and for those of the Cavalier Plot of 1648. It was absorbed by Balliol College in 1714, and eventually demolished.

Outside the college is the site of the burning of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley: this is marked on the road; a plaque on the wall of Balliol accompanies it.

[1] Died 1269.
[2] Reigned 1292-1296. He surrendered to Edward I (reigned 1272-1307) and abdicated. He died in 1315.
[3] 21 Bishop of Exeter 1487-1492, of Bath and Wells 1492-1494, of Durham 1494-1501, of Winchester 1501-1528.
[4] Died 1384. Master of Canterbury Hall 1365-1366. Some authorities hold that this John Wyclif was not identical with the notorious heresiarch.
[5] Bishop of Ely 1479-1486, archbishop of Canterbury 1486-1500. Cardinal 1493. St Thomas More (lived 1478-1535) was a page in his household. This would explain why More was an undergraduate at Canterbury Hall-the house of studies run by the monks of the cathedral priory of Canterbury.
[6] Reigned 1485-1509.
[7] Bishop of London 1522-1530, of Durham 1530-1559. He was deprived in 1553, restored by Mary, and deprived again by Elizabeth I (reigned 1558-1603) in the year of his death.

TRINITY COLLEGE

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Trinity stands beyond Balliol on the same side of Broad Street. Its history is very similar to that of St John’s. It was founded in 1286 as Durham College for the Benedictine[1] monks of Durham cathedral priory and other northern monasteries. It was suppressed in Henry VIII’s reign, but was revived for secular students under its present title by St Thomas More’s friend, Sir Thomas Pope,[2] in 1555.
The monastic library building and a few other fragments are all that has survived from the original house. The present chapel is by Wren,[3] and has some fine carvings by Grinling Gibbons.[4]
John Henry Newman became an undergraduate here in 1817. After his restoration to the favour of the university at the end of his life, he was made an honorary fellow of his old college. This was in 1878. Two years later, he visited it as a cardinal and made a tactful afterdinner speech recalling the past. His portrait hangs in the hall, and there is a bust in the garden near his old rooms.
[1] Benedictines follow the rule drawn up by St Benedict (lived 480-543). There is no centralized control as in the case of a modem order, and the rule has been variously interpreted. Each monastery is independent. The tunic, scapular, hood and cowl are black, but a few monasteries have the privilege of a habit of other colours. There were about two hundred and ten houses of the order in England at the dissolution. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

Trinity’s foundation is an example of Catholic reconstruction in the short reign of Mary Tudor. It produced many martyrs, including the Bl. Christopher Wharton (1546), Bl. Thomas Ford (1582), Bl. James Bell (1584), Bl. Alexander Rawlins (1595), Bl. Robert Sutton, Bl. William Spenser (1589) and Bl. George Errington (1596).

For more on the history of Trinity College, see their site.

[2] Lived c. 1507-1599. He held various court appointments under Henry VIII, but withdrew into private life for religious reasons in Edward VI's (reigned 15471553) time. Under Mary, he became a privy councillor and retained favour in the reign of Elizabeth.
[3] Lived 1632-1723. Sir Christopher Wren.
[4] Lived 1648-1720. Wood-carver and statuary.

TURL STREET

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Opposite the gates of Trinity College a small lane, called Turl Street, runs into Broad Street. It is possibly named after a postern in the north wall, known as the Twirl Gate. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

JESUS COLLEGE

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This college, which stands on the west side of Turl Street, was founded in 1571 by Elizabeth I with money provided by a certain Hugh Price.[1] It is Oxford’s only Elizabethan foundation and was intended chiefly for Welsh students. The buildings are, in consequence, entirely post-Reformation. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

For more on Jesus College, see their site.

Msg A.A. Barnes, author of the Oxford section of the early 20th C. CTS booklet 'Catholic Oxford and Cambridge', pointed out that
'Catholics have founded at Oxford twleve religious houses, including Osney, and sixteen colleges, including St Edmund Hall. Protestants have founded seven colleges, including Keble and St Peter's, but of these seven, Worcester and Wadham are built on the sites and include some of the buildings of earlier Catholic foundations, and Pembroke and Hertford have grown out of Catholic Halls, Broadgates Hall for Pembroke, and Hart Hall and Magdalen Hall for Hertford. Jesus College is the only old College in Oxford which has no Catholic associations.' (p70)
More recently, four Catholic, two Anglican, a Baptist and a United Reform Church 'Hall' have been raised to the status of Permanent Private Hall, or, in the last instance, of a College (Mansfield). Apart from these, foundations after Keble and St Peter's have tended not to have any religious motivation, and often do not have a chapel.

[1] Lived c. 1495-1574. Prebendary of Rochester.

ST MILDRED’S, TURL STREET

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From the Norman conquest until the first quarter of the fifteenth century, the church of St Mildred stood in the angle between Turl Street and Brasenose Lane. Its patronage was in the hands of the bishops of Lincoln and it was pulled down by Bishop Richard Fleming to make room for Lincoln College. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

LINCOLN COLLEGE

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The college occupies the frontage of Turl Street between Brasenose Lane and All Saints’ Church in the High Street. It was founded in 1427 and endowed by two bishops of Lincoln – Richard Fleming and Thomas Rotherham[1] – and dedicated to Our Lady and All Saints. Fleming had three Oxford churches in his gift – St Michael’s at the North Gate, All Saints’ in the High and St Mildred’s in the Turl. This last church, as has been noted above, he demolished to make room for his college.
The college provided for a rector and seven students for the priesthood in the Lincoln diocese. They were to study theology in order to save that holy science from “ignorant layfolk, who profane with swinish snouts its most holy pearls.” This was, of course, a hit at the Lollards[2] who were troubling the Church at the time.
The front quadrangle is fifteenth-century, but the rest of the college is post-Reformation work of various periods. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

Blessed William Hart, a priest martyred in 1582, had been a student at Lincoln College. Lincoln is also associated with John Wesley, the founder of the Methodists.

For more on Lincoln College, see their site.

[1] Bishop of Rochester 1468-1471, of Lincoln 1471-1480, archbishop of York 1480-1500.
[2] It is difficult to determine the origin of this word. There is loller, an Old English word for an idler; there is the modern German word lallen meaning to babble, lisp or stammer; and there is a medieval Dutch word lollen which means to mumble. Lollardism was a social-religious movement based on the teachings of Wyclif who was, however, in no sense the founder. It was a consequence of the restlessness caused by the breakdown of the medieval economy after the Black Death of 1348-1349. It taught that no official had authority as long as he was in a state of sin and that no law was to be obeyed unless it could be found in Holy Scripture. The Lollards were treated with great patience in spite of their constant subversive activities. Under Henry IV (reigned 1399-1413) there were two executions, about forty under Henry V (reigned 1413-1422) when a plot for rebellion was unmasked, a few under Henry VI (reigned 1422-1461). After that, we hear no more of the movement.

ALL SAINTS’, HIGH STREET

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On the east side of the Turl beyond Lincoln College is the church of All Saints. The parish was in being by the eleventh century. In 1699, the medieval church was demolished and the present one erected. The parish of St Martin’s Carfax is now united to All Saints’, and the font of that church has been moved into it. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

This beautiful neo-classical church has been secularized, and now serves as Lincoln College library.

EXETER COLLEGE

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The college stands in the angle between the eastern side of Turl Street and the southern side of Broad Street. It was founded in 1314 by Bishop Walter de Stapledon[1] of Exeter to train priests for his diocese. Eight of the students were to come from Devon and four from Cornwall. The chaplain was to study theology as well as performing his ordinary duties, the rector was to be elected from the ranks of the students. Bishop de Stapledon was murdered by a London mob in 1326. He had incurred great unpopularity because of his close association with Edward II.[2] His work for the college was left incomplete.
Most of the buildings are of recent date, but there is a fifteenth century fragment opposite the east end of the chapel. This chapel is an exact copy of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris and was constructed by Gilbert Scott in its present form on the site of an older building in 1855.

Richard Bristow,[3] who played an important part in the compilation of the Douai bible, was a member of the college. The rector and students put up a considerable resistance to the religious innovations of the Reformation. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

The Rector, Dean and a Fellow were expelled for ‘Popery’ in 1571; in 1578 it was said that the College had ‘but four obedient subjects, all the rest secret or open Roman affectionaries.’ The College’s fidelity to the Catholic Faith bore fruit in the martydoms of two of its Fellows, St Ralph Sherwin, protomartyr of the Venerable English College, Rome (at Tyburn, in 1581) and Blessed John Cornelius SJ (Dorchester in Dorset, 1594). Richard Bristowe was converted while at Exeter in 1575.

For more on the history of Exeter College, see their site.

[1] Bishop of Exeter 1307-1326.
[2] Reigned 1307-1327.
[3] Lived 1538-1581.

THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS

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At the eastern end of Broad Street stands a group of university buildings. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

THE OLD ASHMOLEAN BUILDING

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This is on the south side of the Broad, west of the Sheldonian Theatre. It was built between 1679 and 1683 over a section of the town ditch.
It was intended to house the Tradescant[1] collection of Elias Ashmole,[2] and to provide a school of natural history and chemistry. The lower floor is now used by the compilers of the Oxford Dictionary. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

The building is now occupied by the Museum of the History of Science.

[1] Lived 1608-1662. Gardener to Charles I and his queen. He published Museum Tradescantianum in 1656. He bestowed his books and natural history collection on Ashmole, who gave it to the university of Oxford in 1659. John Tradescant.
[2] Lived 1617-1692. Solicitor, antiquary and astrologer.

THE SHELDONIAN THEATRE

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The building was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and named after Archbishop Sheldon[1] who was chancellor at the time. It was completed between 1664 and 1669. The busts on the outer walls are those of philosophers. The ceiling was painted by Robert Streater.[2] The whole building has now been restored, the interior in its original colours – a great improvement compared with the dismal brown which smothered it for so many years.

The Sheldonian was intended for university ceremonies which had previously taken place in St Mary’s. There had been scruples about holding these functions in a church as they were not strictly religious according to a Protestant way of thinking. Such a doubt would never have arisen in the middle ages when men believed in the unity of life and there was no division between sacred and secular.

Here from time to time takes place the ancient ceremony of conferring degrees, which is still much as it was in medieval times. The vice-chancellor and proctors are seated in state, and the candidates supplicate for their degrees in order. A vote is taken and the candidates are presented to the vice-chancellor and swear an oath of loyalty. The formula for granting the degree is then pronounced over them, and the vice-chancellor touches each candidate, as he kneels before his chair, on the head with a bible, with the words In nomine patris, et filii, et spiritus sancti. Amen. The new graduates go to the door to be robed in the gowns and hoods of their degrees; and, then, in the case of masters of arts and the higher degrees, they return to be presented to the vice-chancellor in their new dignity.

Before leaving the Sheldonian, it is worth while to go up past the floor over the ceiling of the theatre, where the university press was first set up, to the cupola from which a good view of the colleges can be obtained. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

For more on the Sheldonian, see their site.

[1] Bishop of London 1660-1663, archbishop of Canterbury 1663-1677.
[2] Lived 1624-1680. Serjeant-painter to Charles II (reigned 1660-1685).

THE OLD CLARENDON BUILDING

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The building stands a little east of the Sheldonian. It was built between 1711 and 1713 for the university press, and was paid for out of the profits of Lord Clarendon’s[1] History of the Rebellion. Since 1830 it has been used for university offices. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

[1] Lived 1609-1674. His History was written to vindicate the Royalists.

THE DIVINITY SCHOOL AND CONVOCATION HOUSE

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The school stands to the south of the Sheldonian Theatre and is a lovely example of fifteenth-century work. Inside, there is a veritable riot of decoration. There is no space in a work of this kind to describe the detail of the bosses and other ornamentation of the magnificent roof. Every aspect of Catholic devotion finds a place in it.

Plans for the school existed as early as 1424, but the work was constantly held up because William of Waynflete[1] took the craftsmen away to help at Eton and Windsor. The first master mason, Richard Wynchcombe, appears to have been too extravagant, and Thomas Elkyn was appointed in his place in 1439. He was told to be more economical.

At the end of the Divinity School is a passage leading into the Convocation House, which is used for meetings of the governing body of the university. It was built in 1639. Opening out of it, is the chancellor’s court-house. The school stands to the south of the Sheldonian Theatre and is a lovely example of fifteenth-century work. Inside, there is a veritable riot of decoration. There is no space in a work of this kind to describe the detail of the bosses and other ornamentation of the magnificent roof. Every aspect of Catholic devotion finds a place in it.

Plans for the school existed as early as 1424, but the work was constantly held up because William of Waynflete[1] took the craftsmen away to help at Eton and Windsor. The first master mason, Richard Wynchcombe, appears to have been too extravagant, and Thomas Elkyn was appointed in his place in 1439. He was told to be more economical.

At the end of the Divinity School is a passage leading into the Convocation House, which is used for meetings of the governing body of the university. It was built in 1639. Opening out of it, is the chancellor’s court-house. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

[1] Bishop of Winchester 1447-1486.

DUKE HUMPHREY’S LIBRARY AND THE BODLEIAN

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In 1444, it was decided to put a second storey on the Divinity School to accommodate a gift of books from Duke Humphrey of Gloucester.[1] The new floor was finished in 1470.

Through the passage at the east end of the school, we get into the Schools Quadrangle of the Bodleian Library. This great collection, which now contains five hundred thousand books and forty thousand manuscripts, was added to the existing library of Duke Humphrey by Sir Thomas Bodley[2] in 1602. There are extensive vaults beneath the building, and an annexe was recently opened on the other side of Broad Street. Since 1610, the Bodleian has enjoyed the right of receiving a copy of every book published in the kingdom. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

[1] Lived 1391-1447. Youngest son of Henry IV. His collection of books was dispersed under Edward VI.
[2] Lived 1545-1613. A staunch Protestant.

THE RADCLIFFE CAMERA

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We leave the Bodleian quadrangle by the south entrance. Immediately in front of us is the Radcliffe Camera. It was opened in 1749 as a medical and scientific library under the will of Dr John Radcliffe.[1] It now serves as a reading room for the Bodleian. There is an excellent view of the town from the roof. On the east is All Souls College, which we shall visit later in the day. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

The Radcliffe Camera is of especial interest as the greatest work of the Catholic architect James Gibbs (1682-1754), for which he was awarded an honourary Master of Arts. Gibbs had studied for the priesthood in Rome, but, impressed by Roman Baroque, he decided to pursue a career as an architect. He also built the well-known Anglican churches of St-Mary-le-Strand and St Martin in the Fields, in London, and the Senate House in Cambridge. Gibbs was a feature of the Catholic, Tory and Jabobite circles of his day.

For more about the Bodleian, see their site.

[1] Lived 1650-1714.

BRASENOSE COLLEGE

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On our right as we stand in the south entrance to the Bodleian quadrangle is Brasenose College. It was founded in 1509 by Bishop Smyth[1] of Lincoln and Sir Richard Sutton.[2] There was an earlier foundation on the site, known as Brasenose Hall, which took its name from the famous knocker[3] in the form of a nose which adorned its main gate.

The old quadrangle of the college is sixteenth-century work and parts of the original Brasenose Hall survive in the fifteenth-century buildings of the kitchen. There are two pre-Reformation chalices in the chapel. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

Blessed George Nichols, martyred in Oxford (see above), had been a student at Brasenose, as was Blessed John Shert and Blessed Thomas Cottan, both priests martyred in 1582.

The Brazen-nosed doorknocker (see note 3), was recovered from Stamford, Lincolnshire, only after Brasenose College bought the entire property, 'Brasenose Hall', where it had been left after the college's short-lived exile. Until 1827 Oxford MA candidates had to swear never to give or attend lectures in Stamford, in order to prevent any new exodus there.

For more on the history of Brasenose College, see their site.

[1] Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield 1493-1496, of Lincoln 1496-1514.
[2] Died 1524. Member of the Inner Temple.
[3] When many students, sickened by the constant disturbances in the university, left Oxford for Stamford in 1334, they took this brazen nose with them. It was returned to Oxford in 1890. It is mounted on the east wall of the hall of Brasenose College and consists of a bronze mask and ring of twelfth- or early thirteenth-century workmanship.

ST MARY’S, HIGH STREET

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We are now at liberty to examine the magnificent church which stands to the south of the Radcliffe Camera. But, before we do so, it is well to realize what this part of Oxford looked like in the middle ages. There was no Radcliffe Camera, no Bodleian, no Sheldonian and very little Brasenose. Instead, standing with our backs towards the north side of St Mary’s, we should have looked on to a maze of little courts and passages, and a huddle of houses. These continued right up to the north wall, which ran parallel to the Broad and went across the nearer part of the ground now occupied by the Sheldonian. This was the university world, especially in the days before the colleges. Here were the book shops, and here was always a great concourse of students, listening to lectures, arguing, quarrelling and generally making a noise.

St Mary’s was the centre of it all. There has been a church on this site ever since the eleventh century. But the oldest part of the present building – the tower – dates only from about 1280. It was built against the end of the old north transept, the roof line of which can still be discerned on its southern face. East of the tower, there are signs of buildings of the same period. At present, the chapel of St Catherine – once the convocation house of the university – lies to the east of the tower with the original university library above it. This building was begun about 1320 at the charges of Thomas Cobham,[1] bishop of Worcester. At the back of the chapel, stand some large stone figures taken from the tower. They include St Hugh, St Cuthbert,[2] two archbishops, two bishops and a king. There is also a wooden statue of Our Lady and the Holy Child. West of the tower is another fourteenth-century chapel. It was built by Adam de Brome,[3] almoner of Eleanor of Castile,[4] and contains his tomb.

Apart from what has just been described, practically the whole church is fifteenth-century. The older building had become worn out by then. The nave and aisles were constructed by the university in the last decade of the century, and the chancel was put up by Bishop Lyhart[5] of Norwich in 1463. Since then, there have been few changes. The fifteenth-century porch was removed and the present one was substituted for it in 1637 by Morgan Owen,[6] Laud’s chaplain. The older porch had a room over it, which was used for university functions. In recent years the lower part of the solid walls of the pulpitum[7] has been removed, forming arches through which a view of the chancel can be obtained. The figures on the screen were replaced at the same time. There is a consecration cross on the south wall of the choir.

The church played a large part in university life in medieval times. The nave was used for lectures and degree ceremonies. Examinations were often held in the porch room. The church must have presented a busy scene in the mornings during term – a few priests finishing their Masses, several lecturers with students gathered round them occupying the nave. The babble of voices and all the noise inseparable from medieval life would make the church anything but a place of peace. The spectacle would have shocked our own ungodly but decorous age.St Mary’s was the scene of many historical events. It was here, by a pillar in the north aisle, that Thomas Cranmer made the pathetic recantation of heresy which he had written out in the hope that it might save him. When he saw that he was to be condemned, he withdrew it and ran through the rain to the stake in the town ditch opposite Balliol so that he might be burned before he was tempted to change his mind again. It was in this church that his fellow heresiarchs, Latimer and Ridley, were degraded from their priesthood. Here, in milder times, John Henry Newman preached the sermons which made him famous.

We leave the church by the south porch and cross High Street into Oriel Street. It is a good thing to pause on the other side of the road, and look back in order to enjoy the full glory of the spire. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

Copies of St Edmund Campion’s book, ‘Decem Rationes’ (Ten Reasons, i.e. for Protestants to return to the Catholic faith) was daringly left on the pews of St Mary’s for churchgoers to find on 17th June, 1581 (see here ).Blessed Stephen Rowsham was converted while serving St Mary’s as an Anglican clergyman. He was a student at Oriel. He was ordained priest at Rheims, was captured on his mission and was martyred in Gloucester in 1587.

There is a statue of the Blessed Virgin and Child over the porch built by Laud’s chaplain. The original statue was an example of Laud’s ‘Romanisation’ of the Anglican church which so infuriated the Puritans. In 1642 a Parliamentarian soldier shot off the head of Our Lady and her Son, at the end of a brief occupation. For more on the history of the University church, and pictures, see their site.

[1] Bishop of Worcester 1317-1327. He had been elected archbishop of Canterbury in 1313, but was set aside by the pope.
[2] Bishop of Lindisfarne 684-687.
[3] Flourished in the first quarter of the thirteenth century.
[4] Died 1290.
[5] Bishop of Norwich 1446-1472.
[6]Bishop of Llandaff 1640-1642. He was Laud's chaplain while the latter was bishop of St David's. He was impeached and imprisoned for promulgating Laud's canons. He died in 1645. The statue of Our Lady, which was erected over the porch as soon as it was finished, is not a pre-Reformation figure but was carved by Nicholas
Stone (lived 1586-1647), an artist employed by Inigo Jones (lived 1573-1652) to make the statues on his new facade for old St Paul's in London. The erection of this statue was brought up against Laud at his trial.
[7] A pulpitum is a stone screen, formed by two walls running across a church at the entrance to the choir, to which a door in the middle gives access. The tops of the walls are bridged over to form a gallery. The pulpitum served to enclose the choir in monastic and collegiate churches. Two altars were often set either side of the door on the west side, and the gallery was used to accommodate the singers who supplemented the monastic or collegiate choir on great days. Sometimes the gospel at High Mass and the passion in Holy Week were sung from it.

ORIEL COLLEGE

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All the way down Oriel Street we have been passing the buildings belonging to the college of the same name. It was founded by Adam de Brome, vicar of St Mary’s, in 1324, although Edward II became its titular founder two years afterwards. About the same time, a hall, called St Mary’s Hall, was opened a short way to the north of the college, apparently to serve as a hostel for it. The whole establishment was pulled down when the college was rebuilt in the second quarter of the seventeenth century. Some of the walls in St Mary’s Quadrangle – next to the High – are medieval, but that is all. Oriel was the name of a tenement on the site of the present front quadrangle.The purpose of the college was twofold – to provide chaplains for the university church and to train secular clergy for all the dioceses of England and Wales.

William AllenWilliam Allen,[1] later to be a cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, was principal of St Mary’s Hall when Elizabeth I ascended the throne. Newman was a fellow of Oriel from 1822 until 1845 and wrote his share of the Tracts for the Times in the college. His rooms were on the first floor of the front quadrangle next to the chapel. Two portraits of him hang in the hall. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

The great William, Cardinal Allen resigned his position at St Mary’s Hall in order to found Douai, with many other Oxford scholars. Another alumnus of St Mary’s was Blessed John Sugar. A converted Anglican clergyman, he was ordained priest in Douai, was captured, and executed at Warwick in 1604.Oriel College itself can boast Blessed Stephen Rowsham as an alumnus: see under St Mary’s, above.For more on Oriel College, see their site.

[1] Lived 1532-1594. Cardinal 1587. Founder of the English College at Douai.

CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE

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Beyond Oriel is Merton Street and, on the far side, is Corpus Christi College. The official date of its foundation is 1516, although building had begun four years earlier. Bishop Richard Fox of Winchester was the founder, and he put the college under the patronage of the four sees he had held in turn – St Peter for Exeter, St Andrew for Bath, St Cuthbert for Durham and St Swithin for Winchester. His pastoral staff and a gold chalice and paten which he gave are still in the keeping of the college.

At the time of the Reformation, Corpus was conspicuous for its Protestant tendencies. Both Jewell[1] and Hooker[2] were alumni. Most of the buildings are sixteenth-century, but the kitchen – a survival of an earlier structure – was built in the fifteenth century. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

Despite its 'Protestant tendencies', after the imposition of the 1549 Prayer Book, the President of Corpus was imprisoned for using the Catholic service for the Feast of Corpus Christi. The Dean was imprisoned for 'seditious preaching.'

As noted above, Blessed George Napier studied here. Reginald, Cardinal Pole, a Father of the Council of Trent, papabile and the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, was also an alumnus. Perhaps under the influence of St Edmund Campion, Bl Edward Burden, a Fellow, was reconciled to the Church, was ordained priest at Douay and was martyred in York in 1588. John Owen, brother of St Nicholas Owen, was a student at Corpus in before migrating to Trinity in 1571. (He was ordained priest in Reims in 1584.)

Through the main entrance to the college can be seen the characteristic symbol of the college, the Pelican feeding its young with its own blood, a gilded statue on a column. This of course symbolises Christ feeding the Church with himself: corpus et sanguinis Christi.For more on Corpus Christi College, see their site.

[1] Bishop of Salisbury 1560-1571. Author of Apologia pro Ecclesia Anglicana. John Jewell.
[2] Lived c. 1554-1600. Author of The Laws of Ecclesiastical! Politie. Richard Hooker.

ST EDWARD THE MARTYR, BLUE BOAR LANE

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The church of St Edward the Martyr stood at the junction of Blue Boar Lane and Alfred Street. St Frideswide’s, a parish with a church somewhere on the site of St Frideswide’s Priory, was joined to it when its church was demolished in 1298. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963.)

CANTERBURY HALL

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Facing the main gate of Oriel are some eighteenth-century buildings belonging to the great college known as Christ Church. The gate to these buildings, which stands opposite the end of Merton Street, leads into a small quadrangle called Canterbury Quadrangle. Its name reminds us that a hall of studies, administered by the monks of the cathedral priory of Canterbury, once stood here. The hall was founded in the parish of St Peter in the East in 1331, and was moved to this site by Archbishop Simon Islip[1] in 1362.

By its statutes, three of the fellows had to be monks of Canterbury, but the remaining eight might be secular priests. The warden was selected by the archbishop from three names submitted by the prior and monks. The students might be from any monastery or diocese. The chief purpose of the hall was to replenish the ranks of the clergy with educated men after the losses caused by the Black Death of 1348-1349.[2] The hall was rebuilt by Prior Chillenden[3] in Richard II’s[4] reign. It was dissolved under Henry VIII with its parent monastery.

Cresacre More[5] tells us that St Thomas More passed his undergraduate days here. But Miles Windsor,[6] a member of the university in Queen Mary’s time, claims that he went to St Mary’s Hall over the way. Anthony Wood[7] dismisses this claim, telling us that Windsor’s notes contain “many dotages and fooleries.” In any case, Canterbury Hall is by far the more probable for More had been a page of John Morton, archbishop of Canterbury, and it was Morton who sent him to Oxford. William Selling[8] and Thomas Linacre[9] were also students at the hall. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963.)

The great St Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England, was martyred in 1535.

[1] Archbishop of Canterbury 1349-1366.
[2] It is estimated that a little over half the clergy of England perished in the Death. In the county of Norfolk five hundred and twenty-seven out of seven hundred and ninety-nine priests died; in the West Riding, ninety-six out of one hundred and fortyone; in the East Riding, sixty out ninety-five. Many priests were hurriedly ordained to fill the vacant posts and unworthy and uninstructed men were advanced. The standard of the English clergy decreased. Several colleges at both Oxford and Cambridge owe their foundation to the desire to remedy this state of affairs.
[3] Cathedral prior of Canterbury 1391-1411.
[4] Reigned 1377-1399.
[5] The Life and Death of Sir Thomas Moore, Lord High Chancellor of England (1627 edition), p.20. Cresacre More lived 1572-1649. Grandson of St Thomas More.
[6] Quoted by Anthony Wood (lived 1632-1695) in Athena Oxonienses (1813), 1, cols. 78-80. Miles Windsor lived 1541-1624.
[7] Ibid., II, col. 359.
[8] Cathedral prior of Canterbury 1472-1494.
[9] Lived c. 1460-1524. One of the founders of the College of Physicians.

ST FRIDESWIDE’S PRIORY

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Before the Reformation, the ground on which Christ Church now stands was occupied by the Augustinian Canons’ priory of St Frideswide, and the building which is now the cathedral of the Anglican diocese of Oxford was their church. The roots of the foundation lie deep in history, so deep that we have here the oldest religious institution in the town.

We are told that, in the reign of that stout pagan Penda[1] of Mercia, a daughter was born to a local ealdorman named Didan and his wife, Saffrida. She was baptized Frideswide and she is the patron saint of Oxford. Her story is typical of many Anglo-Saxon maidens of high rank. Wishing to consecrate her life to God, she avoided a marriage arranged for her by her parents with a Mercian noble named Algar. He did not take his dismissal readily, and Frideswide fled to a remote spot on the upper Thames which was then known as Thornbury but is now called Binsey. The legend has it that he followed her there and laid hands on her. There was a clap of thunder and the lightning flash blinded Algar. The saint was sorry for him and prayed to St Margaret of Antioch[2] and St Catherine of Alexandria.[3] They appeared to her, and told her to strike the ground with her staff. Water flowed and Frideswide’s maidens washed the eyes of the unhappy man.[4] He recovered his sight and returned to Oxford much humbled, and that was the end of him so far as she was concerned. After her mother’s death, her father gave up the idea of forcing her to marry and set her up as the superior of a community of twelve like-minded maidens on the site of the later priory. This first house was dedicated to Our Lady and All Saints. The most probable date for her death is 735, a year which also saw the passing of St Bede the Venerable.[5] Her course had been tranquil and undisturbed after the first battle was won, and her body was laid to rest beneath the tower of the church which she had built.

After she died, we hear no more of the maidens over whom she had presided. The shrine was tended by secular canons until shortly before the Norman conquest. In 1002, some Danes, trying to escape the massacre of their countrymen ordered by Æthelrede II,[6] took refuge in the tower. Their pursuers set fire to it in an attempt to dislodge them and accidentally burned the whole church to the ground. The king directed it to be rebuilt.

Sometime between 1111 and 1122, when Henry I[7] granted them their charter, the Canons Regular of St Augustine took charge of the place and, inspired by the reconstruction which was going on everywhere at the time, they put up a larger and finer church in the prevalent Norman style. The eastern part was finished by 1181 and the body of St Frideswide was translated to a new shrine in it. The church had a chancel of five bays, flanked by aisles of four bays each. There was a north transept of three bays, with a small chapel opening out of the northernmost. The south transept was identical, but the cloister occupied its western aisle and there was a chapel opening out of the middle bay on the east side. A passage ran across outside its southern end. The central tower was lower than the present one, and there may have been two west towers. The exact length of the nave and its aisles is not known, but there were probably seven bays, that is to say, it was three bays longer than it is now.

Since that time, there have been the following alterations. In the first quarter of the thirteenth century, another stage and a spire were added to the central tower. About 1250, a Lady Chapel was built alongside the old north aisle and, in 1289, St Frideswide’s relics were moved to a new shrine which had been erected in it. In 1298, a parish church, dedicated also to St Frideswide, which stood somewhere within the precincts of the priory, was pulled down and its parishioners handed over to the priest of St Edward’s Blue Boar Lane. In 1316, or thereabouts,. the chapel at the north end of the north transept was replaced by the existing chapel of St Catherine.[8] About 1330, St Lucy’s Chapel in the south transept was extended a little to the east. The three windows at the east end of the presbytery were added during the same period. The remodelling of the clerestory and the vaulting of the chancel roof date from the end of the fifteenth century.

The church is overcrowded with stalls, because it is now the chapel of the college as well as a Protestant cathedral. The position of St Frideswide’s shrine is clearly marked in the Lady Chapel and there are indications of a richly painted roof above it. Some parts of the feretory[i] have been reassembled in the eastern bay on the south side of the chapel. There is an elaborate chantry with a watching-chamber[9] above it at the east end of the Lady Chapel on the north side. On the same side are three tombs. The eastern-most belongs to Elizabeth Mountford,[10] wife of Thomas,[11] the second Lord Montague, who married Thomas Lord Furnival[12] after her first husband’s death. In the middle is that of Prior Alexander Sutton.[13] The tomb at the west end of the row is probably that of Sir George Nowers who lived in the fifteenth century.

The church played its part in the tragedy of Cranmer, for it was here that he was degraded from his orders and stripped of his pontificals by Bishop Bonner[14] of London and Bishop Thirlby[15] of Ely. Between the south choir aisle and St Lucy’s Chapel is the tomb of Robert King,[16] the last abbot of Osney and the first bishop of Henry VIII’s new diocese of Oxford.[17] As he retained his see in Queen Mary’s reign and died just before her, he may be claimed as the only Catholic occupant of the bishopric. Dr Pusey,[18] the High Church leader, and his wife are buried in the choir.

Outside the church, three walks of the old cloister remain. The west cloister was destroyed when Wolsey[19] was trying to adapt the church to the plan of his proposed college. There is also a fine chapter-house off the east walk. It consists mostly of thirteenth-century work, but the doorway is older and dates from the second half of the twelfth century. The dormitory, though much altered, can still be seen over the east cloister and parts of the refectory have survived on the south side of the garth. The rubble foundations in the middle of the cloister are most probably connected with Wolsey’s plans for buildings on the site.

By 1524, the fortunes of the canons were at a low ebb, and Wolsey obtained permission from Rome to move the few who remained and to suppress the monastery as redundant. In the year before this took place, the net value of the house was £148 16s. 3½d. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

Christ Church Cathedral contains some medieval stained glass which survived the general destruction, in the Latin Chapel and St Lucy’s Chapel, where St Thomas Becket is shown, although his depicted head, like his actual one, has been destroyed by royal command, and replaced by a pane of clear glass.

[1] King of the Mercians 626-655.
[2] A virgin martyr who probably suffered death in the persecution under Diocletian (Roman emperor 284-305. Gains Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus).
[3] A virgin martyr who suffered death in the persecution under Maximinus (Roman emperor 308-313. Galerius Valerius Maximinus).
[4] The well, which tradition connects with this miracle, is still to be seen in the churchyard of the church at Binsey. It is a charming place well worth a visit. It is reached by way of Walton Street, Walton Well Road and the path along the upper Thames.
[5] Lived 673-735. A monk of Jarrow and author of some thirty-eight works including the famous Historia Ecclesiastica.
[6] King of all England 978-1016.
[7] Reigned 1100-1135.
[8] Also called the Latin Chapel, because the Anglican communion service is celebrated in Latin on the first Sunday of term.
[9] A guardian sat here to see that pilgrims behaved themselves and that nothing was stolen from the shrine.
[10] Died 1354.
[11] Died 1319.
[12] Died before April 18th, 1332.
[13] Prior of St Frideswide's 1294-1316.
[14] Bishop of Hereford 1538-1539, of London 1539-1569. He was deprived of his see and imprisoned twice-first, under Edward VI, secondly under Elizabeth I. He died in the Marshalsea prison in Southwark.
[15] Bishop of Westminster 1540-1550, of Norwich 1550-1554, of Ely 1554-1570. Deprived by Elizabeth and imprisoned.
[16] Bishop of Osney c. 1541-1545, of Oxford 1545-1557.
[17] Henry VIII established six new sees-Bristol, Chester, Gloucester, Osney (moved to Oxford in 1545), Peterborough and Westminster. The cathedrals for the new dioceses were adapted from existing monastic churches. Bristol and Osney (also Oxford) belonged to the Austin Canons, the rest to the Benedictines.
[18] Lived 1800-1882. A close associate of Newman and Keble. He remained in the Church of England. Edward Bouverie Pusey.
[19] Bishop of Lincoln and archbishop of York 1514-1530, bishop of Bath and Wells 1518-1523, of Durham 1524-1529, of Winchester 1529-1530. He was also appointed to the see of Tournai in 1513, but never took possession. Cardinal 1515. Plurality on this scale was considered shocking even in the sixteenth century.
[i] A (portable) shrine containing the relics of a saint; a small room or chapel in which shrines were deposited (Oxford Shorter English Dictionary).

CHRIST CHURCH

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It was Wolsey’s intention to use the land to build a college – to be called Cardinal College – in which promising boys, who had started their education at the school which he proposed to found at Ipswich, could finish their studies. It is fairly certain that he planned to remove the church and monastic buildings altogether. Work went on from 1525 until 1529, when the cardinal fell from royal favour. At this stage, the three western bays of the church had already been pulled down, the whole of the south range of the great quadrangle and about two-thirds of the east and west ranges had been finished, as had the kitchen, the lower part of the gate tower and, probably, the hall. Progress on the north side of the quadrangle, where it was intended to build the chapel, had not advanced beyond ground level.In 1532, the college was refounded by the king and, in 1546, Henry transferred the cathedral of the new diocese which he had established at Osney four years earlier to St Frideswide’s. The gaping west end of the old church was blocked up by a wall which ran across the nave at the fourth pillar west of the transepts. The church was given a new name – Christ Church.

The college was completed in the following stages. Between 1638 and 1648, the great staircase of the hall was built. In the period 1660-1686, the north range of the great quadrangle was constructed and the final touches put on the east and west ranges. Wolsey’s cloister, destined never to be finished, was paved and the fountain set up. Soon afterwards, Tom Tower[1] was erected by Wren. In the eighteenth century, the Peckwater Quadrangle and the library were built on ground previously occupied by the old Peckwater Inn, and the small Canterbury Quadrangle was put up. The Meadow Buildings belong to the nineteenth century. In 1870, Sir George Gilbert Scott made some alterations to the west end of the church. The wall, which sealed the building after Wolsey had demolished the three western bays of the canons’ church, was taken away and a new western bay added to the nave. The present entrance was constructed at the same time.

From the Meadow Gate, the Broad Walk leads to a path which takes us through the Grove into Merton Street. On the way, we pass between Corpus Christi College on the left and Merton College on the right. There is a fine range of the town’s south wall to be seen from this path and a distant glimpse of the tower of Magdalen. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford and Cambridge, 1963.)

When the 1549 Prayer Book was imposed by Edward VI, John Clement, a Fellow, fled (with many others then and later), to the English exile community at Louvain.

Blessed Robert Sutton was a student at Christ Church, before becoming a Catholic priest; he was martyred at Stafford in 1576.
A bell dedicated to St Thomas Becket, originating from Osney Abbey, now hangs in the eponymous ‘Tom’ Tower. Before that tower was built, it was housed in the tower of the Cathedral. The walls of Christ Church are decorated with the Cardinal’s hat in memory of Wolsey.

James II appointed the Catholic John Massey as Dean of Christ Church. Massey opened an oratory in the college, with a Jesuit chaplain, rather as Obadiah Walker did in University College. Like Walker, he had to resign when James II fell.

For more on Christ Church, see their site.

[1] Before Wren could complete this tower, he had the head of Father George Napier removed. It had hung there since his martyrdom in 1610. The bell called Big Tom, which hangs in the tower, was one of the bells of Osney Abbey. It is rung one hundred and one times each night at five minutes past nine-there was that number of members in the original foundation. At this signal, college gates are closed; those who are inside cannot get out, but those outside can get in usually until eleven-and are admitted by the porters when they bang on the wicket.

MERTON COLLEGE

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This foundation is of the greatest importance to our study of the universities, for it was the first college, in the sense of a corporation including both masters and students living together under rule, ever to be set up for seculars in either of the English universities. Such an arrangement was common enough amongst the religious orders, but students from the secular clergy lived in small hostels or in lodgings without supervision and exposed to every conceivable temptation. Men of outstanding character might survive such a test, but many vocations were inevitably lost.

Walter de Merton,[1] bishop of Rochester, was therefore a pioneer. He made his original foundation at Merton in Surrey in 1264 but, after playing with the idea of moving to Cambridge, he transferred it without refoundation to Oxford ten years later. 1264 is, in consequence, a turning-point in the history of English education and, because nobody on the continent had anticipated his plan, it was also a turning-point in the history of European education. Merton College became the pattern for all subsequent colleges at the universities.

The rule of life at Merton, though novel in the middle of the thirteenth century, has become familiar enough since. Those of the students, who were not yet in holy orders, were not to be bound to the divine office. The day was divided into periods, some for work, others for recreation. During the meals, there was to be reading as in the monasteries. Study of the liberal arts was to precede that of philosophy, canon or civil law, and theology. This is still the ideal of the older English universities which deprecate specialization until general education has been completed. Experts are not to be ignorant as G. K. Chesterton[2] warns us they often are. College membership was restricted to the secular clergy alone. This was strictly interpreted, and any who wanted to enter religious orders had to go. It is said that Duns Scotus[3] and William of Ockham[4] fell victims to this rule and left Merton to enter the order of St Francis.[5] The original plan was to allow for a warden, two or three chaplains and twenty undergraduates. By the fourteenth century, the college was unrivalled in influence amongst the secular clergy.

Bishop Walter acquired the advowson[6] of the church of St John the Baptist which, at first, served the college for a chapel. It probably stood on the site of the north range of Mob Quadrangle. Three ordinary houses along the street were used as lodgings for the members. In 1289, the choir of the present chapel was begun, and it was finished by 1294; the old chapel was then converted into lodgings. In 1330, the transepts and the tower were started, but progress was slow and they were not complete until 1424. A nave was planned, as you can see if you examine the west wall of the chapel, but it was never built. There is some fine medieval glass and a brass lectern of the same period. A double piscina is to be seen in the south transept; it served the altars which stood along the east wall. It is an ambitious chapel for so small a community as a medieval college.

Meanwhile, the little enclosure called Mob Quadrangle was put up on the south side of the chapel. The south and west ranges and the library, which still contains many medieval fittings, were finished by 1379.

A little way down Merton Street, there is a turning on the left named Logic Lane which will take us back again into the High, between University College on the left and the Examination Schools on the right.(From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford and Cambridge, 1963.)

For more on Merton College, see their site.

Blessed John Duns Scotus, the medieval Franciscan theologian and philosopher, is famous for his defence of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. However it seems unlikely he was at Merton. Henry, Cardinal Manning was elected a Fellow of Merton in 1832, as he prepared for Anglican orders. (He became a Catholic in 1845.)

Merton was strongly Catholic during the Reformation period; on the accession of Queen Elizabeth, they refused to cooperate with Archbishop ('Nosey') Parker. In a famous episode the College stood siege against the officers of Archbishop Parker for three weeks.

[1] Bishop of Rochester 1274-1277.
[2] Lived 1874-1936.
[3] Lived 1270-1308. Upheld the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception against Aquinas (lived c. 1226-1274).
[4] Lived c. 1280-1349. An advocate of civil absolutism, though he accepted the Church's authority in spiritual matters.
[5] Lived c. 1181-1226. Francis of Assisi. The Franciscan rule was approved by Innocent III (pope 1198-1216) in 1210. Like the rule of St Benedict, that of St Francis has been variously interpreted and there have always been different branches of the order. The medieval Franciscans wore a grey tunic with a capuce, sandals and a girdle of rope. At the dissolution, the Greyfriars had sixty-six English houses. The Observants came to this country in Henry VII's reign. They changed their habit to brown and had six houses at the suppression.
[6] The right to present candidates to a benefice.

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

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There is a legend that Alfred the Great[1] founded the college in 872, but it is without basis in fact. In reality, it was Archdeacon William of Durham[2] who established the institution, probably in 1249. William had achieved distinction in the university of Paris, and his Oxford college was perhaps an attempt to reproduce the character of that seat of learning in his native land. The house was to accommodate ten masters and it was no part of the founder’s purpose that there should be undergraduates living there as well. Merton rightly claims to be the first college to provide for both.

The present site was not occupied until a century after the foundation. The earlier hostel was on the ground now held by Brasenose College, west of St Mary’s on the other side of the High. No buildings older than the seventeenth century survive.

During James II’s[3] reign the college was the centre of much Catholic activity. Mass was said in two ground-floor sets of rooms on the east side of the front quadrangle, and the king attended vespers there. Frederick William Faber,[4] founder of the London Oratory, was a member of the college.(From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

Two of the Masters of University College lost jobs because of their Catholic faith at the accession of Queen Elizabeth: after depriving one of his job, the Queen discovered that the next one would not take the Oath of Supremacy. In James II’s reign, when Catholicism was briefly tolerated, and even favoured by the King, the Master, Obadiah Walker, and a number of Fellows, became Catholics. Mass was said in rooms in the East side of the quadrangle, near (but not in) the chapel, by a Jesuit chaplain. The King’s visit to vespers took place in 1687. A printing press in the college produced Catholic apologetics written by one of the Fellows, Abraham Woodhead. The opposition this activity aroused, together with annoyance at King James’ attempts to appoint Catholics to positions in Christ Church and Magdalen College, led to some anti-Catholic stunts. A half-witted boy was sent to chant a doggerel under Walker’s window:

‘Old Obadiah
Sings Ave Maria
But so will not I - a
For why -a?
I had rather be a fool than a knave - a?

In 1688, a boy took a cat into Mass in order to disrupt the proceedings: Anthony Wood records ‘he sometimes pinching and at other times pulling by the tayle, made her make such an untunable noise that it put them to some disorder. The boy was forced to fly, but rescued by other people.’1688 was the end of this brief period of toleration. With the flight of their protector King James, Walker and the Catholic Fellows had to resign.For more on the history of University College, see their site.

[1] King of all England 871-899
[2] Died 1249.
[3] Reigned 1685-1688.
[4] Lived 1814-1863.

THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE

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A little to the east, on the north side of the High, is the Queen’s College. It was founded by Robert de Eglesfield[1] in 1341. He was a chaplain to Philippa of Hainault,[2] consort of Edward III, and it was in her honour and that of all the queens consort of England that he established it. The college was intended for northerners, for Robert himself was a native of Cumberland. He took Merton for his model, but indulged in a little pious fancy in his arrangement of the community. It is said that he arranged for a provost to represent Christ, twelve fellows to stand for the apostles, and seventy-two undergraduates for the first disciples.

None of the medieval buildings have been preserved. The present college was erected under the direction of Wren and his pupils and forms a harmonious eighteenth-century whole.

Cardinal Bainbridge,[3] archbishop of York and one of Henry VIII’s ambassadors to the Holy See, was at Queen’s.(From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

Cardinal Bainbridge, archbishop of York and one of Henry VIII’s ambassadors to the Holy See, was at Queen’s. The Queen’s College produced two martyrs for the Catholic faith: John Bost (Durham, 1593) and Blessed Richard Thirkeld, confessor to St Margaret Clitherow (York, 1583).

The College's custom of serving a boar's head at its Christmas dinner is said to commemorate a medieval student who, studying Aristotle in the quiet of Shotover Wood, was attacked by a boar. He stuffed his book into the beast's mouth, and it choked to death.

For more on the history of The Queen’s College, see their site.

[1] Died 1349.
[2] Lived c. 1314-1369.
[3] Bishop of Durham 1507-1508, archbishop of York 1508-1514. Cardinal 1511. 110 Lived c. 1410-1431.

ALL SOULS’ COLLEGE

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The college stands in the angle between the High and Catte Street. Founded by Archbishop Henry Chichele of Canterbury in 1438, its primary purpose was to house forty priests who were to say Mass for the souls of Henry V and all who had died in the wars against France. It is possible that Chichele also wished the college to be a reparation for the death of St Joan of Arc.[1] Apart from their duties at the altar, the priests were to occupy themselves in study. There were to be no undergraduates though, later, four bible clerks were in residence for a time. Despite the fact that the priests were expelled at the Reformation, the college still restricts its membership to graduates. A fellowship of All Souls’ continues to be one of the highest academic distinctions in the kingdom and provides leisure for research work and lecturing.

The first quadrangle, including the chapel, is fifteenth-century work, but the rest belongs to a later period. The figures in the chapel reredos were destroyed and the framework which remained was covered up with plaster at some unspecified date after the Reformation. Its existence was forgotten until 1872, when it was accidentally discovered. New statues, with faces modelled on those of the fellows who happened to be in residence at the time, were made and placed in the niches. The story of these reredoses is always the same. They became fashionable in the very late fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries when the attraction of the great east window was passing. At the Reformation the figures were destroyed but the screen in which they stood was usually left alone, though it was frequently mutilated. In the eighteenth century many of them were tidied up, some being rubbed down to make a flat wall. In Victorian times, when interest in medieval architecture revived, some were restored and new figures placed in them. The result was often unhappy. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

The endowment for All Souls was partly provided by the confiscation of ‘alien’ religious houses carried out by Henry V at the close of the French wars: an example, like Wolsey’s foundation of what became Christ Church, of property from institutions suppressed for one reason or another being used for new foundations – a practice discontinued by Henry VIII and his Protestant successors, who preferred to take the money for themselves. All Souls is also a good example of the role in education and scholarship played by chantries, institutions supporting priests to say Mass for the dead, usually of a particular family. Having performed his duty of saying Mass each morning, a chantry priest was free to devote himself to teaching, research, or, in many cases, assisting the local parish priest in his pastoral work. The chantries were suppressed, and their assets seized, by Henry VIII’s son Edward.

Above the gate, on the tower, can be seen a relief showing the souls in Purgatory, and an angel . delivering them: the original purpose of the College. See also their site.

[1] Lived c. 1410-1431

HERTFORD COLLEGE

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Up Catte Street on the right is Hertford College. It is certain that there was a hall on this site as early as 1282. It was called Hart Hall and was founded by Elias de Hertford. Another hall – Black Hall which also served the needs of students - stood next to it. Both these establishments stood on the north side of the present quadrangle. In the middle of the sixteenth century, Hart Hall was rebuilt and some further additions were made at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries. In 1740, the hall became a college, but it proved unsuccessful and its premises were taken over by Magdalen Hall[1] about 1822. In 1874, Hertford College was refounded. The buildings were extended towards New College Lane and another range was erected on the far side of that street. The outer wall of the senior common room, across the quadrangle from the gatehouse, is fifteenth-century work; the old hall of Hart Hall, which is in the corner north of the senior common room, dates from the early sixteenth century.

The early sixteenth-century octagonal chapel of Our Lady, which stands on the north of New College Lane, was incorporated in the college in 1931. Before that, it had been used as a bookshop. The chapel was rebuilt about 1520 and, when the town walls were intact, it would have been just outside the Smythgate. There is an Annunciation over the door. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

The outside of the octagonal chapel (of 'St Mary at Smith Gate') can be seen from the street, including the (restored) relief of the Annunciation over the orginal door. Recognisable, though mutilated, Our Lady kneels on the left, and Gabriel, covered in feathers, appears on the right; Our Lady’s reading stand and book (wherein she would have been reading the prophecy of the virginal conception, in Isaiah), next to her, is intact; the flower pot, in the middle, remains, though the lily it must have contained has gone; between that and the angel is an almost entirely erased panel, which must have contained a scroll with the Angelic Salutation: Ave Maria, gratia plena.

For more on the history of Hertford College and its buildings, see their site.

[1] Not to be confused with the college of the same name.

WADHAM COLLEGE

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The college is at the south end of Parks Road. It was founded by Nicholas and Dorothy Wadham[1] in 1612 on the site of the old Austin Friars[2] monastery. This friary, of which nothing survives, played a large part in the life of the university. The college has no Catholic past, but its buildings are beautiful and are still as their founders left them. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

For more on Wadham College, see their site.

[1] Nicholas lived 1532-1609. Dorothy lived 1534-1618.
[2] The Austin Friars originated by the amalgamation of several small bodies of friars under the direction of Clement IV (pope 1265-1268) in 1265. The tunic is black with a capuce and leather belt. At the time of the dissolution, there were thirty-two English friaries. They must not be confused with the Austin Canons.

NEW COLLEGE

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New College Lane is a tortuous medieval thoroughfare and, as we go along it, the tower and chapel of William of Wickham’s[1] great foundation rise before us. At the second turning of the lane, the gate with the Annunciation over it comes into sight. There is another Annunciation on the inside of the same gate and a third over the stairs leading to the hall. This devotion, very popular during the English middle ages, was especially dear to the founder and there are several similar examples on the gate of his school at Winchester. The kneeling figures are, of course, William of Wickham himself.

The bishop of Winchester established his college here in 1379, and it is one of the several scholastic foundations built to educate clergy to take the place of those who died in the Black Death of 1348-1349.

The chapel, the hall and the two lower floors of the first quadrangle were ready by 1386. The kitchen and the Long Room[2] were added soon afterwards. The cloister, the garth of which was intended for use as a cemetery, and the belfry date from 1400. The warden’s barn[3] was put up in 1402. The building known as the Chequer[4] was also erected in the fifteenth century. The main ranges of the Garden Quadrangle and the top storey of the first quadrangle were built in the seventeenth century. The two extremities of the former belong to the eighteenth.

There is much of interest in the chapel. Many fine brasses lie in the floor of the ante-chapel, some of them showing the medieval form of the academic hood – a short cape with a hood attached similar to the capuce worn by the Dominicans at the present day. The modern version, straggling down the back with an enormous hole for the head, was introduced to make it easy to put on over the full-bottomed wig. The incongruous glass in the windows of the choir belongs to the eighteenth century and that of the great west window – equally unsuitable – is by Sir Joshua Reynolds.[5] The glass in the wings of the ante-chapel is genuine fourteenth-century and it is sad to think that more of this old glass was deliberately destroyed to make room for the Reynolds windows. At the back stands a statue of Lazarus by Epstein.[6] The reredos is almost entirely modern, but based on the medieval one. The stalls, though not ancient, incorporate many old misericords. The roof was restored in the late eighteenth century and, again, by Sir George Gilbert Scott between 1877 and 1881. William of Wickham’s crosier is displayed in a case on the north of the sanctuary.
The hall is worth seeing, and the cloister – an ambulacrum, not a working cloister as in a monastery – is also beautiful. In the garden is a fine range of the town wall. Outside it, close to the place where the new buildings of the college now stand, was the house of the Trinitarian Friars.[7]

Members of the college were strongly opposed to Henry VIII’s religious changes; nearly all the fellows were deprived and went to Douai. Some, however, lived on as best they could in Oxford, as did Mr Henslowe “once of newe colledge, and expeld out of the house for poperie, who lyeth nowe at the signe of the Blewe Bore.”[8] The warden, Dr London,[9] on the contrary, became a royal agent for the dissolution of the monasteries.

The college formerly possessed the right of conducting its own examinations for degrees. This has now been given up.(From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

When college libraries were ransaked for Catholic books in 1535, manuscript pages were said to have been as thick as Autumn leaves in New College Quad.

New College's great contribution of personnel to the foundation of the English Catholic seminary at Douai includes Thomas Stapleton, Thomas Harding and Nicholas Saunders; the college’s martyrs include Blessed John Bodey, Bl. John Munden, Bl. John Slade, and Bl. James Fenn. For more on New College, see their site.

[1] Bishop of Winchester 1367-1404.
[2] This is on the north side of Queen's Lane before it turns south to St Peter's Church. It was built as a latrine and is of two storeys, the lower of which contained the cess pit.
[3] On the south side of New College Lane, just after it turns into the section which leads to the gate.
[4] This is on the left as you pass through the gate leading from the first quadrangle into the Garden Quadrangle.
[5] Lived 1723-1792. No disparagement is intended for Reynolds' work as such, but it is surely out of place here.
[6] Lived 1880-1959. Sir Jacob Epstein.
[7] The order was founded by St John of Matha (lived 1169-1213) and St Felix of Valois (lived 1127-1213) about 1197. All churches of the order were to be dedicated to the Holy Trinity and its work was to be the care of the poor and the redemption of captives from the infidel. The habit is exactly similar to that of the Dominicans but with a red and blue cross on the scapular and on the cloak. They had about eleven English houses at the time of the suppression.
[8] Catholic Record Society, vol. 22, p. 100.
[9] Lived c. 1486-1583. Warden of New College 1526. He died in prison serving a sentence for perjury.

ST PETER’S IN THE EAST, QUEEN’S LANE

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After passing under the bridge on the left outside the main gate of New College, we come to the corner where New College Lane merges into Queen’s Lane. Along here, after the lane has made an abrupt turn to the right, we find the church of St Peter in the East.

The north and east walls of the church are thirteenth-century work, and the north chapel is reported to have been built by St Edmund Rich.[1] If this is true, it is probable that it was in this very building that he taught and sang office with his students, amongst whom St Richard of Chichester[2] held an honoured place. The chapel certainly served St Edmund Hall for a time.

The chancel of the church, the crypt and the south wall date from the twelfth century. The west end of the south side, west of the porch; the north side up to the first chapel, and the tower are fourteenth century. The porch belongs to the fifteenth century. The small chapel with the room now used as a vestry is sixteenth-century. There was an anchorite near the church in the middle ages. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

St Peter’s Church has been secularized, and now serves as a library for St Edmund’s Hall. For more on its history, see here.

[1] Archbishop of Canterbury 1234-1240.
[2] Bishop of Chichester 1244-1253.

ST EDMUND HALL

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Beyond St Peter’s, on the same side of the lane, is the only survivor from the large number of medieval halls in Oxford – St Edmund Hall. It was founded in honour of St Edmund Rich, who was canonized by Innocent III in 1247. Its constitution is now similar to those of the colleges but, until quite recently, its principal was appointed by the provost of Queen’s. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

For more on St Edmund’s Hall, see their site.

FROM ST EDMUND HALL TO MAGDALEN COLLEGE

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Round the corner in the High, on the far side of the road, are the new Examination Schools where all university examinations are now held. There are two panels over the main door, one showing a viva voce examination, the other a degree ceremony.

A few yards east of the point where Merton Street runs into High Street from the south, the East Gate stood across the road. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

MAGDALEN COLLEGE

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The long line of buildings past the corner of Long Wall Street belong to Magdalen College. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete, whose tomb presents a striking spectacle in the retro-choir of his cathedral at Winchester. Waynflete modelled his college on that of his great predecessor in the see of Winchester – William of Wickham. A comparison between the two is interesting. They contain many similar features, but Magdalen is more elegant than New College, while it lacks the simplicity of the earlier building. In the century which separated them, the austerity of the earlier middle ages had passed away and the influence of the Renaissance was beginning to be felt.
Waynflete took over an ancient hospital, dedicated to St John the Baptist, the blocked-up doorway of which still stands on the street. The chapel of the hospital is incorporated in the range of buildings next to the roadway. On the quadrangle side, it stretches from the pulpit[1] to a point opposite the south-east corner of the ante-chapel. The kitchen, which is on the Cherwell[2] side of the great quadrangle, is either late thirteenth- or early fourteenth-century, and must have been there before the foundation of the college. The other domestic buildings near it are modern.

The great quadrangle with its lodgings, the chapel, the hall, the Muniment Tower over the passage into the cloister from St John’s Quadrangle, and the Founder’s Tower a short way down the west cloister are all of the fifteenth century, though the external walls of the north and east cloister lodgings were rebuilt in the eighteenth. The bell tower[3] – possibly constructed when Wolsey was bursar – and the street range, apart from the ancient hospital chapel, with part of the president’s lodgings on the north side of St John’s Quadrangle are sixteenth-century. The chapel is very fine. Over the west front are restored figures of St John the Baptist, Edward IV,[4] St Mary Magdalene and William of Waynflete. In pre-Reformation times, there were seven altars inside. There is a restored reredos and some good brasses and misericords in the ante-chapel. The hall has some magnificent woodwork.

The buildings on the left, as you enter the first quadrangle, are modern and stand on the site of the ancient grammar school founded soon after 1480. This institution later grew into Magdalen Hall which, however, had no connection with the college. In 1820, it was destroyed by fire and, two years later, it was resurrected on the site of the present Hertford College. Beyond the cloister, there is an unenclosed quadrangle with a beautiful range of buildings, dating from 1733, on the far side. Perhaps the most charming feature of the place is the long water-walk, called Addison’s[5] Walk, which lies on the east side of the college. To the west is the deer park.

Magdalen, in Reformation times, was at first loyal to the old religion, but later became a stronghold of Puritanism. It was, however, faithful to the Stuarts, though it put up a stout resistance to James II’s attempt to force Catholicism on it.(From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

Magdalen men were martyred for the Faith by Henry VIII: Blessed Thomas Abel, a chaplain and defender of Queen Catherine (1540) and the Franciscan Anthony Brookby (judicially strangled in 1537). At that time the college Fellows were split between Catholic conservatives and reformers. The college successfully resisted the order to dissolve the choir and grammar school in 1549; however, the Master, Owen Oglethorpe, was forced to resign in 1552, by Protestant Fellows who proceeded to strip the chapel of its Catholic fittings and vestments. (As Bishop of Carlisle, Oglethorpe later became famous as the only bishop in England prepared to crown Queen Elizabeth. He remained Catholic, however, and was soon deprived of his see.) Later, it hosted the foreign Protestants Bucer and Peter Martyr. Under Queen Mary, Oglethorpe was restored, and the composer John Sheppard was choirmaster. Under Elizabeth it had a Puritan Master, and under Charles I a High Church one; most of the Fellows were expelled when the King was defeated in the Civil War, and were restored by Charles II. James II, as was the custom, proposed a new Master in 1687, the college Fellow Anthony Farmer, who was a Catholic. The Fellows refused to elect him, and a major conflict ensued, at the height of which the King expelled 25 recalcitrant Fellows; however, he soon reinstated them, and indeed soon had to flee the country himself, in 1688. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambride, 1963)

The seminary priest Ven. William Freeman, martyred in 1595, was a alumnus. The Protestant hagiographer John Fox studied at Magdalen. Later, the Anglican apologist C.S. Lewis was Fellow of the college.
For more on the history of Magdalen College, see their site.

[1] A sermon is preached from this pulpit on St John the Baptist's day, June 24th.
[2] A tributary of the Thames, rising north of Banbury.
[3] A hymn is sung by Magdalen choir from the top of this tower each year on May Day at dawn. The origin of this custom is obscure.
[4] Reigned 1461-1483.
[5] Lived 1672-1719. Essayist and poet. He was a member of the college. Joseph Addison.

FROM MAGDALEN TO ST ALDATE’S STREET

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It is now necessary to take a longish walk. We cross the High, go down Rose Lane by the Botanical Gardens opposite Magdalen into Christ Church Meadow, turn right along the Broad Walk and through the War Memorial Gardens into St Aldate’s[1] Street. On our right, as we go, are sections of the south wall of the town, and views of Merton College and Christ Church itself. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

[1] There is no such saint. Undergraduate slang calls the street St Oed's. The name may be derived from the old South Gate which ran across it.

THE CATHOLIC CHAPLAINCY

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Across St Aldate’s Street from the War Memorial Gardens is the Old Palace. From 1352 until the dissolution of the monasteries, it belonged to the Dominicans. Then, together with Littlemore Hall near by, it was used by Bishop Robert King – the only Catholic bishop of Oxford – from about 1549 until his death in 1557. It later came into the possession of Thomas Smith, mayor and member of parliament for Oxford, while Charles I had his court in the city. It was bought for a Catholic university chaplaincy by the Newman trustees in 1917. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

In 1970/71, under the chaplaincy of Fr Michael Hollings, who was later well known for his post-conciliar liturgical experiments, buildings were erected, in neo-Stanlinist style, in the space behind the Old Palace, replacing the chapel built by Mgr. Ronald Knox and the ‘baroque Nissan hut’ chapel established by Mgr. Valentine Elwes. The Chapel of St Thomas More is to be found here, where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved. Sunday Mass is held, in term-time, in a larger room, also used for meetings, theatrical productions, and so on. See their site.

The 'Old Palace', a Jacobean rebuilding of King's episcopal 'palace', contains some fine plaster ceilings (which are also to be seen in the nearbouring book shop and restaurant). The stone facade onto St Aldates dates from the 1950s.

THE MEDIEVAL BLACKFRIARS

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When the Dominicans arrived in Oxford on August 15th, 1221, they settled on the east side of St Aldate’s Street, just north of Blue Boar Street, where the town hall now stands. Later, they moved to a site between the far end of Speedwell Street, which joins St Aldate’s Street a few yards south of the Old Palace, and the river. Nothing is now left of this splendid monastery except perhaps a doorway in Number 10, Littlegate Street which runs parallel with St Aldate’s Street about one hundred and eighty yards to the west.

The site of the Blackfriars is now very drab, most of it being covered by the gasworks. The memory of it, however, is kept alive by some of the street-names of the locality – Friar’s Wharf, Friar’s Street and Blackfriars’ Road. But to offset these, there is also a Luther Street and a Cromwell Street. The monastery gave the Church at least four cardinals, three archbishops and twelve bishops. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

Littlegate Street has unfortunately been redeveloped. Less sadly, the gas-works has also disappeared, although the area where the great friary once stood is now occupied by the worst council housing in Oxford. The street names recalling the Dominicans remain. In the course of the redevelopment the friary was excavated.

THE CRUTCHED FRIARS

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The monastery of the Crutched Friars[1] stood on the west side of St Aldate’s Street, about seventy yards south of Speedwell Street. It was therefore between the Blackfriars and St Aldate’s Street. Little is known about it. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

[1] Or Friars of the Cross. After an indefinite beginning, Alexander In (pope 1159-1181) gave them a fixed rule. They wore a red cross on their breasts and carried a wooden cross in their hands. They had six or seven English houses at the suppression.

CAMPION HALL

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In Brewer Street, which ran just outside the south wall of the town, is Campion Hall, a modern house of studies for members of the Society of Jesus. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

Campion Hall by designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, and built (on its present site) in 1934. It contains some notable works of art, and one of the four known copies of St Edmund Campion's Decem Rationes, printed at Stoner (see St Mary's, High Street, where this book was distributed) The pictures show the outside of the building and Lutyens' beautiful chapel.

See their site.

PEMBROKE COLLEGE

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In the northern angle between Brewer Street and St Aldate’s Street is Pembroke College. It was founded by Richard Wightwick[1] and Thomas Tessdale[2] under the patronage of James I[3] in 1624. It stands on the site of an older foundation, known as Broadgates Hall, which is represented by a section of the present library. An early sixteenth century hospital, fronting St Aldate’s Street and called Wolsey’s Hospital, was acquired in 1888 and converted into lodgings for the master. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambride, 1963)

For more on the history of Pembroke College, see here.

[1] Flourished 1580-1623.
[2] Lived 1547-1610. Maltster.
[3] Reigned 1603-1625.

ST ALDATE’S, ST ALDATE’S STREET

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The church stands immediately north of Pembroke College. It has been extensively restored, but it is possible that the chancel dates from the twelfth century. The south aisle, which had a chantry to Our Lady, was built in the fourteenth century. The north aisle was erected just before 1461. The church is called after the street in which it stands. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

The street name ‘Aldate’ probably derives from ‘Old Gate’ (the southern gate of the city wall). For more on the church, which is of evangelical persuasion, see their site.

ST MARTIN’S, CARFAX

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At its northern end St Aldate’s Street forms the southern arm of the central cross-roads of the town, called Carfax. To the north-west of the crossing is the fourteenth-century tower of St Martin’s Church. The medieval church was demolished and a new building erected in 1820. This church had a short life, being pulled down in 1896. The top stage of the tower and the turret were added after the demolition.St Martin’s was the town church, and the rallying-point for the citizens in many a rough-and-tumble with members of the university in ancient times. The parish has been amalgamated with that of All Saints, farther down the High. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

For a picture of the tower, with its clock and figures who strike a bell on the hours, see here.

FROM ST ALDATE’S TO ST EBBE’S

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We now plunge into the maze of small lanes which occupy the older quarter of the town. At the west end of St Aldate’s Church we enter Beef Lane which runs at right-angles into St Ebbe’s Street. The latter continues southward as far as the corner of Brewer Street, where there was a gate in the town wall called the Littlegate. At its north end, St Ebbe’s Street joins Pembroke Street coming in from the right and Church Street coming from the left. Beyond this junction, St Ebbe’s Street runs into Queen Street, on the other side of which – almost opposite – is New Inn Hall Street. It may be worth while to explore the last-named before continuing westward down Church Street. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

New Inn Hall Street contains an inscription to the John Wesley, founder of the Methodists.

ST MARY’S COLLEGE

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The college is now known as Frewin Hall and stands on the east side of New Inn Hall Street opposite the church of St Peter le Bailey. It was founded by Thomas[1] and Elizabeth Holden as a house of studies for the Canons Regular of St Augustine in 1435. It was dissolved in 1540. Much of it was demolished and all that remains of the monastic foundation is the lower part of the gatehouse and the cellars of the west range. In the first half of the eighteenth century a Dr Richard Frewin[2] held the lease and reconstructed the south wing. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

Frewin Hall is now an ‘annexe’ of Brasenose College. For more on its history, see here.

[1] Died 1438.
[2] Lived c. 1681-1761. Physician. He left his books for the Radcliffe Library and his house for the regius professor of medicine.

ST PETER LE BAILEY, NEW INN HALL STREET

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The church stands on the west side of the street. The medieval building stood about fifty yards farther south and collapsed in 1726. It was rebuilt a few years later, but was pulled down in 1874 when the present church was erected. The Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, describing the present state of the place, says “Condition – Rebuilt,”[1] which is about all that can decently be said. The church now serves as the chapel of a new college, which caters for undergraduates of Evangelical persuasion, called St Peter’s College. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

For St Peter’s College, see their site.

The Medieval church was opposite the family home ('number 3 Castle St') of Bl Nicholas Owen, the Jesuit lay-brother who was the most famous and ingenious maker of 'priest holes' in Catholic houses. The Owens moven in in 1566, when Nicholas was in his infancy. Two of his brothers also joined the Jesuits. Bl Nicholas died under torture in the Tower of London, without having revealed any secrets.

[1] The City of Oxford, p. 143.

ST EBBE’S, CHURCH STREET

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Back at the junction of Pembroke Street with St Ebbe’s Street and Church Street, we find St Ebbe’s Church in the southern angle between the two last-named. The saint is Ebba,[1] abbess of Coldingham in Berwickshire and aunt of Ecgfrith,[2] king of Northumbria. It was she who gave the religious habit to St Ætheldreda,[3] after St Wilfrid[4] had persuaded Ecgfrith to allow the unconsummated marriage to be dissolved.
Remains of the rubble walls of the pre-Reformation church survive here and there. The west door is mid-twelfth-century, but it has been restored and was placed in its present position in 1904. The church was completely rebuilt in 1814 and is without interest. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

St Ebbe’s Church has an evangelical tradition of long standing. For more on the church, see their site.

[1] Flourished c. 670.
[2] King of Northumbria 671-685.
[3] Lived c. 630-679.
[4] Bishop of York c. 665-691, of Leicester 691-704. Died 709.

THE OLD GREYFRIARS

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The area west of St EbbeÂs, both inside and outside the town wall, right down to Paradise Square, belonged to the Franciscans. When these friars came to Oxford in 1224, they settled in three small houses in St EbbeÂs parish, just inside the wall. In 1244, they acquired another piece of land outside the wall, a short distance west of Littlegate. Here they built their church, and received permission to cut a private gate through the wall to connect it with their older property.

On the north side of the northernmost house in KingÂs Terrace, there are remains of the town wall in the front and back gardens. In the front garden section is a wide recess and, to the east of it, a piece of rubble-work which may be part of the private gate. Other remains are scattered all over the area, but they do not amount to much. There is a length of rubble wall on the west of Littlegate Street, and another, running north and south, twenty feet west of PinsonÂs Gardens. A rubble building in the west angle of Wood Street and Charles Street completes the list.[1]

The monastery gained an international reputation and could boast St Thomas of Hereford,[2] Archbishop Peckham,[3] Roger Bacon,[4] Duns Scotus, William of Ockham and the anti-pope Alexander V[5] amongst its students. So great was the influence of the Oxford Greyfriars and Blackfriars that, for many years, every English scholar of note was connected with one or the other of them.[6]

This area has been redeveloped, in the name of 'slum clearance', erasing the last traces of the medieval past; even many of the street names have disappeared. Turn Again Lane (formerly Charles St) was saved, and exemplifies the fine vernacular buildings which were wantonly destroyed. The Franciscan house stood in the area now covered by the Westgate (shopping) Centre and car park. It is remembered in the the street name Old Greyfriars Street.

On an island in the river, where Folly Bridge crosses the Thames, is the site (according to local tradition) of the study of Roger Bacon, the great Franciscan scientist. He is commemorated in a street name. A quaint story relates Bacon's production of a brass head which could answer questions (magically? mechanically?), but due to the incompetenceetance of a laboratory assistant, no questions were asked in time. This talking head has been linked to the famous door-knocker which gives Brasenose its name (see above).

The Franciscan house was founded by Blessed Agnellus of Pisa, who was admitted to the order and sent to England by St Francis himself, and was buried in Oxford (he died in 1236). Later, it produced an early martyr for the Catholic Faith under King Henry VIII, Blessed John Forest, who was the Provincial superior. He was burnt at Smithfield by order of Thomas Cranmer in 1538.

[1] At the time of writing (1961), considerable alterations are going on in this part of the town. It is possible that some at least of these small remains may be lost. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)
[2] Bishop of Hereford 1275-1282.
[3] Archbishop of Canterbury 1279-1292.
[4] Lived c. 1214-1294.
[5] Lived c. 1339-1410.
[6] For more information on the influence of the friars at Oxford, see Part I of this pamphlet (2nd edition), pp. 41-43.

ST BUDOC’S CHURCH STREET

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The earlier version of this little-known church stood in the angle between Church Street and Castle Street. It was, therefore, just inside the West Gate which ran across Church Street immediately west of its junction with Castle Street. The second building stood outside the gate on the south side of Paradise Street. St Budoc was an early, semi-legendary bishop of Dol in Britanny. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

Church Street is now part of Paradise Street, and St Budoc’s has vanished under new housing there.

THE FRIARS OF THE SACK

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The Friars of the Sack[1] had a monastery on the south of Paradise Street behind the second church of St Budoc. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

[1] The Friars of Penitence. In England they were popularly known as the Friars of the Sack because their habits were made of that material. They were suppressed by the council of Lyons in 1274, but the English houses were not affected by this. At the dissolution under Henry VIII, they had five monasteries in this country.

THE CASTLE

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From Church Street our route leads into Paradise Street, where we get a view of what remains of the castle. The precinct is bounded by Paradise Street, Castle Street, Bulwarks Lane and Titmouse Lane. The outer walls ran inside these limits, passing over the modern New Road. Part of the enclosure is now occupied by the County Hall and prison.

The motte and bailey earthworks were put up by Robert d’Oilly, a follower of the Conqueror,[1] in 1071, in order to overawe the local inhabitants. Later on, a decagonal shell keep – fifty-eight feet in diameter and with walls from five to six feet in thickness – was erected on the motte. A well chamber still exists on the site.

In 1074, the chapel of St George was founded. The old Norman rubble tower, which after the motte is the most noticeable feature of the place and is often mistaken for the castle itself, was in fact the belfry tower of this chapel. It interrupted the curtain walls and the chapel sprang from it on the inner side. Of the chapel itself, only the crypt remains. A charter, dated 1149, may refer to the installation of the Augustinian Canons into whose care it was given about this time.

The castle played an important part in the wars between King Stephen[2] and the empress Matilda.[3] The fortress was defended by Matilda, but the king took it on September 26th, 1142. By 1331, it was in a ruinous condition. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

It is said that the Empress Matilda made good her escape from the Castle, wearing white as camouflage against the snow, over the frozen Thames.

As noted above, Blessed George Napier was held in the Castle prison (nearby, and in use until recently), and probably executed on the Castle gallows in 1610. This spot is now covered by Nuffield College, the other side of the ‘New Road’, which crosses the original area of the Castle.

The Castle was also the scene of the ‘Black Assize’ of 1577, when a pestilence carried off a large number of Oxford worthies, numbering more than 300, while a Catholic bookseller, Rowland Jenkes, was being tried for selling Popish Books. Jenkes’ jury perished, and the rumour spread that he had caused the plague, either by poison or witchcraft. See here. A plaque in the County Hall, dated 1875, commemorates this event.

Jenkes was condemned to have his ears nailed to the stocks, from which he was at liberty to cut himself free. In 1588 he was working for Fr Persons in London, was arrested, and again found himself in Oxford goal. When released he went to Douai, and became the baker to the English College, where he died in 1610.

The Castle gallows also saw service in 1681 for the execution of Stephen Colledge, the 'Protestant joiner', who had travelled to Oxford to rail against King James II. Jack Ketch, immortalised in the Punch and Judy show, was brought from London to dispatch him. Ketch was more famous for his often botched executions of Catholics implicated by the fictional Titus Oates Plot. Although hanged, drawn and quartered, Colledge's limbs were spared the public display accorded to Bl George Napper's remains.

For more on the history of the Castle, see here.

As you walk south from the Castle, over the canal, you will see a plaque marking the spot of the first Baptist meeting house.

[1] Reigned 1066-1087. William I.
[2] Reigned 1135-1154.
[3] 1167. Also called Maud. Daughter of Henry I. 1114, married to Henry V (Holy Roman emperor 1106-1125). 1128, married to Geoffrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou (lived 1113-1151). Henry II (reigned 1154-1189) was the son of the second marriage.

ST THOMAS THE MARTYR

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At the northern end of Paradise Street, High Street St Thomas runs in from the west. At its far end is the church from which its name is taken. It is worth visiting if only because its churchyard provides a pleasant oasis in a somewhat drab quarter of the town. Those in a hurry can cut out the visit to this church and to the sites of Osney and Rewley Abbeys by going straight on from the north end of Paradise Street into Fisher Row, which runs beside the stream. It is necessary to cross Park End Street in order to reach the second part of Fisher Row, which emerges at Hythe Bridge. Then turn right along Hythe Bridge Street into Worcester Street where is the college from which the latter road takes its name.

The chancel of St Thomas’ was built in the late twelfth century. The nave was rebuilt and extended westward in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. The west tower and a north chapel were added at the same time. The south porch dates from 1621. In the nineteenth century, the south wall of the nave was rebuilt, the north chapel was demolished and a north aisle put up. The vestry is modern and the tower was restored in 1936.The gate to the churchyard at the west end of the church leads into Becket Street. If we turn right as we leave the graveyard, we come out near the railway stations. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

The street is now simply called St Thomas Street. Fisher Row is now called Hollybush Row. Park End Street has been redeveloped, at this point, to give onto an area now called St Frideswide’s Square. The other side of this square has also been redeveloped: see the entry on Rewley Abbey.

OSNEY ABBEY

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The abbey stood for the most part on the site of the Western Region station. It was the largest of the Oxford religious houses, and was founded by Robert d’Oilly the younger in 1129. It was served by the Canons Regular of St Augustine and became an abbey in 1154. Dissolved in 1539, its church was used as a cathedral for Henry VIII’s new diocese of Oxford in the years between 1541 and 1545, when the seat of the bishop was moved to the other great church of the Black Canons in the town – St Frideswide’s.

As soon as the change was made, the demolition of the abbey buildings began. The final blow was struck in modern times by the Great Western Railway, which laid its track right across the site. On the far side of the railway, there are still a few signs of the monastery. Beyond the railway bridge on the left is Mill Street. Here are some small remnants, scattered over the ground between the cemetery and the mill. There is also a small bridge which once belonged to the canons. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

Osney Abbey was host to a number of synods, including the Council of Oxford of 1222, which applied the decisions of the Fourth Lateran General Council to England. Its last Abbot, Henry King, was a relative of the King’s chief minister Thomas Cromwell, and was imposed in order to ensure a smooth dissolution; he was rewarded by being made Bishop of Oxford. He had been a Cistercian at Rewley, and performed the job of undertaker-Abbot at the monasteries of Brewerne and Thame as well as Osney. He made no objection ro the Marian restoration of Catholicism, and died in 1557.

The mill has given way to houses. For a picture of what a doorway of the abbey looked like early in the 20th Century, in what is now Osney Marina (at the end of Mill Street), see here.

REWLEY ABBEY

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At the western end of Hythe Bridge Street is a small cul-de-sac, called Rewley Road. Here, on the site of the old London, Midland and Scottish Railway station, stood Rewley Abbey, a Cistercian monastery founded by Edmund,[1] earl of Cornwall, as a studium for the White Monks. It became an abbey in 1281 and was dissolved in 1536. Most of it had disappeared by 1600. The site is now occupied entirely by the station and a coal yard. Up to a few years ago, a section of wall and a doorway survived on the west side of Rewley Road.
Returning along Hythe Bridge Street, we come to Worcester Street. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

The London, Midland and Scottish Railway station has been removed, and the area is now occupied by St Frideswide Square and the Saïd Business School (named after an Arab benefactor); Rewley Road now leads past the latter to a new housing development. In the building of the Business School, the remains of Rewley Abbey were discovered in what is now its ‘Fellows’ Garden’. A information board in Rewley Road, on the Saïd Business School garden wall, records this and shows a plan of the Abbey buildings. See here.

[1] Lived 1250-1300. Nephew of Henry III (reigned 1216-1272).

THE CARMELITE PRIORY

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It is said that St Simon Stock[1] came to Oxford as a student about 1244. In the following year, he was elected prior general of the Carmelites at Aylesford in Kent. In 1254, Nicholas de Meules,[2] castellan of Oxford Castle, gave the Carmelites some land on the south side of Stockwell Street. This piece of ground is now occupied by the small Pump Quadrangle of Worcester College and the new buildings.

This phase of the foundation did not last long. About 1289, Edward I made over the royal palace of Beaumont to the friars. The palace stood in what is now the angle formed by Walton Street and Beaumont Street. The approximate boundaries of the new property would have been Alfred Street on the north, St Giles’ Street and Magdalen Street on the east, George Street on the south, and Worcester Street and Walton Street on the west. It was a large precinct and, in 1321, the Carmelites sold their old land and house to the Benedictines who were looking for more space to expand Gloucester Hall which stood next door.

Edward I tried to ensure that the Whitefriars of Beaumont took their place in the university. He insisted that at least twenty-four of the friars in residence should be conversant with theology and he undertook to provide eight marks each year towards the keep of each one of them. The friars experienced a great deal of hostility from the canons of Osney Abbey, who objected to what they considered the intrusion of another order into a part of Oxford they had regarded as their own.

In 1318, the friars obtained permission to build a chapel for themselves on the south side of St Mary Magdalene’s Church in Magdalen Street. Access to it was through a narrow lane on the east side of the precinct, known to this day as Friars’ Entry. A great part of the ground – known in the middle ages as Brokenheys, and now occupied by the bus station – was part of the Whitefriars’ estate. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

Recent excavations suggest that the Carmelites had their own, substantial church on the Beaumont site. St Simon Stock, the greatest General Superior of the Carmelites, was favoured with a vision of the Blessed Virgin and her promise with regard to the Brown Scapular. For St Simon, see here. The ‘bus station’ referred to is that of Gloucester Green. The name ‘Brokenheys’ means ‘broken hedges’, referring to the abandoned nature of the area following the Black Death. The site of Beaumont Palace is marked by an inscription, recently restored, on the corner of Beaumont Street and Walton Street. The great crusading King, Richard I, Coeur de Lion, was born here in 1157, and his brother King John in 1167. Gloucester Green was also the scene of the execution of two Protestant dissenters, ‘Levellers’, by Cromwellian troops in 1649.

[1] Lived c. 1165-1265. His longevity appears to be authentic.
[2] Died c. 1264.

WORCESTER COLLEGE

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Worcester College is a complex institution. In 1298, a small house of studies, belonging to the abbey of Gloucester since 1291, was expanded into a college intended to serve all the Black Monks of the Canterbury province. The land was given by John, Lord Giffard,[1] and Gloucester Hall became Gloucester College. Until the dissolution, it was governed by the general chapter of the English Benedictines, and the chief monasteries contributed to its upkeep. In 1321, there was a further expansion when the monks bought up the site of the original Oxford Carmel, left empty after the migration of the friars to Beaumont.

After the dissolution, the buildings lay unused for some time but, in 1560, they were put in order and occupied by another body of students. The new foundation adopted the title of Gloucester Hall and lasted until 1714, when Sir Thomas Cookes,[2] baronet, left directions in his will for refounding it as Worcester College. After this the hall, chapel, loggia, the buildings along the north of the main quadrangle, and the provost’s lodgings were built, while those in Pump Quadrangle were raised in height.

The chief point of interest here is the fifteenth-century buildings of the Benedictine college. These stand chiefly on the south side of the main quadrangle, but the present senior common room, at the extreme north-east corner of the quadrangle, is of the same period. The south range of the main quadrangle provides the earliest example of the staircase system. This is now the rule in all Oxford colleges, where living quarters are divided into houses, each with a staircase giving access to several sets of rooms. The custom originated because the various abbots who had students in the college did not wish their bright young men to be corrupted by contact with bright young men from other monasteries. Such is human nature!

Each monastery, then, had its own house in the one college. Some of the badges belonging to the various abbeys are still in place over the doorways of the houses which their students occupied. If you walk along the south range of the main quadrangle from the end nearer the gatehouse to the passage leading into the garden, you will see the griffon of Malmesbury, argent a cross sable of St Augustine’s Canterbury, Glastonbury has vert a crosslet argent and a quarter argent charged with a Virgin and Child, the three cups or chalices probably represent Pershore. The college has a beautiful garden and lake.

From Worcester College our route is along Beaumont Street, at the top of which we turn left into St Giles’ Street where we started. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

In 1579 Gloucester had as its Principal Dr Christopher Bagshaw, a former Fellow of Balliol (and student of St John's Cambridge). Bagshaw susequently converted while in France and became a seminary priest, and while in prison at Wisbech Castle became a leader of the 'Appellant' party seeking (vainly) some accomodation with the Government by criticising the Jesuits, at the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

William Bishop, who was a student at Gloucester Hall from 1570-74, trained in Douai and Rome and returned to England as a priest. Like Bagshaw, he was a member of the Appellant party, but was in 1623 made the first Vicar Apostolic of England. (He was appointed Bishop of Chalcedon in partibus infidelium, with authority covering England.) The system of Vicars Apostolic continued until the Restoration of the Hierarchy in 1850.

For more on Worcester College and its history, see their site.

[1] Lived 1232-1299.
[2] Died 1701.

THE MODERN BLACKFRIARS

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Along St Giles’ Street on the left we come to the modern Blackfriars’ Priory. It is fitting that we should conclude our visit to Oxford with a visit to a monastery of the order which did so much for the university during the middle ages. Here you will see a Dominican house, similar to those of the ages of faith, set as then in the midst of a university town.Seven hundred years after that feast of the Assumption in 1221, when the Friars Preachers first set foot in Oxford, on another feast of the Assumption – this time in 1921 – Cardinal Bourne blessed the foundations of the new priory. The church was consecrated at Pentecost, 1929, by Bishop Couturier.

In the church the liturgy is celebrated according to the Dominican rite. There are several points of difference, both in the Mass and in the office, from the Roman rite to which we are mostly accustomed. At Mass, the chalice is prepared at the beginning of the service, although the actual offering takes place as in the Roman Mass. During the psalms at the office, one side of the choir sits while the other stands, so expressing the double purpose of the Dominican life – contemplation and active work. At the end of Compline, comes the beautiful ceremony of the Salve Regina, with its procession and aspersion. As we watch we can imagine ourselves back in the Oxford of the middle ages. (From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

The Dominicans actually returned to Oxford in 1919; the present buildings were built 1924-9, and were designed by E. Doran Webb, who also designed the Birmingham Oratory. The style he adopted for the Dominicans is said to be a simplified Perpendicular Gothic. It is said that the iron altar rail was torn out at night by a friar wishing to speed the pace of post-Conciliar change.

he Dominicans have abandoned their ancient and beautiful liturgy. For more on Blackfriars, see their site. For the traditional Dominican liturgy, see the Liturgica Latina site.