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BELL'S CATHEDRAL SERIES:
EDITED BY GLEESON WHITE
AND EDWARD F. STRANGE

OXFORD.

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CHRIST CHURCH, FROM THE EAST.
THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF
OXFORD
A DESCRIPTION OF ITS FABRIC
AND A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE
EPISCOPAL SEE

BY THE REV. PERCY DEARMER, M.A.

LONDON GEORGE BELL & SONS 1897

GENERAL PREFACE.
This series of monographs has been planned to supply visitors
to the great English Cathedrals with accurate and well illus
trated guide books at a popular price. The aim of each writer
has been to produce a work compiled with sufficient knowledge
and scholarship to be of value to the student of archeology
and history, and yet not too technical in language for the use
of an ordinary visitor or tourist.
To specify all the authorities which have been made use of
in each case would be difficult and tedious in this place. But
amongst the general sources of information which have been
almost invariably found useful are : — firstly, the great county
histories, the value of which, especially in questions of gene
alogy and local records, is generally recognised ; secondly,
the numerous papers by experts which appe.ir from time to
time in the transactions of the antiquarian and archceological
societies ; thirdly, the important documents made accessible in
the series issued by the Master of the Rolls ; fourthly, the well-
known works of Britton and Willis on the English Cathedrals ;
and lastly, the very excellent series of Handbooks to the
Cathedrals, originated by the late Mr. John Murray, to which
the reader may in most cases be referred for fuller detail,
especially in reference to the histories of the respective sees.
GLEESON WHITE.
E. F. STRANGE.
Editors of the Series.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
For one who has learnt the best of what he knows within
Christ Church walls it has been very pleasant to gather these
notes of the Cathedral's history and architecture. Moreover, I
am less remorseful than I might be at adding to the world's
overcrowded Hbrar)', because certain recent discoveries in the
Cathedral have thrown the best of the old books out of date,
and made it necessary for some one to weave together the
older and the later knowledge. My indebtedness, therefore, is
not only to former labourers in this field, but especially to the
author of these discoveries, Mr J. Park Harrison, who roused
my enthusiasm in the old days, and now has most generously
helped me with his advice, and allowed me to incorporate in
these chapters the substance of his own papers. To these
pamphlets I would refer any who wish to go to the fountain-
head for the account of the investigations, and especially I
may mention two : "The Pre-Norman Date of the Choir and
some of the Stone-work of Oxford Cathedral," and the
" Account of the Discovery of the Remains ot three Apses
at Oxford Cathedral" (Oxford: Frowde, 24 and 23 pp.). I
must also express my thanks for the kindness and help of
Professor York Powell, and of Mr W. Francis, the senior
verger, and to Messrs Carl Norman & Co. of Tunbridge
Wells, Mr W. Giles, Mr Park Harrison, and Mr R. Phene'
Spiers, F.R.I. B. A., for the loan of and permission to repro
duce various drawings and photographs.
PERCY DEARMER.

CONTENTS.

History of the Cathedral .
Description of the Exterior
Spire and Tower
On the North Side .
The Saxon Foundations
Cloister .
Chapter House
Bell Tower
Tom Tower
College Buildings
Description of the Interior
Nave
Monuments of the Nave
OrganPulpitTower
Aisles of Nave and Transept:
Glass in Aisles
North Transept
Glass in Transepts .
South Transept
St. Lucy's Chapel
Monuments of Transept and Chapel
Choir East End .
Reredos .
High Altar
South Choir Aisle
Monuments
North Choir Aisle .
Shrine of St. Frideswide,
Lady Chapel .
" Watching Chamber "
Monuments in Lady Chapel
Glass in the Aisles .
Latin Chapel .
Glass in Latin Chapel
History of the Foundation
St. Frideswide .
The Priory
College and Cathedral
The Diocese of Oxford .
OseneyList of the Bishops .

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Christ Church from the East ...
Arms of the See . ...
The Roof of the Nave 
The Cathedral at the End ofthe .Seventeenth Century
Christ Church from the Canon's Garden, 1S57
Christ Church in the Eighteenth Century
The Tower and Spire ....
Early .Saxon Arches ....
Plan of recently excavated Saxon Arches .
Conjectural Plan of Early Saxon Church .
Doorway of Chapter-House
Corbel in Chapter-House
Boss in Chapter-House .
Choir, from the Old Cemetery
Tom Tower ....
Western Entrance and Bell Tower
Plan 
Early English Moulding .
Nave and Choir, looking East .
Pulpit 
Choir and Nave, looking West
From the North Transept
Clerestory Window in the South Transept
Third Capital of the Choir
Capitals of the Choir
Tracery of the Roof
Lady Montacute's Tomb .
Ornament from a Tomb .
The " St. Cecilia" Wind.jw .
Window in the Latin Chapel .
Section of the Interior before the Restorations ,
The Exterior in 1S57
The Interior before ihe Restorations
Anns of the College

Frontispiece Title

5
10II
29
3334
35
39
4041
42
44
45 5254
55 58
59
66
6872 73
77
9195
99
103
107
"3123
136

THE ROOF OF THE XA\E.
(from a drawing py r. pheniJ spiers, f.r.i.b.a.)

OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
CHAPTER I.
THE HISTORY OF THE BUILDING.
The " Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford " has had a some
what unfortunate history. Built for the small monastery of
St. Frideswide, with no thought of any ampler destination, it
was in the sixteenth century raised to the rank of a cathedral,
just after it had been reduced in size by the destruction of
half the nave, and sunk out of sight among a mass of college
buildings. Nor was this all the indignity it suffered ; for it
had also to do duty as the chapel of the new academic foun
dation which Wolsey estabUshed, and very soon the cathedral
was forgotten in the college chapel. So neglected was it that
Britton wrote at the beginning of the present century — " It is
very common for visitors, and even those of rather refined and
critical minds, to leave Oxford without examining the building
now under notice." A century earlier Browne Willis had been
content to make the astounding observation : " 'Tis truly no
elegant structure."
The first church on this site was that built by St. Frideswide,
"The Lady," as she was afterwards called in O.xford, and her
father Didan, about the year 727. The story of this saint, which
no visitor to her church should omit to read, will be found in
our chapter on the History of the Foundation.
A contemporary of the Venerable .Bede, she was one of those
noble and devoted souls who (as Dr. Jessopp reminds us) made
Anglo-Saxon monasticism the brightest spot in the history of

4 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
English community-life. The monks and nuns of that period
were in fact missionaries, who spread the Christian faith among
the half-civilised pagani, or country-folk ; and, by the wise
method of planting themselves in remote districts, and quietly
living the gospel they preached, touched the hearts, and won
the souls, of their rough neighbours. Thus, without the use
of force, without even the exercise of royal authority, says Pro
fessor Freeman, the whole of England had, by the time of the
birth of St. Frideswide (c. 700), accepted the Christian faith.
But the religion of the country districts must have still been
of a very untutored description ; and St. Frideswide was one of
those wlio spread in the South, just at the time when Mercia
was the paramount power in England, the finer civilisation
which had already established itself in the North, and produced
kings like Edwin, saints like Aidan, and poets like Caedmon.
Whatever may be the authority of the legends which gathered
about her name, it is certain that she gave up her high estate,
" devoted herself and all her worldly goods to the service of
Christ and her poor brethren," refused the offer of a royal
marriage, e.scaped the persecutions of her suitor, " and finally
died in the odour of sanctity, blessed by the poor and ignorant
people to whom she had devoted her troubled life."
Of the place wliere she established the little church, part of
which can still be seen in the walls of the cathedral, Dr. Liddell,
the late Dean, thus writes : —
" ^leadows unbroken by human habitations or human
cultivation, a river wandering through them as it listed, unbarred
by locks, or weirs, or mills, the hills down to their margin
clothed in primeval forest. The bank of gravel which still
slopes down to what we call Christ Church Meadow, offered a
dry and pleasant site ; the river supplied fish for the inmates
of the new convent ; the Trill-mill stream bears testimony by
its name to the fact that its water was in early times, perhaps
the earliest, used to turn the wheel which ground their corn ;
the neighbouring forests supplied abundant wood for fuel, as
well as game for food, and acorns for the swine ; the rich
meadows of the valley furnished pasture to the flocks and herds.
In those days, no doubt, the existence of such a peaceful com
munity exercised a humanising and softening influence over
the rude thanes and their clansmen and serfs, who had as yet
perhaps hardly heard the name of Christ."

THE CATHEDRAL AT THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY {from an old cngravinf).

THE HISTORY OF THE BUILDING. J
Our next glimpse of the church is a terrible one. Despairing
of beating back the Danes, Ethelred the Unready gave the mad
and treacherous order for the Massacre of St. Price's Day,
I002. " Urged by secret orders from the king," says Mr. J. R.
Green, " the West Saxons rose on St. Brice's Day, and pitilessly
massacred the Danes scattered defencelessly among them.
The tower of St. Frideswide, in which those of Oxford had
taken refuge, was burnt with them to the ground." This
account is touched up by Mr. Andrew Lang with a little local
colour : — " We are tempted to think of a low grey twilight
above that wet land suddenly lit up with fire ; of the tall towers
of St. Frideswyde's Minster flaring like a torch across the night ;
of poplars waving in the same wind that drives the vapour and
smoke of the holy place down on the Danes who have taken
refuge there, and there stand at bay against the English and
the people of the town." A finishing touch comes from the old
chronicler, William of Malmesbury : — " Into the tower of St.
Frideswyde they were driven, and as men could not drive
them thence, the tower was fired, and they perished in the
burning." This closes the first era in the history of the church : the old
eccksiola of Didan and his daughter was gutted by the fire, and
its roofs and furniture destroyed. Indeed, until lately it was
held that the whole building was of wood, and perished there
fore with the tower and roof, no vestige of it remaining for
later times. But the recent investigations of Mr. J. Park
Harrison, an archfeologist of remarkable devotion and insight,
have proved that the east wall of the eighth century church,
with two of its primitive arches, still remains, a venerable
relic of times past, as part of the wall of the cathedral; while the
foundations of the three apses, into which the three low arches
once led, have been discovered in the garden to the north-east of
the church (see pp. 33, 34). So did Anthony a Wood, when in
the seventeenth century he wrote of " the antientist buildings "
as " on the east and north side of the church," speak more
truth than even he himself was aware.
After the slaughter of St. Brice's Day, King Ethelred made a
vow that he would rebuild St. Frideswide's church. And well
did he keep it ; for in 1004 he built the splendid church which
forms the main part of the cathedral as we know it to-day,
sparing the more sacred part of the rude old building, it may

8 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
be, because of the veneration in which everything connected
with St. Frideswide was held. His charter contains the follow
ing sentence : —
"In the year of our Lord 1004, in the 2nd indiction, and in
the 25th year of my reign, according to the disposal of God's
providence, I Ethelred ruling over the whole of Albion, have
with liberty of charters by royal authority and for the love of
the Almighty, established a certain monastery situated in the
city which is called Oxoneford, where the body of St. Frides
wide reposes."
And here another question of the deepest architectural
interest occurs. This church of Ethelred's was of a size and
magnificence until lately considered not to have been attainable
in England till many years after the Conquest. It was therefore
taken for granted that the church was wholly rebuilt in the
years ii6o-ri8o, and that Ethelred's work was as entirely lost
as Didan's was supposed to be. Dr. James Ingram, President
of Trinity, had, it is true, written in the thirties to prove that
the cathedral was Saxon, but, great authority as he was, he
wrote at a time when architectural history was in its infancy ;
and at the restoration of 1869, Sir Gilbert Scott was content to
write — " Dr. Ingram evinces great anxiety to prove that traces
of his (Ethelred's) work still exist, but I need hardly say there
is not a shadow of foundation for such a supposition." How
ever, a greater authority than either of the preceding showed
that the tide of knowledge was turning against the accepted
view. Professor Freeman in his "History of Architecture"
wrote that the cathedral might be " in the main portions of the
fabric a monument of the later days of Saxon architecture,"
and that " the evidence between the conflicting statements
which would assign it, some to the days of yEthelred II. , others
to those of Henry I., seems very evenly balanced ; " in the
former case, he said, " we have a complete minster of compara
tively small size, but of the fullest cathedral type, belonging to
the early part of the eleventh century." Mr. J. H. Parker, him
self, who had been the chief authority for the theory that the
Saxon architects built almost entirely in wood, at length changed
his mind ; and even went so far as to say, in the fourth edition
of his " A. B. C. of Gothic Architecture," that " the Saxons, at
the date of the conquest, appear to have been more advanced
in the fine arts, such as sculpture, than the Normans," that

THE HISTORY OF THE BUILDING. 9
"their work was more highly finished, had more ornament,"
and that their masonry was more finely jointed than that of the
Normans. Following up these admissions, Mr. Park Harrison carried on
the most thorough investigations, examining almost every stone
in the building, investigating Saxon MSS., and travelling over
England and Normandy for the purposes of comparison. As
a result he succeeded in convincing Professor Freeman, Pro
fessor Westwood, and other experts in Anglo-Saxon archaso-
logy, that Ethelred's church was still in the main extant ; and
at this moment his theory is very generally accepted. Without
committing ourselves irrevocably to all Mr. Park Harrison's con
clusions, some of which are naturally not so well established as
others, we may, in the majority of cases, accept them, at least
provisionally. Many allusions to them will occur in this book ;
and here, therefore, it is well to say that, while we think there
is little likelihood of the whole theory being destroyed, we
cannot venture to predict how much of it may be damaged or
maintained by future research.
In this place the following summary of the evidence will
suffice : —
I. There is no document or anything tending to show that
the original fabric, as restored and enlarged by Ethelred, was
ever rebuilt on a new plan.
2. Several of the choir capitals differ essentially in their
ornamentation from any others in the cathedral ; but resemble
very closely the ornamental work in illuminated MSS. of
Ethelred's time. They should consequently belong to the
church as enlarged by him in 1004 (p. 72).
3. The junction of the eleventh century, or Ethelred's work
with the later work, is clearly visible at the north and south
west corners of the choir ; and the abaci, though resembling
each other, are of different thickness. The ashlar work is dif
ferent, and the courses are not continuous (p. 61).
4. The manner in which the Norman vaulting shafts are
inserted in the north choir aisle implies that vaulting was not
contemplated in the original plan of the church, and that the aisle
was built at a date when vaulting ribs were not in use (p. 33).
5. The introduction of attached shafts in the tower piers
shows that additions were made, about ir6o, to earlier work
with roll mouldings corresponding with those of the choir :

TO

OXFORD CATHEDRAL.

similar proofs of alteration are to be seen in the imposts of
the tower and transept arches, which have been cut through to
admit late Norman capitals (p. 58).
6. There is also good evidence that the Norman Presbytery
is not part of the original choir, or the earliest part of the
church, as was assumed, but probably stands on the site of an
apse which belonged to Ethelred's building (p. 79).
7. The worn condition of the choir capitals can only be

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CHRIST CHURCH FROM THE CANON'S GARDEN, 1857.
accounted for by the state of disrepair into which the church
had fallen by the middle of the twelfth century (p. 74).
The reason is not far to seek for the unusual magnificence
of Ethelred's plans. His brother-in-law was Richard II. ,
Duke of Normandy, whose fame as an art-patron and church-
builder was spread so far that, according fo the Chronicles of
THE HISTORY OF THE BUILDING. 1 3
Fontenelle, " bishops and clergy, abbots and monks," travelled
from all parts, from Greece and Armenia, to visit him, and
William of Jumifeges speaks of him as producing a kind of
renaissance in his country. It so happens that one bay re
mains in the abbey church of Fecamp of the original building
commenced by Duke Richard in looi, just before Ethelred
began his operations ; and the capitals in this bay are orna
mented with the same curious twining foliage that is found
in the choir at Oxford. It is more than likely, then, that
the Saxon king sought assistance from the cultured court of
Richard-le-bon ; the Queen Emma may well have been anxious
to have the church rebuilt on a scale that would accord with
the monastic buildings of her own land ; and so important was
the work considered, that King Ethelred (as we learn from his
charter) had contributions given him for carrying it on by his
whole people.
But more troubles were to follow, for Ethelred had yet to pay
the penalty for the massacre of St. Brice's Day, and his " long
reign of utter misgovernment " was interrupted in 1013, when
the heathen Viking Sweyn drove him out of his kingdom to
take refuge in Richard's court in Normandy. The exile of the
king, and the triumph of the Danes, who besieged and took
Oxford in the same year, must have interrupted the work there
for a time ; and a remarkable break of joint between the masonry
of the choir and the south transept bears silent witness to the
dislocation of the Anglo-Saxon rule (p. 61). When Sweyn died
in ror4, Ethelred returned, and for three years, with the help
of his noble son Edmund Ironside, held Canute in check. At
this time the work at St. Frideswide's was probably resumed,
the king being doubtless anxious to complete the fulfilment of
his vow at a time when he sorely needed the divine assistance ;
and a certain difference in the character of the capitals and
foliage in the transepts points to their having been built at this
time, for they bear traces of oriental influence similar to that in
the church at Bernay which Duke Richard was building in the
year when Ethelred was with him in exile, and the eastern
monks were flocking to his court in Normandy. But it
is probable that, what with the strain of the terrible war, and
the constant drain of the Danegelt, the work was never finished
according to Ethelred's complete design, for he died in 10 16,
and his son Edmund Ironside only reigned for seven months.

14 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
Nor have we any record that anything further was done under
Canute or Edward the Confessor. Though it is not at all
improbable that Canute continued the work, for we know that
he restored many monasteries which had been injured or
destroyed by his father, being very fond of the monks ; and
that the Witenagemot met several times at Oxford during his
reign. His marriage to Ethelred's widow Emma, also, placed
him in the same relationship to the Norman court as Ethelred
himself The church must have been in use during this time ;
for we read that in the reign of Edward the Confessor troubles
arose owing to the substitution of Regulars for the Secular
Canons. Under King Harold the Seculars were restored, and,
says Anthony Wood, " It was not long after this but that,
whether by the negligence of the Seculars or the continuall
disturbance of the expelled Regulars, it was almost utterly
forsaken and relinqueshed, and the more especially because of
that troublesome warre betweene King Harold and William the
Conqueror, — a few persons all that while only remaining in it."
In this ruinous state it proved a kind of white elephant that no
one cared to possess ; given first to Abingdon Abbey, and then
to Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, it was at last handed over to
Henry I., who made Guimond his chaplain Prior.
Although the whole church has been sometimes attributed
to Prior Guimond, it is probable that he was too much taken
up with restoring order to devote himself to architecture.
And, as there is no suggestion in history that Ethelred's church
was destroyed, so there is no mention of any building by
(iuimond. ^^'illiam of Malmesbury, his contemporary, praises
his piety and learning {excellentis literahtne et non aspernandcF
religionis), but is totally silent about architectural talents.
Besides, the establishment was at that time too impoverished
for anything of the kind, many of the lands and revenues
having been alienated, as we learn from the Domesday Book.
If Guimond built at all, he would have had enough to do, we
may imagine, in adapting the tumble-down monastic buildings
for their occupation by canons regular. Sir G. G. Scott attri
butes the Norman doorway into the chapter-house to him ;
and he may have begun the restoration by putting a roof on
the old church ; for the weathered condition of some of the
choir capitals bears out the historians who tell us that in the
eleventh century the place was become ruinous.

THE HISTORY OF TFIE BUILDING. 1 5
Robert of Cricklade, called Canutus, another excellent man,
Avas next prior. He ruled from ir4i to 1180. There was a
copy of one of his works, says Dr. Ingram, in the library of
Balliol College in Leland's time. In 1158 Cricklade obtained
a confirmation of the privileges of the priory from Pope Hadrian
IV. (Nicholas Brakespear, the English pope) who wore the
tiara from ir54 to ri59. It was probably at this time that the
restoration of Ethelred's church was begun, for the monks
would almost certainly not have undertaken such extensive
works until their property was secured them.
Robert of Cricklade did not build a new church, but it was
probably he who restored Ethelred's_ church on the old plan,
rebuilding those portions of the walls that required it, and
inserting most of the later Norman work, especially the clere
story and presbytery. Much of the earlier work appears to have
been imitated at this time, as is known to have been the case
elsewhere when enlarging or rebuilding a church ; and some of
the carved work was used again. Cricklade appears, from archi
tectural evidence, to have left most of the old pillars, but he
rebuilt two of those in the nave, and reduced the girth of the
rest. The restoration must have been pretty well finished by 11 80,
for in that year the relics of St. Frideswide were translated
"from an obscure to a more noted place in the church," by the
new prior Phillip, who himself wrote a book, " De MiraciiUs S.
Frideswydce.''' The " obscure " place was doubtless the southern
most of the three early Saxon apses, recently discovered out
side the east wall of the north choir aisle (see p. 37). So
important a ceremony could not have taken place till the church
was fit for the great company that assembled there ; for the
translation was regarded as an event of national interest, — King
Henry II. possibly, and the Archbishop of Canterbury cer
tainly, being present, with many other prelates and nobles.
This occasion may have also been the inauguration of Oxford
University, since seven years afterwards we come upon the first
mention of regular students.
Here is Wood's account of this the first translation : —
" After they were meet, and injoyned fasting and prayers
were past, as also those ceremonies that are used at such times
was with all decency performed, then those bishops that were
appointed, accompanied with Alexio, the pope's legat for

l6 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
Scotland, went to the place where she was buried, and opening
the sepulchre, took out with great devotion the remainder of
her body that was left after it had rested there 480 yeares, and
with all the sweet odours and spices imaginable to the great
rejoycing of the multitude then present mingled them amongst
her bones and laid them up in a rich gilt coffer made and
consecrated for that purpose, and placed it on the north side of
the quire, somewhat distant from the ground, and inclosed it
with a partition from the sight hereafter of the vulgar."
The fame of her miracles spread over all England, and
multitudes came to be healed, many of whom went away whole
and rejoicing.
But the troubles of the Priory were not yet over. During the
priorate of Phillip in ir9o, a great fire broke out in Oxford,
which destroyed a large part of the city. St. Frideswide's did
not escape, and, though the church itself does not seem to have
suffered materially, it is probable that the monastic buildings
were much injured, the chapter-house and cloisters among
them ; for the old Norman doorway has, through all the changes
of seven centuries, borne the red marks of the fire, and bears
them as unmistakably to-day.
This mishap did not mark an era in the architecture of the
church ; for nothing can with certainty be pointed to as the
work of the last decade of the twelfth century ; nor indeed do
we find that any important work was undertaken till, well into
the thirteenth century, the spire was added. The monks seem
to have patched up the ruined chapter-house as best they could,
for it was not till about the middle of the thirteenth century
that the present beautiful room was built. About this time the
second bay of what is now the Latin Chapel was also added.
It seems certain now that the Lady Chapel, though it was
undoubtedly vaulted, and its pillars cut into Early English
shafts, was not built for the first time at this period. Part of
the wall between it and the Latin Chapel remains in all its
primitive roughness, while there is no sign of a wall between it
and the north choir aisle. Its east wall is even older, for it
contains one of the eighth century arches already alluded to.
In 1289, Robert de Ewelme being prior, the relics of St.
Frideswide were again translated. "The old coffer," says the
Oseney Chronicle, "of St. Fritheswyda was translated, and
placed in a new and more precious one in the same church, and

THE HISTORY OF TIIE BUILDING. 17
near the place where the old one had stood." Its marble base
has recently been discovered, and replaced in what seems to
have been its old position. The beautiful northernmost chapel,
called the Latin Chapel, was added in the fourteenth century,
the single Early English bay being incorporated, and the north
wall of the Lady Chapel further opened out, for this purpose.
Some of the Norman windows were also altered to Decorated.
The Norman windows at the east end were replaced by a large
five-light window, which was spoilt in the seventeenth century,
and ultimately removed by Sir Gilbert Scott. Decorated
windows of three lights were also placed at the east ends of the
choir aisles, and a four-light window in the Lady Chapel.
These all went in the seventeenth century, but the beautiful
window in St. Lucy's Chapel survived. All the fourteenth
century work belongs to a rather late division of the Decorated
style. Towards the end of the fifteenth century the Perpendicular
style began to spread over the church. Besides the windows
of the nave and north transept aisles, the clerestory of the choir
was remodelled to carry the elaborate vaulting, which was pro
bably also added in this century, and not by Wolsey as has
been supposed, though the work may have been completed in
his time. The similarity of the vaulting to that of the Divinity
School in O-xford enables us to fix the date pretty accurately
at 1480.
Another characteristic feature of the church was made at
this time, to wit, the fine chantrey tomb, called the Watching
Chamber, but very probably the third and last "shrine" of the
patron saint. The cloisters were also reconstructed, and, in
order to make room for their eastern side, the western aisle of
the south transept was destroyed.
We are able to fix the date of the great north window of the
north transept, and of the commencement of vaulting in its
northern bay, because they were paid for out of a bequest of a
monk, James Zouch, who died in 1503, and is buried under
the window. One may conjecture that the whole of the church
would have been vaulted in a style similar to that of the choir,
if the dissolution of the priory had not come, and left this one
bay as a pathetic little protest against the sweeping reconstruc
tions of Cardinal Wolsey.
Indeed Wolsey, who in r524 created Christ Church as a
C

1 8 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
college, did nothing but harm to Christ Church as a church.
It used to be thought that he had thrown the vault over the
choir, and even that he had built the palpably early English
spire ! — an idea which throws a curious light upon the
architectural knowledge of our grandfathers. But, alas for
his reputation, the only work connected with the church that
can with certainty be attributed to him is the destruction of one
half of the nave. For, in order to build the great quadrangle
now known as " Tom Quad," he demolished its three western
bays, and was apparently only prevented from carting away the
whole church by his sudden fall from the royal favour in 1529.
His scheme for " Cardinal College," as Christ Church was at
first called, was one of extreme magnificence ; and he began —
much to the amusement of 0.x.ford — with the splendid kitchen,
still in daily use. Tom (^)uad gives one some idea of the
scale on which he formed his plans ; it, however, has never been
properly finished, as it is too large and too much inhabited to
be fit to receive the cloister for which it was designed. The
real cloisters are of much more modest dimensions. Wolsey
destroyed one side of them in order to build the college Hall.
In justice, however, to Wolsey it must be stated that he
commenced to build a new chapel along the north side of Tom
Quad, which, judging by the foundations that some draining
operations in the canon's gardens have recently disclosed,
would have rivalled the chapel of King's College, Cambridge, in
size, and have been about 100 feet longer than the actual length
of the cathedral. To this the Aubrey MSS. (written about
1670) refer: — "Ye foundations of that famous begun-Chapel
or Cathedral of Cardinal AVolsey which went towards the blue
Boare in Oxford and pulled down by Dean Fell about 167 r."
Aubrey also mentions that the height of the walls of this
chapel was seven feet at the time of Wolsey's disgrace. The
west end ran in a line with the front of the octagonal turrets
in St. Aldate's Street, and the walls reached neariy to Fell's
passage into Peckwater.
To the sixteenth century belong also the flat wooden roofs of
the nave and transepts, and perhaps the concealment of the
lantern story of the tower.
The Reformation, apart from the usual destruction of altars,
furniture, plate, and ornamental work generally, is chiefly
remembered in the history of the church by the demolition of

THE HISTORY OF THE BUILDIN(;. I9
St. Frideswide's shrine. Anthony a Wood says of the third
shrine that, "being adored till the dissolution of the religious
houses, it was then, 30 Henry VIII. [a.d. 1538], amongst others,
taken down, and all the offerings conveyed into the King's
Treasury." We give an account of the curious incidents con
nected with the demohtion in our description of the shrine
itself An inventory taken in the last year of Henry VIII.'s reign is
interesting for the glimpse it gives us of the rich ornaments
which even then survived, and must have made so vast a
difference in the appearance of the church. They were con
fiscated, no doubt, as being " monuments tending to idolatrie
and popish or devill's service, crosses, censars, and such lyke
fylthie stuffe," to quote the curious phrases used by Bishop
Home of the plate of Trinity College.
There were eight altars in the aisles and body of the church,
in addition to the high altar. The furniture then remaining of
the high altar and choir was catalogued (only that the spelling
was obscurer) as follows : — "Upon the high altar a here-cloth,
40s. Item, two altar-cloths, one of olde diaper, and the other of
fine linen cloth. Item, a mass-book and a desk. Item, a great
sacring bell. Item, 4 high latten candlesticks. Item, a canopy
with a pix of copper. Item, 4 desks with two cloths of old silk.
Itetii, a pair of organs, with a turned chain to the same. Item,
2 forms. Item, a canopy over the Dean's head of old silk. Item,
15 antiphoners and 9 grayells." After some more books
comes : — " Item, a foot-cloth for the high altar of old tapestry."
All the hangings of the side altars are enumerated, besides their
vestments, candlesticks, etc. Thus the south choir aisle had " 4
hangings for above and beneath the altar, whereof two of white
satin Bruges, and the other two of yellow and red," and two
altar-cloths ; St. Lucy's Chapel had " two altar-cloths of old
diaper, two hangings for the altar for above and beneath, the
one of old needle-work, and the other of buckram " ; the four
altars on the north of the choir were hung with " dornaxe,"
diaper, yellow and white baundkin.
The description of some of the fourteen copes sounds very
beautiful, for instance : — " 2 copes of red silk, woven with sun
beams of gold ; " " one cope of blue silk, woven with flower de
luce, roses, and crowns of gold, and a whole suit to the same."
There were also copes of purple and red, branched with gold,

20 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
of red and white flowers, bordered with clouds, of red and
green, of \elvet and baundkin, and chamlet ; and many suits
of vestments besides ; and tunicles, albs, and amices for the
choristers. The inventory also contains, among (jther items, heavy silver
bowls and other vessels belonging to the " house plate," and
the " church plate," which we here gi\e in the original spelling :
— " A pixe of the ymage of God, gilte, weing 33 oz. It'"- a
highe standing pixe w''' a cover gilte, weing 23 oz. dim.
It"' a crosse w* Mary and John and a fote to the same gilte,
weing 114 Oz. It'"- a ship [incense-boat] and a spone gilte,
weing 12 oz. dim. //'"¦ two bassings parcell gilte, weing 92
oz. It'"- a halliwater [holy water] bokett, and a sprinkell,
whitt syluer, weing 33 oz., 2 greatt sensors, and a litle sensor,
whit syluer, weing 1 70 oz. //'"¦ two crowetts [cruets] of whit
syluer, weing 8 oz. It"'- a little paxe gilte, weing 3 oz. ; 4
chalesses, gilte, w'^" patentts, weing 95 oz. //'"¦ 3 chalesses
w'l^ patentt, whit syluer, weing 50 oz. It'"- a litle cros, parcell
gilte, weing 51 oz. //'"• a crismatory gilte, not weighted.
It"'- 2 gospells, plated w'*^ syluer of thonesyde [the one side],
not weighted. //'"¦ two maces for the preuelege, plated w'h
syluer vppon yeron [iron], not weighted. //"' two virge
roddes, plated w"' syluer vppon yeron, not weighted ; 4 rectors
staves, the liaadds of syluer wherof two gilte, not weighted.
It'"- two stavis for the crosse, plated with syluer, not weighted."
^^'hen, in 1 546, St. Frideswide's became the cathedral church
of the four year old diocese of Oxford, the momentous change
in its character left no mark upon its architecture. The great
alterations in the fabric and fittings had either happened already
or were yet to come.
During the deanery of Brian Duppa in 1630, the unhappy
church suffered a sweeping restoration, which well-nigh destroyed
its ecclesiastical character altogether. As Dean Duppa was a
cultured man himself, and wrote a life of Michael Angelo, his
work was all the more disastrous, — a mere Philistine would have
probably been content to let well alone. To begin with, he,
" being minded to adorn it," says Wood, " did first take down
all the old stalls in the choir, and in their places put up those
that now are," those great ugly pews, that is, Avhich Dean
Liddell removed. Then, in laying down his new pavement, he
removed many of the old monuments, "having most of them "

THE HISTORY OF THE BUILDING. 2 1
continues the old antiquary, " Saxon inscriptions on them ;
which being looked upon by the dean and canons as old super
fluous stuff, and unhandsome to be mixed with their new pave
ment, they did cause them to be thrown out of the church, as
also those out of the cloister." The remaining monuments he
moved to the aisles, having, with two exceptions, " duly deprived
them of their brasses." Thus was a priceless record of the
priory's history lost to us. Most of his work has during this
century been undone ; but one memorial of him remains, a
valuable historical landmark, and full of the characteristics of
its age — the Jonah window at the west of the north aisle of the
nave. In order that the windows of the aisles might be " beautified
with glass, admirably well performed by the exquisite hand of
Abraham Ling, a Dutchman, an. 1634," Brian Duppa and his
chapter altered the whilom Perpendicular windows, sawing
away " the fine architecture or crustation of those windows,"
and changing them from three lights with tracery to two plain
lights, the author of the " Anatomy of Melancholy" being the
donor of part of the new glass. The priceless old glass, which
had been set up by ancient priors of St. Frideswide's, and con
tained pictures of the life of " The Lady," besides the arms
of many benefactors, was ruthlessly sacrificed. This act of
vandalism has led to still more unfortunate reprisals in our
own time ; for Van Ling's old glass, which had great merits,
was taken away at the last restoration, and replaced by some
entirely uninteresting modern stuff (to say the least of it), while
the tracery was remade into a respectable nineteenth century
parody of the original Perpendicular.
The amiable and terrible Duppa also ruined the Decorated
windows of three lights which terminated the aisles of the choir
by converting them into his favourite two-light windows ; and
the beautiful four-light window of the Lady Chapel was simi
larly treated. The great north transept window was likewise
impoverished in its tracery ; and at the end of the seventeenth
century the great east window was reduced from five to three
lights by the same curious and unaccountable perversion of
taste. One more memorial of Dean Duppa defaced the
cathedral down to our time. This was the strange arrangement
of stone screens by which the eastern chapels were separated
from the transepts, and the most romantic feature of the

22 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
church destroyed. They were particularly offensive, as the)-
finished in a halfcircle turned upwards, so that, with the
Norman arch above, a complete circle was formed. However,
the fine pulpit and organ-screen must be set down to the credit
of this period.
Dean Duppa's successors signalised themselves, as far as the
cathedral is concerned, only by the erection of monuments,
some gruesome, and all heavy. Their work for the college was
more considerable, and we shall enumerate it in our chapter on
the Exterior.
iV great deal of mischief was done to the painted glass during
the Civil War, many of the windows being destroyed, and not
one left quite perfect ; but otherwise the church escaped pretty
well. Indeed, in this orderly country a great deal more damage
has been done by lawful authority than by popular riots.
Up till Dean Liddell's time the cathedral was in as bad a
state as most of the other cathedrals of England. A writer in
the " Ecclesiologist " for February 1847 thus bewails its then
condition : —
" We now come to the present estate of the cathedral, which
is more deplorable than can be imagined. It is really
wonderful that the cathedral of an English diocese, and the
chapel of one of our greatest colleges, should remain in a
condition which would disgrace the meanest hainlet. In the
first place, it will hardly be credited by those whose eyes have
not witnessed the sacrilege, that a portion of the church is
actually desecrated. In so vast a college the hire of a single
room cannot be dispensed with, but the House of God must'be
defiled ; a bay of the south transept and one of the adjoining
chapels are blocked off to form a residence for the verger. On
this subject we can hardly trust ourselves to speak.
" The fittings up of the choir are of the most wretched and
irreverent description. The stalls are of seventeenth century
work, and by no means a favourable specimen : those of the
dean and canons are marked by canopies. The episcopal
throne is meanness itself, and can hardly be distinguished
without a most diligent search : on the prayer-books nearest to
it, and nowhere else, are inscribed the words ' Christ-church
Chapel,' as if to warn the Bishop off the forbidden ground.
Neariy the whole area of the choir between the stalls is filled
with benches looking west, and in which kneeling is all but

THE HISTORY OF THE BUILDING. 23
impossible. These are occupied by the overgrown mass of
undergraduates, and at the 'canons' prayers' partly by
choristers. Further, that not an inch of available space may
be lost, an arch on each side is blocked up by a gallery, which
at surplice-prayers, when the students and commoners attend, is
filled by the choir thus displaced. Finally, behind the stalls
are some darksome dens, occupied by women, which greatly
encumber the choir aisles. The screen [then blocking up the
choir] is a cumbrous piece of work contemporary with the stalls,
but of better character : it supports, of course, a vast and
unsightly organ. The miserable appearance which is thus pro
duced in this really noble chancel is almost indescribable. The
whole seems so narrowed and confined ; one feels pent in
without the least scope for one's energies. Of the service per
formed within the degraded choir we can only trust ourselves
to say that it is the most slovenly and irreverent that we have
ever witnessed in any English cathedral."
The stalls seem to have Been particularly bad. The " Gentle
man's Magazine" for 1856 says that "the choir aisles and the
chapels were also excluded from view, and almost from any
participation in the service, by the box-like framing, which rose
to the height of eleven feet from the paving." Of course, all
this had caused serious damage to the architecture : the pillars
on the north and south side of the choir were, for instance,
squared, and their bases cut away ; thus mutilated they had
been " encased with heavily moulded Italian framing inter
mixed with some remnants of Jacobean workmanship."
But since the fifties the appearance of the cathedral has been
completely changed. Dean Liddell began the restoration in
1856, when Mr. John Billing was employed to repair some
parts of the walls that had become unsafe, and to remove the
galleries and high pews. The work then done was only tem
porary ; the reseating whereby decent accommodation was pro
vided for the whole college was managed out of the old wood
work, not a plank being taken out or carried into the church ;
the organ was moved for the time into the south transept, so
that the choir could be thrown open to the nave, and other
work of a simple and necessary character carried through.
In 1870, Dean Liddell employed Sir G. Gilbert Scott to
carry on the great restoration, whereby very considerable
changes were wrought in the fabric itself

24 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
On the whole, it has been real restoration, and not destruc
tion ; here and there one might have wished that the changes
had been less sweeping, or that the renewed carved work had
been left unattempted till such time as the dignity of labour
in craftsmanship is recovered ; but it remains one of the most
judicious and successful works of restoration that this not
impeccable age has produced. The difficulties to be encoun
tered were very great, for the church had suffered unusually ; a
certain amount of rebuilding was therefore inevitable, and
besides provision had to be made for the church as a college-
chapel as well as a cathedral.
The restoration was preceded by a report on the condition
of the building, which Sir (Albert Scott drew up in 1869. The
following extract shows the " reparation " that was needed : —
"It is fortunately the case that the main walls ofthe building
do not show any symptoms of failure or of weakness. The
external stone-work is very unequal in its state of preservation,
some parts being very much decayed, while others have suffered
in a very small degree. On the whole, however, there can be
no doubt that the decay is very extensive, and even some parts
which, at first sight, seem tolerably sound, are found on
closer examination to be seriously decayed. The eastern parts
are, as a rule, better preser\-ed than those facing in other
directions, though the southern aisle of the choir is also among
the least decayed portions. The tower is generally very severely
decayed, but the spire less so, though its lights are very much
damaged. The reparation of this wide-spread decay is a work
requiring much discrimination and judgment. Every stone
which retains ancient work in an intelligible state should be
carefully preserved, and only such parts renewed as have be
come shapeless from decay, or the retention of which would
tend to future injury.
" Internally, the stone-work generally needs little more than
the careful brushing or washing off of the white-wash and the
exposure of the original surfaces. This should be effected
with extreme care and tenderness, so as not to efface in any
degree the original tool-marks or to disturb any ancient wall-
painting which may exist. The mutilations which the work
has in some places suffered would of course be repaired, as
well as any structural defects which may be brought to light."
This proves that Gilbert Scott went to work with a full

THE HISTORY OF THE BUILDING. 25
sense of his responsibility, so far as the " reparation " was
concerned. With regard to the "restoration," many compli
cated questions arose, but Scott generally threw his weight on the
conservative side, respecting all the alterations which had been
effected before " the extinction of our national architecture in
the sixteenth century " ; and, happily, respecting as well all the
good work of a later date. Thus the organ-case and pulpit
were spared. Duppa's work was mostly destroyed, his windows
being rebuilt according to their former Perpendicular and
Decorated designs, with the one interesting exception already
mentioned. To make provision for the church's collegiate use,
while rendering it at the same time suitable for diocesan purposes,
an iron screen was carried round the nave as well as the choir,
and the seats of the nave were set lengthways. This arrange
ment could not well have been bettered : the college is well
accommodated without any blocking up of the church, and the
choir is conveniently situated in the eastern bay of the nave.
The organ at the same time was moved to the west end of the
church, where a new bay was made ; and thus, while an increased
effect of length was given, a screen was provided for the college-
chapel, without hiding any of the old work in the nave, and the
choir was no longer hidden by the organ.
The great Decorated east window, which had been spoilt in
the seventeenth century, was, after much deliberation, removed ;
and, traces being found of a large circular window assumed to
be Late Norman, the east end was rebuilt in accordance with
the conjectured Norman design, — a bold venture, but a remark
ably successful one. At the same time the two Norman
windows at the sides of the presbytery were reopened.
The bay of the south transept, which had been cut off", and
used as a house for the verger, was recovered, and the present
vestry built therein, in a style, right no doubt in general plan,
but not very successful in detail.
The vaulting of the cloister was completed, and, by the
happy expedient of building a raised wooden vault in one part,
the old chapter-house door was once more fully exposed to view.
The division which had entirely spoilt the chapter-house itself
was removed; as were also the stone screens which had cut
off and defaced the beautiful cluster of north-eastern chapels.
The opening of the lantern-story added greatly to the beauty
of the interior, but it made it necessary to chime the bells

26 OXFORD C.'VTHEDRAL.
instead of ringing them ; and in r87S they were removed alto
gether, as their vibration was considered dangerous to the
tower, and an admirably contrived belfry built in 1880 over the
staircase of the Hall by Mr Bodley. This architect also con
structed the porch which opens into Tom Quad, and affords
an entrance to the cathedral at once more dignified and con
venient than before.
Since Scott's time a good many further improvements have
been effected, among which may be mentioned the reredos, the
stained glass of Sir Edward Burne Jones, the fitting up of the
Latin Chapel and recovery of the caster sepulchre therein, the
recovery also of the marble base of the second shrine of St.
Frideswide, and of the early Saxon arches hard by.
At least it cannot be true now, as it seems to have been fifty
years ago, that many persons, visiting Oxford to explore its
antiquities, " actually go away without entering the cathedral
church, or that undergraduates any longer pass an academical
career, content to be aware possibly that Christ Church has
its chapel, like other colleges."

CHAPTER II.

the exterior.

The peculiar position of Christ Church, as a cathedral which
is three parts college chapel, is apparent to the most casual
observer, who, passing by the college porter in the gateway of
Tom Tower, finds himself in a great open quadrangle with a
fine hall on one side, but no sign of a cathedral anywhere,
except a spire which seems so far off that it might very well
belong to some other college. He may well be struck by that
doubtfulness as to any means of exit, which makes most of the
colleges appear to the stranger as if they consisted of one
quadrangle only. There really seems no way of getting to the
cathedral, for the incipient cloisters of Tom Quad stretch in
unbroken array round the four points of the compass ; and no
one could be expected to guess that the two rat-holes at one
side of the eastern terrace stand for the west front of a great
church. But so it is, and on Sundays a crowd of citizens
mingle with the undergraduates in their curious open surplices,
and drift across the Quad, past Mercury fountain, leaving no
doubt in the mind of the traveller that this is a cathedral church,
and he is as free of it as anybody else. There is, indeed,
another entrance from the old cloister on the south side, which
is public, though mainly convenient to those members of " The
House " who dwell in the Old Library and Meadow Buildings ;
and a third entrance besides, which is, however, the private boon
of the Professor of Pastoral Theology.
It follows, therefore, that without describing the various
college buildings, which are rather outside our province, we
can say little about the exterior, except in matters of detail ; for
there is no close, and the cathedral is thus far from being
common property that it is hidden in a rather intricate environ-

28 O.KFORD CATHEDRAL.
ment of college buildings and private gardens. ^ But the one
feature which in part rises .above its misfortunes is the spire.
The Spire.— Among all the strange domes and steeples
whicli give to the cit)- of Oxford such a unique appearance,
this spire of the cathedral is to the architectural eye not the
least striking. A'erv humble in its bearing, it seems to put
forward no claim to' our attention, and may escape the notice
of a hurried traveller ; but it has more character and interest
than the elaborate spire of the University Church itself Its
very modesty gives it a distinction ; were it taller it would be
but one among a hundred, but as it is there is no other in
England at alllike it in the quiet dignity of its low proportions.
The first time one sees it one is most struck by its squat
appearance ; it seems almost to have been built as little more
than a convenient stone capping for the tower; and, indeed,
each time one returns to Oxford one is struck afresh by this
lowliness ; so that one fancies for a moment that it may have
subsided a little during one's absence. But it quickly resumes
its old dignit)' — the kind of dignity that one sometimes notices
in short people — and every day it seems to grow a little higher.
Homely and simjjle, as befits the crown of a foundation which
is called " The House," it wins an almost human place in the
affections of those who li\'e near it : and never was a speU so
honestly cast, never a friend that bore so well the test of
familiarity. And its low proportions are soon accounted for. It is one
of the earliest spires (perhaps the very first) ever built in
England. Thus it was an experiment in what must have
appeared at the time a very hazardous style of building; and
that which to us is low, to the men of the thirteenth century
must have seemed dangerously loft\\ It was a pioneer, and as
such needed to be sturdy. We need not then regret that it is
not like that of Salisbury ; it gives the whole cluster of buildings
a look of security, and it causes no anxiety to its guardians.
" This spire," wrote Dr. Ingram in 1837, " certainly accords
in character with some of the earliest specimens in Oxfordshire
and Northamptonshire, measuring in height about two diameters
of its base ; and it is remarkable, that tlie small turrets at the
angles of the north transept are made to terminate in pyramidal
octagons, similar to those which surmount the angles of the
tower. These are the simple prototypes of those exuberant

iH-- ii' If

^"

m

THE TOWER ANI) SPIRE, FROM THE CLOISTERS.

THE EXTERIOR. 3 I
pinnacles, niches, and tabernacles, enriched with crockets and
finials, which so profusely embellish the spires and turrets of a
later date. A singular specimen of this improved kind of
turret is seen on the north side of the cathedral; beneath
which is an elegant niche, containing a statue of St. Frideswide."
The lower story of the tower is Norman, or earlier, with later
work added. The belfry-stage and the spire are early English.
On each side of the lower story can be seen the line of the
ancient high roof, destroyed in the Perpendicular period, to
the great loss of the exterior effect, which Sir Gilbert Scott was
anxious to restore. On either side of the roof-line is a plain
window. At each angle a circular turret supports the tower,
the turret being reduced in size at the belfry-stage where the
Early English work commences, and ornamented with a tall
and graceful arcade ; an arcade being also carried all round the
walls of the belfry-stage, and its central arches pierced for
windows. Each turret finishes above the belfry-stage in a
pinnacle. " These pinnacles," says Mr. R. J. King, " are
modern ; but are faithful, or, more truly, servile imitations of
the ancient ones ; of which not only the original features, but
those resulting from the wear and tear of six centuries, have been
too exactly copied."
The spire itself is octagonal, with circular ribs at the angles :
it is of the " broche " form, that is to say, it rises from the ex
terior of the tower walls, like most others of that period. Its
«aves are supported by a corbel-table of pointed arches ; and
from its cardinal faces project the four spire lights of the same
graceful character as the arcading of the belfry-stage. When
the upper part of the spire was restored, the beautiful finial of
foliage was for some unaccountable reason not reproduced. The
old spire point was erected in one of the canon's gardens, where
it rests in peace.
The tower can best be seen from the cloister, the staircase
window in the Library in Peckwater Quad, and the canon's
garden on the north side. Of course, there are many distant
points of view ; but one from the path between the Broad Walk
and Merton College gives a better idea of the cathedral as a
whole than most.
The tower can be ascended from the gallery in the south
transept, but it should not be attempted by any but slim per
sons. The visitor makes his way along the clerestory and round

32 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
the lantern, which is the first stage of the tower. Having
avoided the iron bars which threaten him at every turn, he will
have to squeeze through an incredibly small doorway, and then
climb up a dark staircase which takes him, not into the belfry,
but into the spire. One can only peer into the lower part of the
belfry from the shuttered windows on the outside ; but as the
interior of the spire is open to it, the whole, forming one queer-
shaped room, can be seen therefrom. The bells have all
gone, as they taxed the strength of the tower, having been
originally cast for the larger tower of Oseney ^Vbbey (see p. 43) ;
they are now hung in the new bell-tower over the hall staircase.
The belfr)-stage can be considered octagonal from the interior,
four very short extra sides being formed by the angular turrets,
which are chamfered off on the inside. ^Vbove these are the
squinches which support the spire. Round the arcade whii h
contains the belfry windows runs a passage, made just like the
clerestory pas.sage of a church. The whole structure is re
markable for its careful and finished work, the very corbels just
above the floor being heavily foliated, as if they were intended
to be seen from below.
The windows of the spire are interesting for the double plane
of tracery which adds to the strength of the spire. The inner
tracery resembles that without, with the difference that it has
no transom. The transom, by the way, is a rare feature in the
Early English period.
The only exterior view of any extent is from the garden of
the Professor of Pastoral Theology on the northern side of the
cathedral. It seems unfortunate that so important a spot
should be in private hands, and the public excluded ; but still
a visitor who desires to go into the garden can obtain per
mission by applying at the professor's house in Tom Quad.
The garden is a pretty one, and the view of the homely-looking
cathedral set in this quiet old-fashioned retreat is well worth
taking the trouble to see. The Latin Chapel, which seems to
stand right on the lawn, looks like some little village church,
while the north transept seems inconceivably smaller "than from
the inside.
From between the transept and the nave, near the house that
is to say, there is an excellent view of the tower.
Two remarkable square turrets flank the transept : they re
semble those at the east end, and are nearly of the same date ;.

THE EXTERIOR. 33
they are, however, capped by pinnacles like those on the tower,
but somewhat earlier. At the angle of the transept aisle there
is a smaller turret, early Perpendicular in style, with crockets on
its spire, and in its west face a niche with a weather-worn statue
of St. Frideswide. The flowing tracery of the four beautiful
windows of the Latin Chapel is well seen from here ; and the
buttresses that support its wall should also be noticed.
The Saxon Apses. — In this garden can also be seen
the site of the Saxon apses, discovered in 1887 by Mr. Park
Harrison. The history of this discovery is an extremely
interesting one. It was known that two small rag-stone
arches existed at the east end of the Lady Chapel and

EARLY SAXON ARCHES.

north choir aisle, though blocked up and concealed by plaster
ing inside the church. Their character and rude workmanship
suggested that they formed part of the original church of the
Holy Trinity, St. Mary, and All Saints, which was built c. 727 ;
but there was some years ago a tradition among architects that
nearly all Saxon churches were built of wood, and the pre
sumption naturally was that the original church was entirely
destroyed in the fire of 1002. However, it came gradually to
be admitted, even by the late Mr. J. H. Parker, that Saxon
churches were built of stone from the earliest times ; it was
further found to be implied by the charter of Ethelred that the
old church had been of stone ; for the charter states that,
D

34

OXFORD CATHEDRAL.

when it was found necessary to dislodge the Danes by burning,
the fire was thrown upon the wooden shingles of the root.
Another document supported this theory by stating that Ethel
red " repaired and enlarged " the old building. Thus the pre
sumption lately came to be that these arches, and the wall m
which they stood, belonged to the church of 727.
In opposition to this it was suggested that they were nothing
more than barrow-holes made in the twelfth century to admit
the Norman workmen. Mr. Harrison, however, was strongly
opposed to this view, urging that no barrow-holes existed of
such narrow dimensions as these doors, or in such an incon-

-P E
PLAN OF RECENTLY EXCAVAIED SAXON ARCHES.'
venient place as the east wall of a chapel. In order to put his
conviction to the test he asked that excavations should be
made outside the east wall, to see if the doorways led into a
crypt or " porticus," since apses, used for interments, had been
found of an equally early date at Winchester and Lyminge.
This venture of faith was triumphantly rewarded by the
discovery in 1887 of the foundations of three apses, correspond
ing with these two arches, and with a third between them, -of
which traces were found shortly after. The first excavatian in
' S. Skeletons ; B Bones ; P. Drain-pipe.

THE EXTERIOR.

55

the canon's garden took the form of a trench outside the
southern arch, and led to the discovery of part of the founda
tion of an apse, which measured a quarter-circle. The rest
of this foundation had been destroyed, evidently when the
wall of the Norman presbytery was built (which, it is notable, is
quite twelve inches thicker than the wall containing the arches) ;

CONJECTURAL PLAN OF EARLY SAXON CHURCH.

but it was evident that the archway in the wall must have stood
in the centre of a perfect apse. Similar foundations were next
laid bare opposite the northern arch. Then the earth was re
moved opposite the Norman pilaster buttress, which, standing
midway between the two arches, led the investigators to suppose

36 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
that it hid a centre Saxon archway. Nothing was found at first
but a small piece of concrete walling (2 feet by i-l feet) which
it was at once seen might prove to be part of the north wall of the
chancel of the ancient church, if a centre apse could be proved
to have projected beyond the two side apses. Excavations
were therefore commenced further east, with the result that
the foundations of the central apse were discovered under a
drive in the garden. The missing portion of this apse was-
accounted for by a main drain which had been cut across
its inner side, and by a pit which had been made for the
interment of bones found elsewhere in the Close. About the
same time Mr. A. J. Evans, the Keeper of the Ashmolean
Museum, found rag-stones by the side of the Norman buttress,
which proved to be part of the central archway, a little wider
and higher than the two side ones. It now became clear that
this archway was really not a doorway at all but a small chancel-
arch, the three arches being similar to those still used in the
conservative churches of the East. It is a foot wider than the
chancel-arch of the Saxon church at Bradford, Wilts, and two feet
wider than the arch between the tower and chancel of Wotten
\Vawen church in Warwickshire, the jambs and arches of which
were also built of rag-stone. Further evidence of the antiquity
of this east wall is the fact that the sill of the south archway
was found to be 2 feet 8 inches below the level of the pavement
of the Norman church, as is shown in the elevation.
This Eastern plan of three apses was adopted about the
same early period at Melbourne and Lindisfarn ; and, as it was
not long before the death of the great Archbishop Theodore
that this arrangement came in, there is a great probability that
he introduced it from his native country of Syria, where the
churches were always constructed with three apses. The
absence of any marks of juncture upon the exterior of the walls
also inclines one to suspect that there was a passage from apse
to apse behind the wall, as there always is in Eastern churches.
The whole arrangement will be made abundantly clear from
the above conjectural ground-plan of the ancient church, c. 740.
There are indications that these three apses are not of pre
cisely the same date, for the northernmost arch is the smallest
of the three, and the apse is correspondingly smaller. It is
therefore surmised that the southernmost apse belonged to the
church of Didan, the father of St. Frideswide, and dedicated to^

TFIE EXTERIOR. 37
the Holy and Undivided Trinity, " without any more title and
addition," while the other apses were the additions of Frideswide
herself, when the church was adapted to the purposes of a con
vent, with the additional dedication to St. Mary and All Saints.
This may be the reason why the chapel in a line with the central
apse, and therefore on the site of the ancient nave, is still the
Lady Chapel.
Another important point rests upon the document which
states that, when Ethelred II. enlarged and repaired the old
building, the result was that the tomb of St. Frideswide, which
before was on the south side of the church, thereupon stood in
the middle. The tomb of St. Frideswide must therefore have
been in the southernmost of these three apses (in a " chapel,"
as Wood says, on the south side of the convent church), and
not, as some people have supposed, in the vault discovered
under the tower during Scott's restoration. A significant
corroboration of the old document is supplied by the fact that
the Norman plinth, which was carried across the other two
archways, breaks off at the arch which leads into the south
apse. It would thus seem that access was, after the Norman
restoration, still afforded into this chapel, and that St. Frides
wide's relics remained there until the Translation of ti8o,
when they were moved " from an obscure to a more noted
place in the church " on the completion of the Norman
restoration. After the investigations had been completed, the earth was
laid down again, but stones have been set in the drive to mark
the site of the old foundations. Some charcoal and reddened
stone which was found — evidently a relic of the fire of 1002 —
is now to be seen in the gallery over the vestry in the cathedral.
In addition to this, the remains of a rough pavement were ex
posed in the north apse, and some square stones in the chord
of the central apse, which seem to be part of the old altar. In
addition to the numerous scattered bones that the workmen
unearthed, two complete skeletons were found in the southern
apse, and underneath the stone slabs upon which they lay
another skeleton, that of a woman or a man of short stature,
possibly that of Didan himself, or his wife Saffrida, who are
both known to have been buried in the church.
The Cloister now forms only three sides of a square, the
western part having been destroyed by Wolsey in order to

38 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
make room for the hall staircase. Considerably inferior to
those of Magdelen and New College, it is small and unpre
tentious : its tracery, of a humdrum Perpendicular type (mostly
restored), and its vaulting, which is peculiar, point to the latter
half of the fifteenth century as the time of its erection. Of the
earlier cloister no trace remains, except the door and windows
of the chapter-house. The north walk was converted into a
muniment room, much to the defacement, one may imagine, of
this part of the college ; but it has now been restored, and a
good imitation of the fine old lierne groined roof inserted,
though funds have not been provided to finish the carving of
the bosses. Mr. R. J. King points out that the panelhng of the
sides of the windows agrees very closely, even to the character
of the cusps, with that introduced into the clerestory of the
choir. The quadrangle of the cloister was the scene of Cran-
mer's degradation. In its area are the foundations of the
lavatory, which was built about 1490.
Above the arches of the cloister runs a story with latticed
windows on the east and south side, which adds considerably
to the picturesqueness of the whole. Indeed, as one stands on
the steps leading to the hall, the ivy-grown cloister, in spite of
its modest proportions, has a beauty of its own. The latticed
windows give it an air of mystery, as if strange old rooms were
concealed by them ; and in fact on the south side there is a
curious library of time-worn theological books, which is seldom
entered, and hardly ever used. The windows on the east side
hide nothing more romantic than a small lumber-room, cut up
by the raising of the wooden roof beneath, and an under
graduate's bed-chamber.
From the same position at the west of the cloister one can
enjoy the best view of the tower and spire of the church. One
is close enough to see all the detail, and yet from this angle
nothing is lost of the general effect. On a moonlit evening the
effect is particulariy solemn and beautiful. From this point
also should be noticed the difference in the masonry of the
south transept. The lower story is entirely of rubble, while
the upper story is partly of good ashlar work.
On the south side of the cloister is the Old Library, as it is
now called, which was formerly the refectory of the monastery,
and is all that now remains of the conventual buildings. Its
large Perpendicular windows, rising like a clerestory above it,

THE EXTERIOR.

39

look on to the cloister, but they were spoilt on the inside by a
staircase, when the building was turned into undergraduates'
rooms. On the other side, facing the meadow buildings, there
is a curious little oriel window, its lights now walled up, that
once contained the pulpit whence the lessons were read during
meals. The rest of the Perpendicular windows on this side
are entirely gone, and the beauty of what was one of the best
buildings in Oxford de
stroyed. An engraving
of the Refectory in its
original state is given in
Skelton. The roof, whichformerly
hid the upper part of the
chapter-house door, has
been removed, and, by a
happy device, a wooden
roof groined in the same
way has been inserted at
a higher level, thus giving
the old doorway the bene
fit of its full proportions.
This doorway has been
attributed to Prior Gui
mond, and belongs mainly
to the later Norman
period, of which it is a
fine example. The two
inner divisions of the arch
are richly ornamented
with zigzag moulding ; the
two outer divisions rest on shafts, of which the pair on the
north have sculptured, and the pair on the south plain cushion,
capitals. On either side of the doorway is a round-headed
window of two lights, plain without, but ornamented within
with the same label as that which surrounds the outer arch of
the doorv^ay itself An ancient painting can be made out on
the north side of the northernmost of these windows ; it was
traced recently, and found to be the figure of a saint.
The Chapter-House was rebuilt in the very best Early
EngUsh period, of which it is an excellent example. It bears

DOORWAV OF CHAPTER HOUSE.

40

OXFORD CATHEDRAL.

some resemblance to the chapter-house at Chester, being
especially remarkable for the purity of its style and the excellence
of its detail. It would, indeed, be hard to find a better speci
men of a mediajval chamber.
As the whole effect of the room depends upon its proportions,
it is hardly necessary to say that the extraordinary genius for mak
ing the worst of everything, which seemed at one time to take
possession ofthe English people, inspired some one to build a
wall right across the middle. This
has, however, been removed, and the
visitor has now nothing to complain of
but a want of colour. The chapter
house has been used for divinity lec
tures since the Latin Chapel was
restored to its original purpose ; and
the lower part of the walls is now
hung with curtains, which help to de
stroy the coldness due to the destruc
tion of the old painting and furniture.
The room is an oblong, divided into
four bays, the vaulting of which springs
from clustered shafts, supported on
curiously carved corbels. Two of these
corbels are in the form of monks'
heads, very vividly conceived ; they face each other, and are
thought, from the vivacity of their expression, to be represented
as carrying on a conversation together. The perfect taste of
the rich carving on the bosses of the roof will also be noticed.
One of them represents our Lady crowned, in the act of giving
an apple to the Holy Child.
But the most striking feature of the chapter-house is its
east end. An arcade of fi^e arches fills the entire space ; of
these the three central arches are pierced for windows, deeply
recessed, and having a double set of shafts to support their
arches, the inner shafts being clustered, and ornamented with
dog-tooth moulding. Each light is crossed by a transom, with
fi later four-centred arch beneath. Foliage is introduced in the
spandrels, and every capital in the room is richly foliated, nor
could anything exceed the grace and finish of the carving.
There are two windows of similar character on the south side of
the room, and one on the north. There are also some pieces of

CORBEL IN CH.\1'TER-
HOUSE.

THE EXTERIOR.

41

remarkably fine glass in these side windows, which one should be
careful not to miss. The remains of painting on the groined
ceiling are not likely to escape notice, — the figures of St. Peter
and St. Paul can be easily distinguished.
A thirteenth century stone slab now rests in the chapter
house ; it was brought here from Rewly Abbey, where it
covered the tomb of Ela, wife of Thomas de Newburgh, Earl
of Warwick, and daughter of William Longspee. In the east
wall is preserved the
foundation stone of
Wolsey's College at
Ipswich, the inscription
on which runs, — "Anno
Christi 1^28, et regiti
Henrici octavi, regis
Angliae 20, mensis vero
Junii 75, positiim per
Johannetn epni. liden-
se/n," — John Holt being
titular Bishop of Lydda,
and probably a suffi-a-
gan of Lincoln. The
stone has no connec
tion with Christ Church,
beyond the fact that it
commemorates another
benefaction of Wolsey, and was presented to the House in 1789.
A small staircase in the south wall leads up into the charming
oak-panelled room, which is used by the chapter for meetings.
In the window of the staircase will be noticed some initial
letters and other devices in stained glass which are among the
very finest of their kind. In the upper room itself, which looks
pleasantly on to a garden, are some interesting pictures : — one
of Henry VII. ; another of the same king, younger, with his
cjueen; Henry VIII. ; Elizabeth; Mary; Samuel Fell, the father
of Bishop Fell, and Dean of Christ Church himself; Busby, the
terrible headmaster of Westminster School, also connected with
this House ; two portraits of the talented Dean Aldrich, and one
of Peter Martyr, whose wife was so strangely made to share the
grave with St. Frideswide. Peter Martyr had been himself an
Augustinian prior : he adopted strong reforming views, and

BOSS IN CHAPTER-HOUSE.

42 OXFORD C.\THEDRAL.
was made Regius Professor of Divinity here in 1549- H'j
lived near Tom Gate ; but the undergraduates broke his
windows, and he moved to the cloister, Avhere he fordfied his
garden. According to Blunt, he gave up the professorship
when the undergraduates annoyed him, but returned on being
made a canon. In this chapter-room there is a good Eliza
bethan table, a curious old iron safe, and some Chippendale
chairs. A gateway in the cloister to the north of the chapter-house

THE CHOIR, FROM 'IHE OLD CEMETERY.
leads into the slype, which occupies the position usual in
monastic buildings between the chapter-house and the transept.
In this case the slype is a plain barrel-vaulted passage that takes
up part of the transept itself, and forms the lower 'story of the
choir-vestry (as it now is) within the church. It leads 'into the
old cemetery, whence a good view is obtained of St. Lucy's
chapel, the east end, and the chapter-house. In the garden
are the tombs of Philip I'usey, son of Dr. Pusey, and^Edith
Liddell, who is commemorated in St. Catherine's window. The

THE EXTERIOR. 43
round-headed doorway, now blocked up, should also be noticed :
it may be one of the doorways of Ethelred's church, and is in
any case the only ancient one left.
The east end was restored in 1 871 by Gilbert Scott, in ac
cordance with the late Norman design, of which fragments, left
when the Decorated window was inserted, still remained in the
wall ; but how far exactly it follows the original no one appears
to know.
An elaborate wheel-window occupies the upper part of the
chancel gable ; above it is a blind arcade of transitional pointed
arches, and below are two round-headed windows. The square
turrets at the angles are ornamented with arcading in three
stories : the upper is on a level with the pointed arcading of the
main wall, and similar in style ; the middle carries on the line
of the wheel-window, and consists of two round arches on each
turret ; the lower, on a level with the two round-headed windows,
is made up of three round arches, which, by intersecting, form
four pointed arches. The whole, in spite of its being (with the
exception of the turrets) a restoration, gives one a good idea of
transitional work on a large scale. In plan it is still Roman
esque, in detail it is Early Gothic.
The Bell Tower, which stands above the hall-staircase, is
really only a stone case built by Mr. Bodley to hide the wooden
structure which actually contains the bells. The tower, as it
now stands, is incomplete, Mr. Bodley having intended a
lofty and intricate wooden superstructure to rest upon it. The
authorities, however, were afraid of its dwarfing the spire and Tom
Tower, and consequently left the structure in its present state,
much against the opinion, as we understand, of the architect,
whose completed design can be seen in the common-room, and
is so magnificently picturesque, that one cannot help hoping that
the authorities will see their way to erecting it. After all, if
every one in the past had been afraid of overtopping the
cathedral, Oxford would never have become the " Sweet city of
her dreaming spires " that we know. The cathedral can hold
its own, and so can Tom Tower ; for neither makes any pre
tensions to loftiness. The original hall-tower seems to have
stood on the same spot before the space was cleared for the
erection of Dean Fell's staircase.
The bells themselves are, with Great Tom, the only relics
left of the glorious Abbey of Oseney. They were considered

44

OXFORD CATHEDRAL.

the finest in England, and were after their removal to the
cathedral made famous again as " The merry Christ Church
bells " of Dean Aldrich's catch. Their names are contained in
the following line, which professes to be a hexameter —
Hautderc, Douce, Clement, Austin, Marie, Gabriel ct John.

TOM TOWER.

Tom Tower, over the entrance to Tom Quad from St.
Aldate's, is one of the characteristic features of the cit}'. The
lower story was built by Wolsey, but the cupola which gives it
so uncommon an appearance was added by .Sir Christopher
Wren in 1682. On the side facing St. Aldate's is a statue of
the great Cardinal, in a very dramatic attitude, and on the
quadrangle face a statue of Queen Anne, placed there by her
minister Harley, with this inscription, — pinnae Priiicipi Optinme
Secretarius ipsius principalis Robertus Harlcv hoc In sede posiiit

THE WESTERN ENTRANCE AND BELL TOWER, FROM TOM QUAD.

THE EXTERIOR. 47
ijuod illam colerct et Jianc amaret. The vault of the archway
under Tom Tower is decorated Avith the arms of those who
helped towards the completion of the quadrangle. " Tom," the
great bell which gives its name to the quadrangle, and its
orders to the whole University, came, with the cathedral bells,
from Oseney Abbey ; and twenty shillings were paid in 1545
for the conveyance of Tom and his satellites from the Abbey
to Christ Church. It weighed 17,000 pounds, and bore the
inscription, — In Thomae laude resono Bim Bom sine fraude ; but
it was recast in t68o, and its present inscription is Magnus
Thomas Cliisius Oxoniensis renatus Apr. 8, 1680. It will have
to be recast again some day, for it is sadly out of tune ; its
note ought to be B flat, but is not, and the bell itself is
¦cracked. Perhaps the other college buildings are sufficiently connected
with the history of the cathedral to allow of our mentioning
them. For Wolsey built the kitchen, which is a remarkably
fine specimen of the peculiar architecture necessitated for such
a building, and also the magnificent hall, the finest perhaps in
England, and interesting to us also as containing the portraits
of many of the men referred to in this book. Wolsey also
built three sides of Tom Quad. Though the bases of the
buttresses for its cloister invite the enterprising builder, the
Quad is probably best left as it is ; for a projecting cloister is
not anything the architectural success that a cloister is which
forms the ground story of a building continued over it, and the
Quad is besides so large as to be unmanageable in the matter
of cloisters. The fountain in the middle is called "Mercury,"
because Dr. Anthony Radcliffe set up a statue there of the
nimble god. Frank Buckland, by the way, about five years
before his death, put into Mercury several golden carp ; there
was also added an Aurea Tinea from Austria, a superb creature,
popularly called " The Dean." The surface of the Quad was in
1665 lowered three feet, so as to give a greater appearance of
height to the surrounding buildings. Bishop John Fell finished
the quadrangle, and his father, Dean Samuel Fell, built the
vaulted staircase of the Hall ( 1 640), which is one of the instances
of the curious survival of Gothic in Oxford, that home of " lost
causes," which need never have been lost, and of " impossible
ideals," which ought to be made possible. Late as it is, and
open to the structural criticism of all Perpendicular work.

48 OXFORD CATFIEDRAL.
it is most deservedly admired. The staircase itself must not
be laid to Fell's charge ; it is the work of the James Wyatt.
Dean Aldrich built Peckwater Quad, which is a decent work
of its kind, too grim and gloomy to be as attractive as All
Saints Church, and dreadfully disfigured by the strange ten
dency to moulder away that besets Headington stone, from
which O.xford as a whole has suffered so much.
The Library in Peckwater Quad was begun in r7i6 (designed
by Dr. G. Clerke), and finished in 1761, the original intention
having been to leave an open piazza beneath it ; but its columns
were connected, in the end, by a wall. It contains a few first-
rate pictures (including an exquisite Francesca) among a great
many palpable shams, and a collection of drawings mainly b)'
fifteenth and sixteenth century artists, which are said to have
given Ruskin his first enthusiasm for Italian art, when he was
an undergraduate at the House. Wyatt was the architect of
Canterbury Gate.
Dean Liddell built the Meadow Buildings nearly thirty years
ago ; the architect was Mr. T. Deane. They are as bad as the
other college buildings in Oxford of the same period.

CHAPTER III.

THE INTERIOR.

The cathedral is best entered through the handsome porch
in Tom Quad which was cut by Mr. Bodley through one of
the canonical houses; in order, perhaps, to announce that the
old regime had passed away, and the time at last arrived when
" the teachers of theology no longer dwell on the ruins of the
church they should protect," as a writer fifty years back had
half-despairingly foretold. This porch is a happy compromise
between the old heart-breaking descent into a half ruined nave,
and the rather impossible scheme of continuing the church into
the middle of the Quad. The former spoilt the cathedral, the
latter would have spoilt the college ; but by the present arrange
ment the church serves very creditably for both its purposes,
and one may well spend a day there without remembering
what Wolsey did to the nave.
On entering the cathedral itself the visitor finds himself in a
kind of narthex which is in fact the ante-chapel of a college
chapel. Before him is the organ-screen, the entrance under
which is veiled by a curtain at service time ; on either side he
has a glimpse of the aisles. The effect is peculiar, but not
unpleasant, although the ante-chapel is a bare bit of modern
restoration, wisely left unsculptured, and unrelieved except for
some monuments, of which one may gratefully say that they
are best where they are. But passing under the screen, all is
changed. We find ourselves in one of the most charming and
distinctive interiors of a country of interesting churches. The
curious and happy arrangement of the great pillars and
triforium, the variety and originality of the sculptured capitals,
the rich pendent vaulting of the choir, and the touch of
mystery in the further chapels, all combine to give to this
E

50 OXFORD C.A.THEDRAL.
creation of a long and chequered history an attraction peculiarly
its own.
Yet the same bluntness of aspect which impresses one in the
spire is the leading characteristic of the interior also. Only in
this case the effect is not part of the original plan, but is due
to the destruction by Wolsey of the three Western bays.
Things must have seemed far worse before the new western
bay added twenty feet to the nave, and brought the church
right back to the cloister around Tom Quad, for though it only
serves as an ante-chapel, it yet helps considerably to break the
enclosed appearance, which must have been almost oppressive
before. As it is, Christ Church is the smallest of our cathedrals ; for
even with the new ante-chapel it measures but 175 feet in
length. Instead of being of the usual cruciform plan, it is
now almost square, — in fact, the length from the reredos to the
organ-screen is r32 feet, while the breadth across from the
Latin Chapel to St. Lucy's Chapel is 108 feet. The church is
made up of the shortened nave with its two aisles, and ante-
chapel, the central tower, the north transept with its one
aisle, the south transept, and the eastern half of the church,
which itself contains no less than six divisions, — the choir, with
its two aisles, the Lady Chapel on the north, and the Latin
Chapel (or St. Catherine's) on the north again of that, while
on the south is the small chapel of St. Lucy.
If the unusual appearance of the cathedral is partly due to
W^olsey's destruction, it is partly due also to its being used as a
college chapel, and partly to the fact that in general plan, and
to some extent in detail, it is Ethelred's design, commenced
seventy years before the great developments of Norman archi
tecture began. Ethelred himself probably only completed the
choir and adjacent parts, and even there the work was very
much altered in late Norman times ; while the nave itself
seems to be principally Norman (though built in imitation
of Ethelred's work), with the exception of the pillars, which
must be earlier than the Norman restoration, and may be of
Saxon date, though we have no documentary clue as to what
happened from the reign of Canute to that of Henry I., e.xcept
that the church was, during the latter part of the time, in a very
bad way.
The foUowing are Mr. Park Harrison's conclusions as to the

THE INTERIOR. 5 I
general plan of the church, which he set before the British
Archseological Association in 1892: — "The design of the
building is clearly derived from the original pre-Norman
church. The uniformity of plan throughout affords a remark
able instance of the way in which early church-builders imitated
previous work, the process being, at Oxford, slow enough to
make stages in the construction, that must have occupied
instead of thirty years, as stated in the explanatory cards
suspended in the cathedral, and quoted in some of the guide
books, at least 160. There were three changes in the profiles of
the bases, and three in the abaci, all before the years 11 70 or
II 80."
Thus the cathedral is a most important evidence of the
high state of civilisation at which our Anglo-Saxon fore
fathers gradually arrived after the landing of St. Augustine.
It is some satisfaction to our national pride to discover
that they did not owe their culture to the Norman settle
ment, nor worship in wooden sheds before the arrival of
the Conqueror, as was till recently supposed ; but that the
people who produced poets like Casdmon, artists like Dunstan,
and scholars like Alfred and Bede, were also able to build
churches worthy of such great names. More will be said about
their workmanship when we come to discuss the capitals in the
choir, but here we may refer the reader to a drawing in Mr.
Harrison's pamphlet, " The Pre-Norman Date," of the apse of a
church from the " Dunstan " MS., which shows at what elaborate
architecture the Anglo-Saxons had arrived by the year 1000, and
illustrates the curious foliage found on the cathedral capitals.
The Nave was probably completed during the priorate of
Robert of Cricklade (c. 1 1 60-1 180), the restoration being begun
shortly after 1158, when the Pope's charter was secured. The
clerestory, which is transitional, may therefore have been still
unfinished at the time of his death.
The remarkable arrangement of the triforium is characteristic
of all the four main divisions of the church. From the large
pillars spring circular arches worked with heavy round mould
ings. Underneath these arches, not above them, is the triforium
which is a blind arcade of two arches set in the tympanum
beneath the main arch. The reason why there is this space
under the main arch is because corbels in the form of half
capitals are set on the further side of the great pillars, a good

CHRISTCHURCH. OXFORD.
PLAN.

•^ '

THE INTERIOR. 53
way below the true capitals, to support the vaulting of the aisles.
In this way, says Scott, " the pillars and arches have been
divided, as it were, into two halves in their thickness, the half
facing the aisle retaining its natural height and proportions, but
that facing the central space being so raised as to embrace the
triforium stage, the openings of which appear between the two
ranges of arches ; the clerestory ranging above." Of course, by
this arrangement, the pillars avoid the low and stumpy pro
portions they would otherwise have, and the general effect of
height in the nave (which is actually only 41 feet 6 inches) is
considerably increased ; for, were the triforium in the usual
place above the main arches, the main pillars would not come
any higher than the lower half-capitals. The arrangement is
very unusual in England ; though it is found in Italian
(xothic, and even in Renaissance work in that country,
as in St. Petronio, Bologna. It occurs in the transept of
Romsey Abbey, in the choir at Jedburgh, in Dunstable Priory,
and in Tewkesbury Abbey. That it existed in Saxon times
is proved by a drawing in Cfedmon's Paraphrase (c. 1000) in
the Bodleian {cf. "The Pre-Norman Date"). Dr. Ingram,
who wrote in 1S30, thought that this arrangement was made in
order to raise the height of the building in the twelfth century,
the triforium being the clerestory of the old Saxon church
peeping out under the later work. And though his zeal was
not according to knowledge (he thought the chapter-house
doorway was Saxon), yet there is a possibility that this theory
of his may have some truth in it.
Until lately, the church was thought to belong altogether
to Prior Guimond's time. Sir Gilbert Scott fixed the date
of the rather heavily carved capital over Bishop Berkeley's
monument at 1170-80, owing to its close resemblance to
certain capitals at Canterbury Cathedral of this period. The
others seem to be of earlier date than this, and possibly
of Ethelred's time. Strange as they are, however, they do not
suggest a Saxon origin so strongly as do those of the choir.
They are unique in design, and have neither the massiveness
of Norman, nor the crisp severity of Early English work. The
hght, graceful, and rather fantastic foliage of the three eastern
capitals on the south side — almost like iron-work — wifl be
noticed. The third capital on the north side bears some
resemblance to two of those in the choir.

54

CiXFORD C.\THEDRAL.

..1^

EARLY ENC.LISH MOULDING.

The pillars of the nave also present problems of some
difficulty. The)' are alternately circular and octagonal, and
the masonry of six of them points with something like certainty
to a date considerably earlier than the twelfth century restora
tion. In the four western pillars the stones are a good deal
smaller than those in the two octagonal ones of the next bay :
this makes it highly probable that they are of earlier date than
the octagonal pillars, which are certainly Norman of the period
ofthe restoration c. 1160. Mr. Har
rison believes there is also consider
able evidence that the two cylindrical
pillars were reduced in girth in order
to make them of the same size as the
'ilMi "^^ "'N, octagonal pillars then introduced ; for
^^^ N\ \v the lower halfcapitals project nine
^Nk V inches on either side beyond the
^ pillars, while in those of the choir,
which are unreduced, their projection
is only five. There is also reason
to suppose that the other pair of octagonal pillars, those by the
organ-screen, were cut out of older ones at the same time.
The clerestory windows are transitional, as is proved among
other things by their being pointed, for purely sesthetic reasons,
and not (as in the case of the north and south tower-arches)
from any structural necessity. Each window has a smaller
blind arch on either side of it, making a triple opening within
to a single window in the wall ; and the shafts of this
triple opening are made to carry small attached shafts which
bear the arches above. The capitals of the larger and lower
shafts spread in an unusual manner, having to support a mass
of walling.
The Roof is a fine example of sixteenth century wood-work,
and doubtless replaced a simpler Norman roof of wood ; but the
brackets which support it were added later to the Norman
shafts, in order to carry a Perpendicular vault of stone, which
was never carried out. It is divided into small panels, whose
ornament, though rich, is rather mechanical.
The nave and choir are used as the College Chapel of Christ
Church. In the returned stalls by the organ-screen sit the two
censors ; most of the undergraduates occupy the benches of the
nave (which are modern wood-work carved by Chapman after

NAVE AND CHOI , ING EAST {from a photograph by
Carl Norman &= Co.).

THE INTERIOR. 57
Sir G. G. Scott's designs), as far as the raised seats where the
choir sits ; the central benches under the tower are reserved
for the freshmen ; while the dean, canons, students {i.e.,
fellows), and graduates fill the stalls of the choir, the other
seats of the choir being occupied by the Scholars. The public
use the aisles, transepts, and chapels on Sundays, but on week
days are free of the nave for the two special cathedral services.
Monuments of the Nave. — Berkeley's monument is
attached to one of the north pillars, which it entirely defaces.
George Berkeley was Bishop of Cloyne, and died in 1753,
during a visit to Oxford ; he was as good as he was famous, and
his monument is as large as it is ugly. The epitaph, though
not altogether untrue, and doubtless well meant, has the unfor
tunate effect of prepossessing the reader against its subject, —
Si Christianus fueris, si amans patriae, utroque nomine gloriari
poles Berkleium vixisse. Beneath is inscribed the quotation
from Pope, — " To Berkeley eveiy virtue under heaven."
On the pier by the pulpit the talented Dean Aldrich is com
memorated by a bust, which shows him to have had a very
good face, and bears by way of further adornment a winged skull
that is quite unnecessarily hideous, .\ldrieh has been already
referred to ; he was the architect of Peckwater and All Saints,
the composer of many well-known anthems and services, the
author of the once standard " Oxford Logic," and " a most
universal scholar." He succeeded Massey, the Roman Catholic
dean, who had to " make off and retire across the seas " in 1689.
Browne Willis says of Aldrich that " as he spent his Days in
Celibacy, so he appropriated his Income to Hospitality and
Generosity, and, like Bishop Fell, always encouraged learning ;
as a celebrated Author tells us, ' to the utmost of his Power,
being one of the greatest then in England, if we consider him
as a Christian, or a Gentleman,' to which give me leave to add
that he always had the Interest of his College at heart ; of
which I may experimentally say, he was an excellent Governor."
He was very modest, and desired to be buried without any
memorial, a wish which was at first complied with by his
" thrifty nephew." Sunk into a pillar opposite is a curious
old brass, to the memory of John Walrond, student, who died
young in 1602.
A marble slab on the pavement in the midst of the nave com-

58

OXFORD CATHEDRAL.

memorates Dr. I'usey, who was canon of Christ Church, in
virtue of his Hebrew Professorship, and lies buried here. The
Latin inscription mentions also his wife and daughter, and of
him it speaks as " Professor of the Hebrew tongue, and Canon
of this church (aedis), who in the peace and pity of Jesus fell
asleep, September i6th, 1882, being 82 ye.ars and 24 days
old." The Organ stands on a fine Jacobean screen, dating from

Duppa's time (c. 1635) :

It was removed here from before the
choir during the restoration. The
outer casing belonged to a former
organ built by Father Schmidt in 1680.
The present instrument was built by
Willis ^V' Son in 1884. It has four
manuals and pedals, thirty-nine speak
ing stops, nine couplers, ten pneumatic
pistons, six composition pedals, and
other accessory movements. It has a
very fine tone, and is well placed for
sound. Its external appearance is
much improved by the pretty green
applique curtain which now hangs in
front of the organist's seat.
The Pulpit. — Christ Church is
fortunate in possessing an old oak
pulpit, escaping thus the garish ven
tures in marble which have been dis
astrous to so many other cathedrals.
This pulpit is Jacobean (c. 1635). It
is a remarkable piece of workmanship, elaborately carved, and
well designed ; the grotesques on the panels should be especially
noticed, as well as the liglit elevated canopy, surmounted by a
pelican, which was at one time transferred to the episcopal
throne, and has recently been restored to its original use.
The Tower is not square, the nave and choir sides being
wider than those of the transepts. For this practical reason
(and not because of the transitional character of the work,
though transitional it is) the north and south arches are pointed,
while the east and west are round-headed. The tower arches
seem originally to have sprung from the imposts ornamented
with trefoil leaves which can still be seen, though they were cut

CHOIR AND NAVE, LOOKING WEST.

THE INTERIOR. 6 I
through when the present capitals were introduced at the time
of the Norman restoration. The Norman shafts and capitals
were attached to the older and ruder piers. Round these piers
are the shafts of very firm and graceful proportions, their
capitals decorated with foliage. The lower parts of the vaulting
shafts of the great piers are cut off and finished with a narrow
beading, which shows that the ritual choir originally stood here,
and did not correspond with the structural choir.
The lantern, which had been blocked up, was reopened at the
time of the recent improvements, and adds considerably to the
appearance of the church. Its first stage is ornamented with
an arcade of stout Norman shafts, whose capitals are carved
with a breadth and simplicity well suited to the height at which
they stand ; the arcade is bounded above and below by a heavy
round string course. The upper stage has another arcade,
of four large round arches on each side, the corner ones
pierced as windows. Above is an early sixteenth century roof :
it is divided into square panels, in most of which marks of the
old ornaments (in the form of Maltese crosses like those of the
nave roof) can be clearly discerned. At the springing of the
main arches Fifteenth Century corbels have been inserted. In
the south-east pier of the tower occurs the break in the
masonry which marks, it is thought, the cessation of the
building operations when Ethelred was driven out of England
by Sweyn. It can be clearly seen from the south choir aisle.
The tooling of the masonry half way up the tower has also
been found to be marked with the cross lines, which dis
tinguish Saxon from Norman mason's work.
During Mr. Billing's restoration in 1856 a remarkable crypt
was opened three feet beneath the paving of the choir between
the north and south piers of the tower. This crypt, which was
covered up again after investigation, was 7 feet long by 5 feet
6 inches, and just high enough for a man to stand upright ; its
walls were of stone, and contained aumbries or lockers at each
end. There were also slight remains of indented crosses on the
western side, and at the east enough was missing to suggest a
doorway. The entrance to this chamber may have been
through a trap-door, or by a passage leading into the east side.
It was clearly not intended for sepulture, as its length was from
north to south ; and the absence of passages giving convenient
access on each side seems to prove that it was not intended

62 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
for the exhibition of relics. The most likely theory is that it was
used as a secret chamber to contain the University chest, which
was called the Frideswide chest, because it Avas kept in a secure
place in this church, its keys being in the hands of certain
canons by appointment of the chancellor. If this seems a very
public place for a secret chamber, it must be remembered that
originally il was immediately under the rood-loft, and therefore
admitted of a trap-door being concealed ; though the resting-
place of the chest may not have been kept very secret for all
we know. This crypt was probably made in Norman times,
and is unique of its kind.
The Aisles ofthe Nave and Transepts show the progress
which was made at the end of the twelfth century in vaulting :
^fr. Ruskin says of the work here that it is " bad and rude
enough, but the best we could do with our own wits, and no
French help." Vaulting originally began with square ribs, after
wards the ribs became plain half-rounds, and later were moulded.
Here we find good specimens of the development of all three
stages. In the choir aisles the vaulting arches are partly square
and the ribs on the groins halfround, of a heavy character.
These ribs were inserted at a later period, as is sufficiently clear
from the awkward way they are fitted to corbels at the side
of the capitals which carry the vault. In the west aisle of the
north transept the vaulting is the same, but lighter in character ;
and there are no corbels, though the fitting is still awkward.
In the north aisle of the nave the vaulting is pointed but still
with plain halfround ribs, a little lighter than in the transept-
aisles. But in the south aisle of the nave, as the builders got
on with their work to the westward, their style underwent a
further development, and a pear-shaped moulding with a fillet
along the edge proclaims that the Eariy English period had begun.
A\'ith the completion of this aisle they seemed to have become
bolder ; for the vaulting shafts in the transepts with their un
mistakable Norman capitals, and the solitary ribbed stones
resting on those of the south transept, prove that they intended
to go beyond the practice of Norman architects and throw a
vault across the wider span of the transepts themselves.
Perhaps they immediately afterwards discovered that the task
was beyond them : at all events the vaulting shafts were left as
they are, and the transepts have never been vaulted.
The windows of the nave and transept aisles are uniformly

THE INTERIOR. 63
uninteresting. They were originally plain Norman lights,
then Perpendicular, then seventeenth century Clothic, and
finally " restored " by Scott, in imitation of the Perpendicular
work. The windows of Dean Duppa, which they replaced,
were certainly not beautiful in their tracery, as may be seen by
that at the west end of the north nave aisle, which only the de
lightful Dutch glass of Van Ling redeems, — but they at least
had some character. In the south nave aisle an attempt has
been made to hark further back by the introduction of a
window in Norman style ; but fortunately this has not been
persevered with. Only one of the original Romanesque windows
remains, by which to judge the effect contemplated by the first
architects ; it is that containing Bishop King's portrait.
Glass in the Aisles. — The glass in the restored Perpen
dicular windows of the nave aisles (by Clayton and Bell) is
very unsatisfactory both in colour and design. Of that in the
Tound-headed window of the south aisle of the nave by an Irish
artist (O'Connor) one can only say that it was better conceived
than executed. Over the door that leads into the cloister is a
half-window by Mr. Wailes.
The " Faith, Hope, and Charity " window next to this
(namely, at the west end of the aisle) was Sir Edward Burne
Jones' second essay here in this craft. If his first, that in St.
Catherine's, the Latin Chapel, was a wonderful success, this one
is a not unpleasant failure, but a failure none the less. None
of the figures are very graceful ; the firing seems to have gone
wrong in the most important places, especially in the faces,
which are coarse and expressionless, though one cannot help
admiring the fortitude of Charity in carrying the bulky infant
who presents his vast back to the spectator. The colour is
strong, and free from the miserable timidity of the work in
the Perpendicular windows, — for the whole thing is of course a
work of art (and not of commerce), though an unsuccessful one,
— still it fails to harmonise. The window as a whole, however,
is saved by the beautiful foliage which forms the background,
and by the four slender figures in the tracery.
Others have admired it more. Here, for instance, is an
appreciative description from the columns of " The Builder " for
April 1888 : — "The figure of Hope has a greyish-blue drapery,
varied in tint, and diapered with the pattern of a flower in
stain. The scarf floating round the figure is sky-blue in tone.

64 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
and lighter than the dress. The figure of Charity has a ruby
over-mantle, with a white dress underneath ; while the figure
of Faith has a blue dress beautifully and richly diapered, the
upper portion with a sumptuous Venetian design familiar on
the brocades of the sixteenth century, and the lower portion
with a sprig of foliage. The tone of the backgrounds is a rich,
warm green, and is very carefully painted with foliage, and the
contrast yielded by the pale blue of the drapery, and the rich,
warm green of the background in the two outside windows, is
most harmonious and striking. The detail in this window is
very elaborate, and every part of it bears traces of care and
thought. "
In a corner of this window is an inscription, — In Menioriam
Edwardi Denison hu/usce Aedis commensalis Cura amicortim,
A.D. 1870. Edward Denison, nephew of the Speaker, and son
of the Bishop of Salisbury, was the pioneer of those who have
since founded the numerous settlements in the neglected parts of
London. At a period of acute distress he convinced himself
that no good could be done by sending money from the West
End unless educated people could be found who would give up
their lives to making friends with the poor. Accordingly he
took the novel step of going to live in the East End ; there he
founded a club, and lived apart from the brilliant society to
which he was accustomed. Besides teaching and organising,
he studied carefuUy the social conditions of his neighbours, and
many of the methods now universally practised date from his
experience. Shortly after he had been elected M.P. for Newark
he died, at the early age of twenty-nine, and there was " hardly
a home within his district that had not some memory left of
the love and tenderness of his personal charity."
In the west end of the north aisle of the nave is the last
remaining relic of the glass which the Dutchman Van Ling
painted in Dean Duppa's time. The rest, which filled the aisle,
was removed about twenty-five years since, on the ground that
it made the church too dark. There are various opinions about
this window, which represents Jonah sitting under his gourd,
and the town of Nineveh in the distance. We must confess to
a great admiration for it ; the foliage is fine and rich, and if it
is a little over-strong in its green, that only makes it more
characteristic of its age. And, however that may be, there cannot
be two opinions as to beauty of the town in the background

THE INTERIOR. 65
which reminds one irresistibly of Diirer ; and, with its rich
brown houses, bluish roofs, touches of greenery, and fair
purple hills beyond, make the right-hand light of the window a
picture of which one never wearies. The whole is leaded in
rectangular panes, like Bishop King's window.
Monuments of the Nave Aisles. — In the south aisle
there are two monuments of interest; that of Corbet (1688) for
the characteristic decoration of cupids and wreath work ; that
of Pococke for further reasons. Edward Pococke (1604-1691),
whose bust was moved here from the north aisle by Scott, is
represented with pointed beard and wearing the old tufted
college cap. He was the great Arabic scholar of his day ; the
first text in Hebrew characters printed at Oxford was published
by him, and his 420 oriental MSS. were bought by the
University. Yet he was condemned, under the Common
wealth, by the Berkshire " Committee of Scandalous Ministers,"
on the ground of "insufficiency," his real offence being that he
had used part of the Prayer Book in the public service. There
are two portraits of him in the Bodleian, representing him with
light hair and dark eyes ; and a fig-tree which he planted still
flourishes on the south side of the Professor of Hebrew's house.
A striking biography of him has come down to us in a sentence
— " His life appeared to me one constant calm."
The North Transept has the unnoticeable peculiarity,
that it turns slightly westward. This is because the choir (into
which it is built at right angles) turns a little to the north,
to symbolise, it is said, the droop of our Lord's head upon the
cross. The western aisle of this transept still remains ; the
eastern aisle has been lost in the chapels, of which it now
forms the respective western bays.
The north bay of this transept bears the marks in its clerestory
of late Perpendicular restoration ; the carved heads on the
string-course above the arch afford an interesting comparison
with the Norman heads above the capitals, and are vigorous
sketches of contemporary life. The capitals in this transept
and those in the north aisle of the nave are strong and varied.
The wooden roof of both the transepts was made in the early
sixteenth century, earlier than that of the nave.
The tracery of the great north window had been altered and
made ugly by the seventeenth century restorers ; it was accord
ingly restored back to its original design by Sir Gilbert Scott.
F

66

OXFORD CATHEDRAL.

Under this north window is a panelled tomb belonging to
Henry VII. 's time. It is attributed to James Zouch, a monk
of the priory, who died in 1503. In his will, dated October
16, 1503, and preserved in the Prerogative Office in London,
he directs that he shall be interred under the window of the
north transept, and a tomb be erected for him in the midst of the
same window. He also bequeathed ^30 to the convent for
vaulting that part of the
church, in consideration of
his being there buried.
On each of the shields
in the quatrefoil compart
ments of the tomb is an
j^'* ! '^^^BMF'^/^^SS^'WIfi '"khorn and pen-case, in-
S^^-.-.^ i iflH^y^S^^^H dicating, it is said, that
^ -«•« .-. ^,.. S^RS^flHMHi^B the monk was a notary
or scribe by profession,
though Dr. Ingram speaks
of " the pen-case and ink-
horn of Zouch " as an
heraldic blazonry.
In the north transept
aisle there are curious
thin, wavy scrolls of
brasses, commemorating
" Leonardus Hutton," and
hard by are two pleasant
kneeling figures also in
brasses. Some of the monu
ments that disfigured the
church ha\e fortunately been removed ; of these is Chantrey's
great sitting figure of Cyril Jackson, which took up most of the
north transept, but is now removed to the Library. Of these
sequestrated monuments some have been placed in the ante-
chapel ; among them are the large and simple memorial of
Bishop Fell, and those of Dean Gaisford (d. 1855) and Bishop
Lloyd (d. 1829).
One cannot but admire the spirit which has caused so many
brasses to be set up in recent years to deceased members of
the Blouse; and yet it has become an abuse which calls for

FROM THE NORTH TRANSETT.

THE INTERIOR. 67
serious protest. It is now so much a precedent that every
member of the foundation should have a brass set up to his
m.emory at his death, that the tribute is become mechanical,
and indeed it would now be a marked slight if any don should
die without a memorial brass being erected. At this rate the
cathedral will in a few generations be entirely defaced unless
the tradition be interrupted. As it is, the brasses are all the
reverse of beautiful ; and, after a period of lacquered obtrusive-
ness, they become leprous, and afterwards black. A modern
brass, indeed, defaces a wall as much as a modern tablet.
Surely some more beautiful form of memorial could be devised.
The cathedral is in need of many things, of colour, and hangings,
and furniture. Could not those tributes of respect take in the
future this more honourable form ? Then, when an inscription
is necessary, the enamelled tablet, with its endless possibilities
of jewel-like colour, might be used in place of brass or marble.
Something has already been done by the erection of the beau
tiful eastern windows, and the cathedral has been fortunate in
escaping an eruption of episcopal tombs ; but latterly there has
been an epidemic of brasses, which makes one fear that the
artist's work is being forgotten in the temptation to set off an
epitaph with a display of Latinity.
Glass in the Transepts. — The great window of the north
transept is by Clayton and Bell Mr. Tyrwhitt says of it that it
"glows with all the fires which a fervid fancy can bestow upon
the inwards of the Dragon."
The glaring glass in the clerestory of the north and south
transepts is by Henri and Alfred Gerente (1854), artists famous
in their day. It was originally in the great east window (now
destroyed), and must have thrown the members of the House
into a stupor when in that prominent position. As it is, the
clerestory windows are a very inappropriate place for colour,
violent enough to " scare a chameleon " ; though the glass was
evidently put there as the least conspicuous position. It might
now be taken out and buried, on the chance that time and the
earth may have a mellowing effect.
The half-window above the vestry in the south transept is
filled with glass, coloured to look as if it were old, by Clayton
and Bell, and given in memory of Dr. Liddon.
The South Transept was originally on the same plan as
the north, but its aisles have disappeared : that on the west to

68

OXFORD CATHEDRAL.

make room for the cloister ; while that on the east is now re
presented by the chapel of St. Lucy. Its appearance has also
been much altered by the division of its southern bay into two

SA.XON CLERESTORY WINDOW- IN SOUTH TR.ANSEPT {from a drawing
by J. Park Harrison).
Stories, which reduces its length, since the lower story is the slype
or passage that leads from the cloister to the cemetery, and is

THE INTERIOR. 69
therefore to all intents and purposes outside the church. The
upper story is reached by steps from the transept floor. The
whole of this curious structure, which has the appearance of a
small house built into the transept, is a modern restoration,
its immediate predecessor having been literafly a house where
dwelt the verger and his family. In earlier times, however,
there had been some kind of erection here, which was used as
a sacristy, and of this traces were found by Gilbert Scott which
led to the present restoration. As these traces, however, con
sisted principally of some fragments of a staircase, the present
Early English restoration is only conjectural. On the whole it
is tolerable, though the heavy and unnecessary central buttress
one may well suppose not to be part of the old design. Why
the slope of this buttress, which stands in the middle of the
transept, should be so stoutly protected against the weather, it
is hard to imagine. The carving on the tympanum over the
door that leads into the slype is stiff and repulsive. Just to
the right of this door is a holy water stoup, very simply cut
into the piUar, which proves that this entrance from the slype
was usual in old times, when the monastic buildings lay on that
side of the church ; at present, however, the door is commonly
kept locked.
The chamber above the slype, representing the old sacristy,
is now used as a vestry. It is reached from the transept, and
a staircase in it leads to the gallery above, whence in all pro
bability a door led straight into the dormitory of the monastery.
A similar arrangement to this existed at Bristol, which was also
an Augustinian house ; and there are traces of a door in the
wall of Canon Sanday's house which further substantiate the
conjecture. Some direct access to the church from the dormi
tory was a great convenience in the days when matins was said
in the middle of the night.
The gallery is now used as a kind of museum for any odd
fragments that are discovered in the precincts. Among them
is the quaintly carved base of a Norman cross, which before
the Reformation stood, together with a pulpit, at the west end
of the nave, near the place now occupied by the fountain.
The subjects represented are the Fall, Abraham's Sacrifice,
the Giving of the Law.
The open triforium directly over the Lyttleton monument in
this transept is an important relic of the second Saxon church.

JO OXFORD CATHEDR.VL.
and a good instance of the slight things which sometimes turn
the scales in antiquarian disputes. Professor Willis had in 1S40
pronounced (as against Dr. Ingram, whose pet theory it was
that the triforium was the clerestory of Ethelred's church) that
the triforium must be of Norman design, because no grooves
could be found for the insertion of glass in the shafts, as would
be the case if it were Saxon.
Mr. Harrison accordingly, in December 1S91, made a close
examination of the shaft and small arches in the open triforium
which had struck him as of Saxon character, with the result that
the grooves for glass were discovered to exist beyond a doubt,
but so neatly stopped with mortar as previously to have escaped
notice. They can be clearly discerned inside the arches, b)'
anyone with good sight, from the floor of the church. The
base of the shaft which carries these arches is equally decisive,
for it is "pudding shaped," entirely different from the other
bases, and most unmistakably Saxon : it also can be seen
from the floor, but is worth an inspection from the gallery
over the choir-vestry, whence there is also an impressive view
of the church. With this exception, the triforia and clerestories
of the transepts are similar to those of the nave, though Saxon
tooling has been found on the wall, and there is a break in some
of the masonry on the angle shaft near the vestry door, which
possesses a Saxon base. The principal arches of the clerestories
are not pointed, which proves that the transepts were rebuilt
earlier than the nave. Two corbels on the east side of the
transept mark the site of a musicians' gallery which once pro
jected beyond the triforium.
St. Lucy's Chapel in the second bay of the old south
transept aisle was used as a vestry in the days when the transept
was devoted to domestic purposes. It must have ruined the
effect of this part of the church, and formed an extremely in
convenient vestry. Now the chapel is used, not very appro
priately, as a baptistery; it contains a font, well designed and
carved, which was executed in 1882. It is Norman or earlier,
with the exception of the eastern wall, which was rebuilt in order
to hold the present beautiful window. This window is of an
uncommon type ; the three lights, less than half the height of
the tracery above them, commence considerably below the
spring of the arch. The tracery, which reminds one of that in
Dorchester .\bbey, a few miles away, is flamboyant in character.

TI-IE INTERIOR. 7 1
suggesting the form which the decadence of fiothic architecture
took in France; only in this case it is a decadence that is
vigorous as well as graceful.
The chapel recalls the time when King Charles held his
court in Christ Church, at the time of the Civil War, many
cavalier knights being buried here.
Monuments of the South Transept and Chapel. —
There are the tombs of several prominent royalists in the tran
sept as well as in St. Lucy's little chapel, most of which might
well be spared were it not for their liistoric interest. That of
Viscount Grandison, for instance, consists of an urn on a
pedestal, altogether huge and hideous ; yet Grandison was a
brave and doubtless a graceful cavalier, who died in Oxford of
wounds received in the attack on Bristol in 1643. Another
ugly, big monument is that of Sir E. Littleton, keeper of the
Great Seal, who took up arms "for the royal majesty, during
the execrable siege of this city." Sir John Smith is also buried
here : he "redeemed the banner royal" at the battle of Edge-
hill, was knighted on the field by the King, and died of his
wounds in 1644, at the early age of twenty-eight.
A vexy odd monument is that to Viscount Brouncker, who
died in 1645, having been chamberlain to the young Charles,
then Prince of Wales. A smartly dressed gentleman and his
wife are represented seated in meditative attitudes, each with an
elbow on the table, while between their two elbows is propped
a skull. In the tracery of St. Lucy's chapel is to be found the finest
old glass in the cathedral. It belongs to the year 1330, or
thereabouts, and enables one to imagine what the church must
have looked like when glass of this magnificent description
abounded, and hangings and altar-pieces and wall-paintings,
hardly less rich, filled every conspicuous position. In the
uppermost compartment of the tracery is a figure of our Lord
seated in glory ; below there are angels with censers, and next
two Augustinian monks in blue and white robes, kneeUng with
outstretched arms ; then come coats of arms, and various
grotesque beasts, all most richly coloured in ruby and blue and
green and gold. Below, in tlie principal spaces, are (i) St.
Martin on horseback giving his coat to the beggar ; (2) the
martyrdom of St. Thomas a Becket : St. Thomas' head has
been knocked out by some fanatic, and replaced with white

72

OXFORD CATHEDRAL.

glass ; the armour and shields of the knights should be noticed ;
(3) St. Augustine, who holds a pastoral staff, is teaching his
monks and others. In the next four spaces are : — The head of
a king ; St. Cuthbert, carrying the head of St. Oswald, and
wearing a green chasuble ; St. Blaise, in a mulberry-coloured
chasuble ; the head of a queen. The glass in the three main
lights was destroyed, and then replaced by some of seventeenth
century work, but this too is now gone, all except a portion of

THIRD CAPITAL OF CHOIR.

the upper part, which shows that the design was architectural
in character, and the colour that of fog-smitten stone-work.
The Choir is in four bays with a presbytery ; it is in the
same style as the rest of the church, with the exception of the
Perpendicular alterations in the upper part. It was formerly
filled with heavy, ugly wood-work, and half way up all the pillars
may be traced the modern stone-work which had to be inserted
when the staffs and panefling that had encased the pillars were
removed. Not a wreck of the old wood remains, and the choir
is now seated with walnut-wood stalls by Farmer and Brindley,

OXFOR^B C^THEDl^HIv

CAPITALS OF THE CHOIR {from a drawing by J. Park Harrison).

74 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
along which runs a light iron screen, very carefully wrought by
Skidinore of Birmingham in 1871. It is copied from (Jueen
Eleanor's tomb in Westminster Abbey. The pavement relaid
in 1 87 1 contains representations of the cardinal virtues, copied
from the church of the Knighfs of St. John at Malta, ^'et
there were original artists to be found twenty-five years ago !
The pillars of the choir are larger than those of the nave,
which appear to have been reduced in girth (see p. 54). They
are (it is now generally admitted) part of Ethelred's church,
daring from the first decade of the eleventh century ; but their
bases belong to the Norman restoration, and were probably
put in by Cricklade. The triforium is also Late Norman, here
as throughout the church, v.'ith the single exception of the one
window in the south transept.
But it is in the capitals of the choir that the most striking
evidence of Saxon work in the church lies. Thus they are
of remarkable interest, besides being very fine specimens of
stone-carving. If the visitor sits in a stall in the middle of the
south side of the choir he will have the three most important
capitals before him, and can study them at leisure. One
striking feature common to them all is that they bear \ery
evident traces of having been worn by the weather. It has
been found by Mr. Drinkwater that the stone of which they are
made is too durable to have been affected by the atmosphere
while under cover. This proves that they must have been
in their present position exposed to the driving rains from the
south, during the long period when the church was in ruins,
that is to say, before the restoration of the twelfth century.
Another significant feature which these three capitals have in
common, not only with each other but with all the others in
the choir, is that their abaci are extremely thick, just twice as
thick as those in the transepts and nave ; and thick abaci are
a mark of early work.
Their ornamentation is remarkable, partly Saxon and partly
oriental in character, and quite unlike any Norman work. Sir
Gilbert Scott himself noticed the latter characteristic of these
and other capitals in the church. " The foliated ornament," he
wrote, " assumes a noble character, evidently evincing a study
of the ancient Greek, which was effected through a Byzantine
medium." We have already seen, in the History of the Cathe
dral, how this Byzantine influence is to be accounted for by

THE INTERIOR. 75
the fact that Greek clergy flocked to the court of Ethelred's
brother-indaw Richard ; and further, it must be noted that
many ifluminated MSS. of Saxon date show that Greek orna
ment was admired and studied at the time. Professor West-
wood, in his "Iapida?-ium," points out that in Saxon art the
designs of stone-carving are so completely identical with those
in the MSS. as to lead us to suppose that the artists of the
illuminated drawings were also the designers of the architecture.
So much is this the case that, "the age of a particular MS.
being ascertained, we are able appro.ximately to determine
also the age of the carving." Professor Westwood was, in
fact, among the first to be convinced of the Saxon origin of
the capitals we are discussing.
It is worth while to give a few illustrations of this very
important point. The first capital from the tower on the north
side of the choir is ornamented with that curious spiima or
wave-shaped work which has just the dip and swing of a wave
of the sea as it curls over before breaking.
In a Psalter of the beginning of the eleventh century (B. M.
Har. 2904) is to be found precisely the same vivid conven
tionalism.* The second capital is the most curious one in the church,
and is also the most strikingly Saxon, the stalks issuing from
pipes or tubes being as characteristic almost of Saxon as
interlaced work is of Celtic art.
Standing immediately under this capital, one is able clearly
to discern the faces on the corner volutes, which hftve each a
crown of leaves like one found in the famous tenth century
"Dunstan" MS. in the British Museum. One of these faces
is that of a man, very heavy and stupid-looking ; the other that
of a comely woman. It is not fanciful to suppose that they are
portraits of the blundering Ethelred and his wife Emma.
The third capital is decorated with some branching work
hardly less curious, and above it is a head wearing the unbifur-
cated mitre, which dropped out of use in the eleventh century.
Of the three capitals on the south side of the choir, which do
* Mr. Park Harrison has collected some very interesting drawings from
various .\nglo-Saxon MSS., which afford striking parallels to the ornament
on these and other capitals in the church. A reproduction of the drawing
here referred to, and of others eijually important, will be found in hi.s
"Pre-Norman Date."

76 OXFORD C.\THEDRAL.
not bear the same signs of weathering, one has branching work,
and the other two reworked leafage, such as is found also in
one on the north side of the nave.
As for the triforium and the rest of the work of the choir,
it was all so much restored in the twelfth century that one
cannot find in it any traces of Ethelred's work.
The pendent roof is one of the most striking features of the
cathedral, and is worth careful study. Fergusson considers
this roof to be the most satisfactory attempt ever made to sur
mount the great difficulty presented in all fan-tracery by the
awkward, flat, central space which is left in each bay by the
four cones of the vault. At Gloucester, King's CoUege Chapel,
Cambridge, Henry VII. 's Chapel, Westminster, and other
places, various attempts were made to deceive the eye, and
hide the unmanageable space ; in Henry VII. 's Chapel the
well-known pendants were boldly introduced with this object.
None were wholly satisfactory, but, says Fergusson : —
" Strange as it may appear from its date, the most satis
factory roof of this class is that erected by Cardinal Wolsey in
the beginning of the si.xteenth century [this is a mistake, the
roof having been built some time before] over the choir of
Oxford Cathedral. In this instance the pendants are thrust so
far forward, and made so important, that the central part of the
roof is practically quadripartite. The remaining difficulty was
obviated by abandoning the circular, horizontal outline of true
fan-tracery, and adopting a polygonal form instead. As the
whole is done in a constructive manner and with appropriate
detail, this roof, except in size, is one of the best and most
remarkable ever executed."
Fan-tracery is a peculiarly English feature, and was invented,
according to Fergusson, in order to get rid of the endless
repetition of inverted pyramids which earlier vaulting produced.
He therefore considers it an improvement on the vaulting of
the early English and Decorated periods ; and, as he thinks
the roof of Christ Church Cathedral to be the best example of
fan-tracery, he comes near to pronouncing it the finest ceiling
in the world.
It certainly must strike every observer as possessing excep
tional beauty. At once rich and light, it yet accords wonder-
fufly with the homely Norman work that it crowns, and gives
a happy finish to the most important part of the cathedral.

THE INTERIOR.

77

Even the lantern pendants seem more graceful than is usually
the case with those strange architectural solecisms. Mr. Ruskin
calls the roof " true Tudor grotesque, inventively constructive,
delicately carved, summing the builder's skill in the fifteenth
century." The roof is certainly too early in design to have been built by

TRACERY OF THE ROOF.

Wolsey, as was supposed. But there are traces in the work
which ,'have led some anriquaries to suppose that, though
begun about 14S0, its western bay may not have been finished
tiU the Cardinal's time, or even dll the end of Henry's reign.
The head on the large corbel over the Dean's stall certainly

yS OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
wears a Tudor crown, and is bearded. This would lead one to
suppose it to be a likeness of Henry A^III. : furthermore, the
face is broad but emaciated, with the beard straggling ; and
we learn from historians that the King did let his beard grow
longer at the end of his life, when he was worn and ill, and
expressed more penitence for his many misdeeds than he is
generally given credit for. The woman's head on the corbel
opposite, also wearing a Tudor crown, would probably be the
last of his wives, Katherine Parr. The face wears the happy
expression of one delivered from great anxiety.
In the arched space nearly above these heads are four
canopied figures : on the north, St. Peter with his keys, and St.
Mary INIagdalen (suggesti\e of Wolsey's own college in
0-xford) ; on the south .St. Luke, over his bull (possibly because
of the connection of St. Frideswide's with the healing art), and
St. Catherine, holding the remains of a sword in her right
hand, and retaining a fragment of the wheel in her left. St.
Katherine will be found in the same attitude in a painted
window of the Latin Chapel. The central bosses of the roof
are interesting. Over the altar is the head of our Lord, sur
rounded by an aureole, the beard twisted into three points : in
the next bay is the Madonna and Child, and next a graceful
figure, identified as St. Frideswide by the curious sceptre with
heavy foliage at the end, which she is again represented with in
the middle window of the Latin Chapel. An angel is on either
side of this figure. In the next bay is an archbishop (Augus
tine ?) with his cross ; and on the last a bishop (perhaps
Birinus), holding his pastoral staff and supported by two
figures which may be chaplains or acolytes.
The clerestory of the choir was converted into Perpendicular
at the time when the roof was vaulted. The old walls were
simply covered with panelling, and the old windows enlarged
into Perpendicular ones.
The East End, now one of the most characteristic features
of the cathedral, is the work of Sir G. Gilbert Scott, and is
supposed to be a reproduction of the original twelfth century
design : for enough fragments of the old work were said to
remain on the walls to leave no doubt as to its original plan.
Of course the detail has the usual machine-made look of
modern carving ; but it is something to have recovered the
original effect, especially as the Decorated window which it has

THE INTERIOR. 79
replaced had been spoilt in the seventeenth century, when it
was altered from its original five lights to three. The design,
says Mr. J. H. Parker, is very rare in England, and not common
anywhere. It consists of a large wheel-window, with an inter
secting arcade under it, and tivo round-headed windows below :
the wheel-window is set in a large round arch that seems to
rest on two stout pillars. 'Phis round window is an imitation
of an old one in Canterbury Cathedral. The arcade has a
truer and less mechanical look than most of the restored work.
The whole effect of the East End is excellent ; dignified and
varied, it has something of that refined homeliness which is so
strong a characteristic of the cathedral. The stained glass in
the windows by Clayton and Bell is not at all unpleasing when
seen from a distance. It is in character with the stone-work,
and only just fails to be really fine in colour. Dr. Liddon and
Sir John Mowbray were the donors of the glass.
It was formerly thought that the Norman presbytery was
part of the original choir, and therefore presumably the earliest
portion of the church ; but Mr. Harrison gives the following
technical reasons for holding that it was an addition to an older
building with an apse, built by Ethelred : —
I. The arches of the two side windows cut through string
courses which run eastwards on both sides of the presbytery,
being, in fact, continuations of the abaci proper of the half-
capitals at that end of the choir. 2. If the east windows were
designed from fragments of previously existing Norman ones,
these cannot have been of the same date as the choir arches.
The mouldings are later, and the old bases of the windows still
in the east wall are clearly of transitional character, differing
essentially from those belonging to corner shafts in the east
aisles of the transepts. 3. The east walls of the choir aisles,
which had been heightened to carry the vaulting, abut against
and cover the jambs of the two side windows of the presby
tery on the outside, a thing which could not have happened
had the presbytery and choir aisles formed part of the same
design. The Reredos, an anonymous gift, erected in 1881 in red
Dumfries sandstone, is a pleasant contrast to the chflly erec
tions which now deface so many of our cathedrals. It has
been said to be " perhaps the most exquisite piece of modern
workmanship in Oxford," though this would not necessarily be

So O.XFORD CATHEDRAL.
very high praise. But, though a little too small for its position,
a httle wanting in breadth and overstrained in detail, it is a
sound and sincere piece of work. Nor can we agree with the
criticism which says that nothing can make it look lilfe part of
the structure, for this is the fault of the structure in its present
condition ; when the old colouring is revived, the reredos wiU
certainly not be too rich for it, and there is plenty of late
Gothic in the choir to harmonise with its carving. r^Ir. Bodley
designed it, and Mr. Brindley was the sculptor of the figures.
They are of marble (rosso antico), and are excellent both in
feehng and execution. The central panel represents the Cruci
fixion, with Our Lady and St. .lohn at the foot of the cross, and
Jerusalem in the background. In the niches on the left are
St. Michael in armour, and St. Stephen in a dalmatic ; on the
right, St. Augustine, in cope and mitre, and a very feminine
looking St. Gabriel. Above the niches are carved and gilt
shields bearing the emblems of the Passion. The warm effect
of the whole is heightened by two handsome, green curtains on
either side. The inscription under the crucifix is Per crucem
tuam libera nos Doniine.
The High Altar, of cedar wood, is less successful. Its
eight clumsy legs, which are the only part visible, are covered
with unpleasant, geometrical carving, most inappropriately ac
centuated by gilding : the result is that an impression of some
strange, many-legged insect fastens on one in entering the church,
and is hard to dislodge. One could wish that the altar were
panelled, or frontals used to cover the legs.
The two silver-gilt candlesticks are extremely fine examples
of seventeenth century plate ; they are rather squat in shape,
with large bases richly embossed. The alms-dish which stands
over the credence is also silver-gilt of the same date, magnifi
cently embossed. These were given at the Restoration, and
bear the date 1661-2. The chalices, patens, and flagons have
been made to match them in more recent times. The altar
books are good specimens of binding in velvet and precious
metal. They were given in 1638 by Canon Henry King. On
the fly-leaf of each book is a curious inscription in Latin, of
which the following is a translation: — "Bequeathed to the
Church of Christ, Oxford. A brand snatched from the burning,
1647, by the zealous care of R. Gardiner, Canon of Ch. Ch.,
but displaced from his rightful position by the greed of his

THE INTERIOR. <S I
times." These books were in use when Charles I. worshipped
in the cathedral during the civil war.
The lectern, of ancient, pale brass enriched with filigree
work, and garnished with amethyst, cornelian, and agate stones,
is the gift of two former censors of the House, the Rev. T.
Vere Bayne and the Rev. H. L. Thompson. The stem, sur
mounted by a globe and a good conventional eagle, bears the
figures of St. Frideswide, Cardinal Wolsey, and Bishop King.
At the base are three lions bearing the arms of the Priory, the
College," and the University. The bible bears the date 1674.
A beautifully illuminated lectionary on veflum, a relic of
Cardinal Wolsey, and used by him in this church, can be seen
in the Christ Church library.
The Bishop's Throne (in Italian walnut) is a not very inspired
work of Messrs. Farmer and Brindley. It was put up as a
memorial to Bishop Wilberforce, at a cost of ^1000, and has
a medallion of the Bishop with mitre and pastoral staff at the
back. The South Choir Aisle is of an earlier period than the
nave and transept aisles, the walls being, it is thought, of
Ethelred's time. .V stone bench runs along its south side,
adding to its bright and pleasant appearance. The southern
windows were rebuilt by Scott in Norman style of a different
character to the window containing Bishop King's portrait
which has its original capitals and bases. The corbels
which carry the vault are carved into heads of men and
baboons : the vaulting ribs have been unmistakably fitted on
to the earlier Norman work. The Decorated east window,
which, owing to the Burne Jones glass, is such a prominent
feature of the cathedral, is restored, but there is a good
deal of the original ball-flower moulding around it. At the
side is a late Perpendicular piscina, with bold, square flowers
cut on the jambs ; and on the pillars opposite there are traces
of paintings, which must have been very bright-coloured once,
and would very likely be so still, had it not been for Brian
Duppa's wood-work.
Monuments. — There is an old brass on the wall, near the
eastern end, to Stephen Pence, who died in 1587. Near this
is a not very pleasing life-size medallion of Prince Leopold in
statuary marble set in Sicilian marble ; it was sculptured by
Mr. T. Williamson of Esher. The bronze tablet, with the
G

82 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
portrait in relief of Dr. Mackamess, the late Bishop, is very
much better both in colour and design. Further west another
medallion in statuary marble, set in giallo antico, commemorates
Sarah Acland, the wife of Sir Henry Acland, who is a student
of the House, and Regius Professor of Medicine in the
University ; the Sarah Acland Home for Nurses keeps her
pious memory fresh in Oxford.
The late Tudor monument to the first Bishop of Oxford,
Robert I\ing, has been removed from its former place under
his window to the bay between the aisle and St. Lucy's Chapel,
where it now forms a sort of small screen to the little chapel.
Bishop King died in 1577 ; his tomb is recessed, canopied,
and covered with shallow panel-work in minute divisions, but
without any effigy, sculptured or incised. Though it is among
the last works of the mediaeval school of monumental architec
ture, it is still graceful and restrained ; and indeed a great
contrast to the new style of monument which came in a few
years later. Inscription : — Hie jacet Robert us King sac?-e theo
logie Professor et primus Ep'ns Oxon. qui obiit quarto die Dece/n-
bris Anno {Domini M.D. I VII).
Crossing to the north side of the choir, one reaches the
beautiful cluster of chapels which add so much to the grace of
the cathedral, relieving it of any grim ness of aspect which its
unbroken array of massive columns might otherwise have
produced, and by their unaffected dissimilarity enhancing at once
its historical interest and its visible charm. Here the e)e
wanders among pillars and arches which branch away in so
many directions that the grandest churches can scarcely gi\-e
more thoroughly the idea of infinity. And here one stands on
the site of St. Frideswide's first little church, with the very
arches that she had built for her, still standing in all their
primitive simplicity. These three aisles, and the .south aisle on
the opposite side of the choir, are indeed eloquent ofthe un
pretentious, lasting work that brave women have done for
humanity : the latter has become, through its window, sacred
to the memory of St. Catherine, whose own Latin Chapel is
now for the same reason inseparably connected with St.
Frideswide. St. Cecilia looks down upon the aisle next the
choir, and the chapel of Our Lady is separated from it only by the
monument of the Saxon maiden, while St. Lucy has given her
name to the fifth and smallest of these eastern chapels. Thus

THE INTERIOR. 83
has this great society of learned men taken plv^asure in doing
honour to the good women of Christendom.
The North Choir Aisle and the two aisles which adjoin
it were lengthened one bay by the gradual inclusion of the
eastern aisle of the transept. A heavy pier has been left with
no attempt at decoration on the transept side but with a
cluster of shafts on the side facing east ; and the next pier to
the north has been similarly treated. It will l.)e noticed that
the arches over these western bays of the north choir aisle and
Lady Chapel, being the arches of the old transept aisle, are ex
tremely massive ; unlike anything else in the church, except the
one remaining arch, is the corresponding south transept aisle (now
St. Lucy's Chapel) : these are therefore thought to be unrestored
parts of Ethelred's works. The fact that Norman vaulting
shafts have evidently been inserted into the pier walls of the
aisles point also to the conclusion that the aisle was erected at
a date when vaulting shafts were not in use.
At the east end there is a small arch, extremely rough, its
ragstone voussoirs patched in one part with a block of modern
stone. A similar arch is to be seen in the wall of the next
(Lady) Chapel, and between these two are traces of another.
These three arches led to one of the most interesting archi
tectural discoveries of recent years ; and one can hardly look
at them unmoved, remembering that they form part of the
original church which was built by St. Frideswide and her
father. They were indeed the three "chancel arches" (if one
may use the expression) which led into the three apses, the
discovery of which we have described in our chapter on the
exterior of the cathedral.
It was not till 1 888 that the plaster was removed from the walls,
and these arches exposed to view. It was then obvious that they
had been part of a permanent church, and not merely temporary
doorways for the convenience of Norman masons. Rough as
they seem, to the expert they bear marks of care and repair,
of having been, in fact, preserved as a specially venerated part
of the church. As an instance of this, Mr. Park Harrison
points out that one of the supporting stones is quite two feet
long (longer than any other in the cathedral), and has Nor
man tooling upon it. It can scarcely be doubted, he says,
that this was introduced to support the springing-stones of the
arch, for there are clear signs that there had been some settle-

84 OXFORD C.\TI1EDRAL.
ment. The head of the archways, too, had been |)lastered.
In both archways there is an impost (a projection, that is, from
which the arch springs), and this impost is continued through
the thickness of the wall. It will be noticed that the jambs of
these arches go more than two feet below the level of the floor,
which is another sign of their early date. Within the apse that
was reached through the southernmost archway lay the body of
St. Frideswide in its first resting-])lace, and for long this part
seems to have been held in special veneration, until the first
translation in i i8o, when the relics of " The Lady " were moved
into a more noted place in the church, and this apse doubtless
abandoned like the other two. .Somewhere here the relics
were then placed (as they lie to-day in the ground beneath
this chapel), but the first monument has been lost. Of the
second monument, which also was lost but is found again, it
is now the place to speak. But, first, it may be well to explain
that what is usually called the shrine of St. Frideswide is really
the marble monument, or base, upon which the shrine itself
formerly rested. In the Middle Ages, relics (with the two
English exceptions of ^Vestminster and St. Albans) were pre
served in a shrine, usually of metal, which was enclosed in a
coffer or feretrum.
The Shrine of St. Frideswide. — Foremost in historical
interest, as well as in actual beauty, are the remains of the
marble monument which have recently been put together and
set up in the easternmost arch between the Lady Chapel and the
north choir aisle. The coffer or shrine, which was made for
the translation in 1289 (its base being therefore the most
ancient monument in the cathedral), was knocked to pieces
at the Reformation (1538), and, being of wood, must have
entirely perished. But gradually, and from different places,
fragments of the base were brought together : first, several
pieces of delicately carved marble were discovered in the
sides of a stjuare well in the yard south-west of the
cathedral ; then a part of the plinth on the south side was
found to be in use as a step, luckily with the carved portion
turned inwards ; next, a spandrel was detected by Mr. Francis,
the head verger, in the wall of the cemetery ; and last of all
a piece of the plinth was found in a wall in Tom Quad.
Though some portions are stiU wanting, it is not impossible
that more may yet be found.

THE I INTERIOR. 85
As the monument stands now, it cannot, of course, impress
one as it would have done in its perfect state, with the rich super
structure crowning it : especially as the restored shafts are
merely square stone supports of the clumsiest description, sf)
studiously careful has the restorer been not to confuse them
with the original work. One cannot but applaud this con
scientious spirit (would, indeed, that it had been adopted
earlier !), but at the same time the modern supports have been
made quite unnecessarily hideous. Still, though the base of
St. Frideswide's shrine is only a collection of fragments,
these fragments are of remarkable beauty and interest. It is of
Forest marble, measuring seven feet by three and a half ; and
consists of an arcade of two richly cusped arches at the
sides and one at each end. On the top of this was fixed the
feretrum, containing the jewelled casket that held the relics them
selves. The spandrels are filled with wonderfully carved foliage,
unusually naturalistic, and preserving still the traces of colour
and gilding to remind one of its former glories. The plants have
been identified by Mr. Drace of High Street, the well-known
Oxford botanist. On the south side there is maple in the
central spandrel, with a wreath of what is probably crow's-foot
in a boss below ; the two side spandrels contain columbine
and the greater celandine. On the north side the foliage is
mostly oak, with acorns and numerous empty cups ; sycamore
and ivy filling the adjoining spandrels. At the east end one of
the spandrels contains vine leaves and grapes, the other fig-
leaves, but without the fruit ; the cusp under the vine has a
leaf which may be that of hog-leaf At the west end there is
hawthorn and bryony. The choice of all this foliage was
doubtless made for symbolical reasons, referring first to St.
Frideswide's life in the oak woods near Abingdon, and next to
her care for the sick and suffering at Thornberrie (now Binsey).
And in this connection it is pleasant to think that the sculptor,
with tender fancy, chose plants which were famous for their
healing \irtue.
The foliage at the angles t.akes the form of pastoral staves ;
and the int'ermediate spandrels at the sides have women's
heads carved in the centre. The plinth, which has been set
on a chamfered base and step of white stone, is ornamented
with a series of quatrefoils, containing the head of a bishop at
the north-west corner, and the heads of queens on the south

86 OXFORD C.-VTHEDRAL.
side. Foliage, instead of a head, occupies the centre and end
panels on the sides ; and very delicate foliage is worked on a
httle roll moulding extant at two of the angles.
Here is an account of the destruction of the shrine, and the
treatment of its relics, in the words of Dean Liddell ^ : —
"It is a strange story. It is well known that, before the
Reformation, the Church of St. Frideswide and her shrine
enjoyed a high reputation as a place of sanctity. Privileges were
conceded to it by royal authority. Miracles were believed to
be wrought by a virtue attaching to it ; pilgrims from all parts
resorted to it, — among the number we find the name of (^)ueen
Catherine of Aragon, whose \isit to the shrine shows the
veneration in which it was held. Twice a year the A'ice-
Chancellor and principal members of the University visited the
church in solemn procession, being considered (as we are told)
the ' Mother Church of University and town, — there to pray,
preach, and offer oblations at her shrine.'
" These practices and privileges not unnaturally seemed to
the zealous Reformers of those times to call for summary
interference. The old superstitions, which certainly gave rise
to many abuses, must, they thought, be abated at once ;
nothing but strong measures would avail to withdraw the minds
of the people, nurtured as they were in absolute belief in these
superstitions, from belief in them. Accordingly, we cannot be
surprised to find that this famous shrine was doomed to
destruction, and was actually destroyed. ^Vhen this happened
it is not easy to determine, — probably in the time of Henry
VIII. The fragments were used either at the time, or not long
afterwards, to form part of the walls of a common well ; and
there we found them. The reliques of the .Saint, however, were
rescued by some zealous votaries, and carefully preserved in
hope of better times. Meantime Catherine (the wife of Peter
Martyr, a foreign Protestant theologian of high repute, who had
been appointed Regius Professor of Theology here) died, and
was buried near the place lately occupied by the shrine. Over
her grave sermons were preached, contrasting the pious zeal of
the German Protestant with the superstitious practices that had
tarnished the simplicity of the Saxon Saint, 'fhen came
another change. The Roman Church under Mary Tudor re-
^ St. Frideswide : Two sermons preached in the Cathedr.al Church of
Christ in Oxford, liy H. G. Liddell, Dean of Christ Church, pp. 21-24.

THE INTERIOR. 87
covered a brief supremacy. The body of Peter Martyr's wife
was (one regrets to learn), by order of Cardinal Pole, contemptu
ously cast out of the church, and the remains of St. Frideswide,
preserved, as I have said, by the piety of her devotees, were
restored to their former resting-place. But it does not appear
that any attempt was made to restore the shrine. Party zeal "
stfll prevafled. Angry contests continued between the adherents
of the two parties even after the accession of Elizabeth.
" In consequence, the Queen, soon after her accession,
ordered Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Grindal, Bishop
of London, to look into this and other matters in dispute
between the adherents of the Roman Church and those of the
Reformed Faith ; and these eminent ecclesiastics commissioned
the authorities of this House to remove the scandal that had
been caused by the inhuman treatment of Catherine Martyr's
body. The matter was conducted by James Calfhill, lately
appointed to a stall in this church, and then acting as sub-
dean. In a letter to Bishop Grindal he gives an account of
the ceremony that took place. He was resolved, if we may
judge from his action, not to give a triumph to either party.
On Jan. i ith, 1561, O.S., the bones of the Protestant Catherine
and the Catholic St. Frideswide were put together, so inter
mingled that they could not be distinguished, and then placed
together in the same tomb. This solution of the difficulty
could not have been displeasing to the great Queen, who had
been consistently endeavouring rather to win over her oppo
nents by concihation than to crush them by persecution. W^e
may well suppose that she approved of the act of our Dean and
Chapter. Death is the great reconcfler ; enmities should, at ah
events, be buried with the dead."
Calfhfll, the sub-dean, wrote two epigrams on the burial of
Catherine Martyr with St. Frideswide. The first ends thus ;
Ergo facessant hinc rabida impietas, inde superstitio ; the other
thus : Nunc coeant pietas atque superstitio. Perhaps these
apparently contradictory sentiments led Isaac Disraeh (in his
account of this curious transaction, which he selects in his
" Amenities of Literature " as an illustration of the mutability of
time) to remark that Calfhfll " seems to have been at once a
Catholic and a Reformer." Sanders the Jesuit was indignant at
the " impious epithet," which he says was added, hie facet religio
cum superstitione ; "although," says old Fufler, "the words

88 OXFORD C.VTHEDKAL.
being capable of a favourable sense on his side, he need not
have been so angry."
The exact spot where the bones of The Lady now rest is
supposed to be marked by a brass on the floor of the Lady
Chapel, lately placed there by Canon Bright. But- we can only
be certain that, somewhere in this part of the church, " the
married nun and the virgin saint," to use Froude's words,
" were buried together, and the dust of the two still remains
under the pavement inextricably blended."
The Lady Chapel, which is the aisle next to the north
choir aisle, is sometimes called " the Dormitory," Ijecause many
of the deans are buried here : the word being a literal trans
lation of the Greek coemeferiiim (sleeping-place), applied to the
catacombs of Rome. It was enlarged, with the Early English
pillais and vaulting of the period, in the thirteenth century.
The shafts are filleted, and the capitals carved in the character
istic curling foliage. It owes its position possibly to the
original dedication of tlie eighth century church ; though the
Elder Lady Chapel of Bristol Cathedral, another Augustinian
house, is similarly situated. Its eastern wall proves that it
must have already existed long before the thirteenth century.
The most casual observer will also be struck by the ingenuous
clumsiness with which it has been patched together. There is
a fine Decorated four-centred window at the East End, restored
to its present condition from the mean two-light window that the
seventeenth century had made of it : underneath, at the side of
the blocked-up Saxon doorway, is a once richl)' coloured piscina,
the outer moulding much damaged. The roof and arches of
the second bay from the east bears many traces of colouring,
which show among other ihintis that the capitals were all
painted green alike, the abaci red, and the ribs of the -s'ault
and arches red, green, and perhaps other colours. The figures
of angels can be made out on the roof a swinging censer being
particularly clear. .\ glance from here at the high altar makes
one realise how much more bright and strong the old colour
was, and is indeed even now, than the modern. This decoration
proves that in the second bay stood something of particular
importance. It is generally agreed now that this was not the
shrine of St. Frideswide but the altar of Our Lad)', for shrines
were placed behind and not before the altars. Such an arrange
ment would leave the eastern bay of the chapel free for the

THE INTERIOR. 89
two shrines, the large one (commonly called the " Watching
Chamber ") and the smafl one recently discovered and placed
opposite to it under the south-east arch. The fact that this
arch is also coloured, and is the only other part which is thus
treated, goes to prove that the small shrine did originally stand
where it now is. Another sign is that the pillar nearest to the
east end of it has been cut away, evidently to allow of a free
passage round the shrine.
The Lady Chapel is divided from the Latin Chapel by four
arches. Of these the first, being part of the original transept
aisle, is very plain and massive, without mouldings and of one
order ; it springs from a square pier with shafts at the corners,
and has an extremely broad soffit. It is almost beyond doubt
part of Ethelred's church, and proves that the transept was
finished early. The second arch is Early English, cut irregu
larly through the wall, which bears traces of a round arch above
it. The first of the four arches which separate this chapel
from the north choir aisle is similar to the one just described.
The rest are very obtuse ; for the two eastern bays of the Lady
Chapel are two feet wider than the others, perhaps in order to
increase the accommodation for worshippers at the shrine of
St. Frideswide.
The "Watching Chamber." — Next in interest to the
" shrine," and far more imposing in appearance, is the large tomb
or watching chamber under the easternmost arch between the
Lady Chapel and the Latin Chapel. Its real nature is still a
matter of dispute : some maintaining it to have been used as a
chantry chapel for the welfare of those who were buried below ;
others that it served as a " watching chamber " to protect the
gold and jewels which hung about the shrine of St. Frideswide.
But there is much likelihood that is was built for the new
shrine of St. Frideswide, when the growing taste for elaboration
in architecture tired of the comparative simplicity of the old
one. If this be the case, the "watching chamber" would be
in reality the third and last monument of St. Frideswide, the
second being that already described, while of the first (that
made for the Translation of 1180) no trace remains. The
feretrum would have been removed from its position on the
second monument, and placed within the little wooden chapel
of the chamber.
Most elaborately carved and crocketed, the "watching

go OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
chamber" is a beautiful example of full-blown Perpendicular
workmanship; "most lovely English work, both of heart and
hand," according to Mr. Ruskin. It consists of four stories, the
two lower, in stone, forming an altar tomb and canopy, and
the two upper in wood. -\. door from the Latin Chapel leads
one up a small and well-worn stone staircase into the interior
of the little upper chapel, which is now a rough wooden room.
Its extreme roughness suggests that it was once panelled and
otherwise adorned, while there are marks at its east end, which
may be the site of an altar, or of \.\\<i feretrum itself
The " watching chamber " belongs to the turn of the fifteenth
century, and may have been erected in 1500, under the patron
age of Archbishop Morton, the inventor of " Morton's fork,"
who died in that year, having been Chancellor of the University,
and a great benefactor of it. The stone altar-tomb is of rather
earher date than the wooden superstructure, and bears the matrices
of two brasses, from which one can make out enough of the
horned head-dress of the female figure to settle the costume as
one that remained in fashion till about 1480.
In 1889 Isix. Park Harrison explored the interior of the
tomb which forms the lower portion of the " watching
chamber. i' Entrance was effected by the removal of two steps
of the staircase which leads into the Latin Chapel, and the
whole space beneath the stone slab was found to be packed
with carved stones and rubble. The pretty battlemented
coping, which is now happily placed on the sill behind the
altar of the Latin Chapel, was thus found ; and also a pillar
piscina of Norman date, and a fine Early English piscina, with
two trefoiled arches, divided by a slender shaft with foliated
cap, and profusely enriched with the tooth ornament. This
latter find can now be seen lying on the slab itself
By an accident it was discovered that what seemed to be the
floor of this tomb was really the ceiling of a vault beneath.
The pavement was opened in the Latin Chapel just outside
the tomb, and steps were found which led to the \'ault through
a flat four-centred doorway. In the vault was a single oak
coffin, widest at the head and tapering in a straight line to the
foot, like the stone coffins of an earlier period. It was ap
parently of fifteenth century date, and contained a body closely
swathed in cerecloth ; but after the coffin was opened the dust
within the cerecloth rapidly subsided. The body was pro-

THE INTERIOR

91

nounced by experts to be that of a woman about five feet six
inches in height, and was probably that of the lady in the mitred
head-dress whose brass can be traced on the altar-tomb.
Monuments in the Lady Chapel. — In the bay to the
west of the "watching chamber" is the tomb of Elizabeth,
lady Moniacute, who gave to the Priory the large field now
known as the Christ Church Meadow, in order to maintain
two priests for her chantry in the Lady Chapel. There seems
to be no ground for the statement that she built the Latin
Chapel ; in her foundation-deed she expressly directs the
masses and other offices to be said "within the chapel of the
Blessed Mary," and, so far from her bequest proving sufficient
to build a new chapel, it was soon found inadequate for the

L.iliV MON r.ACUTE S TOMB.

maintenance of the two chantry priests. Lady Montacute was
the daughter of Sir Peter de Montfort, and was married first
to William de Montacute, by whom she had four sons and
six daughters, and afterwards to Thomas de F"urnival. Her
monument consists of a high tomb, the sides of which are
divided into three panelled compartments. In these compart
ments are little statuettes of her children, and her own effigy
rests on the top ; at the head and foot of the tomb are quatre-
foiled compartments containing sacred symbols and figures. It
is very beautiful, and of great interest as showing many speci
mens of the costume of the period ; but one can hardly imagine
what its splendour must ha\e been when the rich hues, with

92 OXFORD C.VTIIEDRAL.
which it is painted in c\'ery part, were fresh. The colours
mentioned in the following learned description by Mr .M. H.
Ifloxham have long tended to monochrome, and the hand of
the mutilator has been unusually painstaking and systematic.
" The head of the effigy reposes on a double cushion, and is
supported on each side by a small figure of an angel in an alb ;
these albs are loose, and not girded round the waist. The
heads of these figures are defaced, and they are other\vise
much mutilated. She is represented with her neck bare, her
hair disposed and confined on each side, the face within a
jewelled caul of network ; over the forehead is worn a veil,
and over this is a rich cap or plaited head-dress with nebule
folds, with a tippet attached to it and falling down behind.
Her body-dress consists of a robe or slee^'eless gown, fastened
in front downwards to below the waist by a row of ornamented
buttons. The full skirts of the gown are tastefully disposed,
but not so much so as we sometimes find on effigies of the four
teenth century. The gown is of a red colour, flowered with
yeflow and green, and at each side of the waist is an opening,
within which is disclosed the inner vest, of which the close-
fitting sleeves of the arms, extending to the wrists, form part ;
this is painted of a different colour and in a different pattern
to the gown. This was probably the corset worn beneath the
open super-tunic. The gown is flounced at the skirts by a
broad white border, and round the side openings, and along
the border of the top of the gown, is a rich border of leaves.
The hands, which are bare, are joined on the breast in a devo
tional attitude. ( )ver the gown or super-tunic is worn the
mantle, fastened together in front of the breast by a large and
rich lozenge-shaped morse, raised in high relief. The mantle,
of a buff colour, is covered all over with rondeaux or roundels
connected together by small bands, whilst in the intermediate
spaces wctfleur de lis : all these are of raised work, and deserve
minute examination. They are apparently not executed by
means of the chisel, but formed in some hard paste or com
position [.fcwr'] laid upon the sculptured stone and impressed
with a stamp. The feet of the effigy appear from beneath the
skirts of the gown in black shoes, and rest against a dog."
Of the statuettes on each side of Lady Montacute's tomb,
which are each a foot and a half high, ^Nlr Bloxhara says : —
" The first and easternmost of these, on the north side, is the

TFIE INTERIOR. 93
most puzzling and difficult of all to describe, as regards the
costume, and the more so from the mutilated state in which
it now appears. It is that of a male, who is habited in a red
cloak, the borders of which are jagged. This is buttoned in
front to the waist by lozenge-shaped morses, and may have
been the garment called the Courte[)ye, and discloses a short
white tunic or vest, plaited in vertical folds, with a bawd rick
round the body at the hi]')S."
" Next to this is the effigy in relief of an abbess, in a long
loose white gown or robe, a black mantle over, connected in
front of the breast by a chain, with a tippet of the same colour.
The head has been destroyed, but remains of the plaited
wimple which covered the neck in front are \'isible, as also of
the white veil on each shoulder. The pastoral staff appears on
the left side, but the crook is gone.
" Two daughters of Lady Montacute were in succession
Abbess of Barking, in Essex, and so, next to the last figure is
another abbess similarly dressed, with the exception that the
left sleeve of the gown, which is large and wide, is seen, as well
as the close sleeve of the inner robe. Sculptured figures of
abbesses, especially of this period, are extremely rare.
" The next figure is that of a female, in a green high-bodied
gown or robe, with small pocket-holes in front and sleeves
reaching only to the elbows. The fifth figure is also that of a
female, in a white robe or gown, with close sleeves, close fitting
to the waist, where it is belted round by a narrow girdle, and
thence falls in loose folds to the feet ; over this is a black
mantle. There are also indications of a plaited wimple about
the neck, but the head of this, as of the other effigies, has been
destroyed. "On the south side, the easternmost figure, of which the
mere torso remains, is that of a male in a doublet, jagged at
the skirts, and buttoned down in front from the neck to the
skirts, with close sleeves buttoned from the elbows to the
wr'Kts,— ma nicae botonatae, with a bawdrick round the hips,
and buckled on the right side. From the bawdrick on the
left side the gipciere is suspended. This much mutilated
effigy presents a good specimen of the eariy doublet.
" Next to it is the figure of a male, in a long red coat or
gown, the toga talaris, with a cloak over, buttoned in front
downwards from the neck as far as the third button, from

94 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
whence it is open to the^-skirts. This dress, in the phrase of
the fckurteenth century, would be described as cota et cloca. In
the right hand is held a purse.
" Next to this is the figure of a Bishop, intended possibly to
represent Simon, Bishop of Ely, 1337-1344, one of the sons
of Lady Montacute. He appears in his episcopal vestments,
a white alb, with the apparel in front of the skirt, a black
dalmatica fringed and open at the sides, and a chocolate-
coloured chesible, with orlreys round the border and disposed
in front pall-wise. The parures or apparels of the amice give
it a stiff and coUardike appearance. The head of this effigy
has been destroyed, and the outline of the mitre is only visible.
The pastoral staff has been destroyed, with the exception of the
pointed ferrule with which it was shod. It was, however, held
by the left hand. The maniple is suspended from the left
arni, but no traces of the stole are visible. In more than one
instance we may notice on episcopal effigies the absence of
either the tunic or dalmatica, and sometimes of the stole.
" The fourth figure is that of a lady in a gown or robe
buttoned down in front from the breast to the waist, and with
sleeves reaching only to the elbows, from whence depend long
white liripipes or false hanging sleeves ; small pocket holes are
visible in front. From beneath this gown or super-tunic the
loose skirts of the under robe, of which also the close-fitting
sleeves are visible, appear. Behind this figure are the remains
of a mantle. The fifth and last figure is also that of a female
in a gown or super-tunic, close-fitting, and buttoned in front to
the waist."
The quatrefoiled compartments at the ends of the tomb are
particularly good : they contain, — at the head, the Blessed ^'"irgin
and Child, between a winged figure at a desk and an eagle,
whichare the symbols of St. Matthew and St. John the Evangelist,
— at the foot, the symbols of SS. Mark and Luke, and between
them a woman in gown and mantle with long flowing hair,
probably St. Mary Magdalene. The shields in the panels are
blazoned with the arms of Montacute, Furnival, and Montfort.
On a pillar near Lady Montacute's tomb there are two
brasses ; one bearing a graceful kneeling figure of Johafi,
Bishop filii Geo. Bishop, who died March 23i-d, 1588; the
other of Thomas Thornton, who died August 17th, 1613.
The next tomb to the west of Lady Montacute is that of a

THE INTERIOR.

95

Prior, supposed to be Alexander de Sutton, prior from 1294 to
13 16. It used to be called Guimond's tomb, and Prior Philip's,
but it cannot, of course, be of their time : for the beautiful
canopy, supported by Purbeck shafts with vine-leaf capitals,
and powdered with ball-flower without, and groined within, as
wefl as the figure beneath it, are Decorated, and belong to the
reign of Edward I., about a hundred and fifty years later than
Guimond's death in 1141. There were formerly figures at the
angles, of which one on the north-west remains with a little of
its original colour. The effigy, also of Purbeck marble, is thus
described by Mr. I\I. H. Bloxham : — "The head of the effigy,
which is bare and tonsured, with flowing locks by the sides of
the face, reposes on a double cushion. The Prior is repre
sented vested, with the amice about his neck with the apparel ;

ORNAMENT FROM A TOMB IN CHRIST CHURCH.
in the alb, the apparels of which appear at the skirt in front
and round the close-fitting sleeves at the wrists ; with the stole,
and dalmatica or tunic— which, it is somewhat difficult to say :
these two latter are not sculptured, but merely painted on the
effigy, and are only apparent on a careful examination ; o\er
these is worn the chesible. This vestment is very rich, and
ornamented with orfreys round the borders, over the
shoulders, and straight down in front. Hanging down from
the left arm is the maniple. The boots are pointed at the
toes, and the feet rest against a lion. There is no indication
of the pastoral staff; the hands are joined on the breast."
Another proof of its fourteenth century date is that the face is
close-shaven : had it been an effigy of the twelfth century the
face would have been bearded.
West of this is the tomb of Sir George Noivers (de Nodariis),

go OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
who died in 1425. His effigy gives one a good idea of the
armour of his time — or rather of a period slightly before his
death. Mr. Bloxham, who devoted special attention to these
three monuments, thus describes the armour : —
"On the head is a conical basinet attached f)y a lace down
the sides of the face to a camail or tippet of mail, which covers
the head and shoulders, epaulieres, rere, and vambraces, and
coudes incase the shoulders, arms, and elbows, and on the
hands are gauntlets of plate. The body-armour is covered
with an emblazoned jupon, with an ornamental border of
lea\'es, and round this, about the hips, is a rich horizontally
disposed bawdrick. Beneath the jupon, which is charged with
the bearing — three garbs Or — is seen the skirt or apron of
mail. The thighs, knees, legs, and feet are incased in and
protected by cuisses, genouilleres, jambs, and sollerets, the
latter composed of movable lamina; or plates, and rounded
at the toes. The feet of this effigy rest against a collared dog,
and the head reposes on a tilting helm, surmounted by a bull's
head as a crest." On a scutcheon at the head of the tomb are
the knight's arms: they are — a fess between three garbs, im
paling a chevron between three greyhounds.
On the pier at the foot of Sir ( leorge Nowers' tomb is fixed
the remarkably characteristic monument of Robert Burton, the
famous author of "The Anatomy of ^vlelancholy," who died in
1639, having been Student of Christ Church for forty years,
and also Vicar of St. Thomas', O.xford. His bust is coloured,
and surrounded by an oval frame ; it should be a good like
ness, and one fancies that the face is drenched in melancholy.
On the frame are two medallions with a sphere, and a curious
calculation of his nativity, C(jniposed by himself, and placed
here by his brother William, the historian of Leicestershire.
The inscription, written liy himself, is : —
Faucis notus, paiicioribus igiuitiis
Hie jacet
Democritus Junior
Cui vifam dedit et mortem
Melancholia.
At the south side of the Montacute tomb there is a stone in
the floor with a large cross upon it, and an inscription in Lom-
bardie characters of which these words can be made out : —

THE INTERIOR. 97
fohan : de : col . . . v. le : gist : ici : Fieu :  Merci.
Pour : lame : prier : dis : jours : de : pardon ; aver : amen.
In the north aisle of the choir a stone commemorates
Andreas de So lire quondam rector Ecclesiae de Kalleyn ; and a
brass, James Coorthoppe, Canon of Christ Church' 1546, and
Dean of Peterborough tifl his death in 1557. On the floor of
this aisle there is also a small brass with the figure of a youth,
with the Courtenay arms, and this inscription : — Hie jacet
Edvardus Courtenay, filius Hugonis Courtenay, filii Comitis
FevonicB, cujus animcB propicietur Feus. This Hugh Cour
tenay, the father of the lad, must have been either Hugh second
Earl of Devon, or his son Hugh, surnamed le Fitz, one of the
heroes of Crecy.
Glass in the Aisles. — The three lovely east windows of
the aisles and Lady Chapel were designed by Sir Edward
Burne- Jones and executed by Mr. William Morris. The only
possible criticism is that made by Mr. Ruskin, who once said
that they were beautiful pictures, but were they windows ?
They are perhaps open to the objection, but a comparison of
them with the Reynolds windows in New College Chapel,
which are flagrant offenders in this way, makes one feel that the
objection is purely formal, and that these are true windows,
adding colottr and interest to the old cathedral in a perfectly
legitimate way. One is naturally prejudiced against large
figures pictorially treated, because of the atrocities of the
Munich school, but these were made, not at Munich but at
Merton, by the most accomplished craftsman of the century.
The first window, that in the Lady Chapel, was erected in
memory of Frederick Vyner, an undergraduate of the House,
who was murdered by brigands at Marathon in 1870. The
figures represent Samuel the Prophet, David, King of Israel,
John the Evangelist, and Timothy the Bishop. In the panels
beneath are. Eh instructing the young Samuel, David slaying
Goliath, St. John at the last supper, and Timothy as a Httle
boy learning from his mother. The legends are : — (i) Foquere
Fomine, quia audit servus tuus, and in the panel Prope est
Fominus quibus invocantibus eum ; (2) Feus, Feus, mens, ad
te de luce vigilo, and Tua est Famine victoria; (3) Qui recubit
in coena super pectus ejus, and Quis nos separabit a charitate
Christi; (4) Fabit tibi Fominus in omnibus intellectum, and
Statuit super petram pedes meos. H

98 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
-\t the end of the north choir aisle is the St. CeciUa window,
presented in honour of the patroness of music by Dr. Corfe, a
former organist, in 1873. In the centre light the saint is
represented playing her regal or small hand-organ ; two angels
holding other musical instruments, with palms in their hands,
stand by her. The drapery is wrought in white glass, the
angels have pale blue wings, and the flesh tints matted over
with red tell warm against the drapery. In the lower panels
are three scenes from her life : " Here St. Cecilia teaches her
husband," " Here an angel of the Lord teaches St. Cecilia,"
" Here St. Cecilia wins a heavenly crown ; " the saint's figure in
this last panel is most touchingly drawn. These lower panels
are richer jn colour than the rest, and a greater variety of tints
is introduced ; but the colours are so delicate, and so skilfull)'
blended, that they fall in most harmoniously with the main
parts of the window. As the neighbouring window just
described is full of the robust strength of manhood, so this one,
in colour as well as in design, is graceful, delicate, and feminine.
Probably it will lead to the north choir aisle being known by
the name of St. Cecilia, whose art has certainly many votaries in
Oxford. Mr. Malcolm Bell, in his monograph on Burne-Jones,
gives the following description ofthe St. Cecilia window: —
" A still more beautiful instance of the use of simple figures
with complicated draperies is found in the lovely St. Cecilia
window, executed in 1874-5, a companion to the 'St. Cather
ine,' executed in 1878, in Christ Church Cathedral at Oxford,
in which, moreover, it is enhanced by the soberness of the
colouring, which, with the exception of a few touches of stronger
hues in the lower panels, is green, and white, and gold, sym
bolic of the lily of heaven, into which mediasval commentators
tortured the meaning of her name. The saint herself stands
in the middle, with attendant angels on either side, bearing the
palm of martyrdom, who hush their harmony while she plays.
Below the left-hand angel, St. Cecilia, seated on her bed, reads
to her husband Valirian the lesson of chastity. In the centre
the angel brings to them the miraculous proof of the justifica
tion of her faith which he demanded from her :
" Valirian goth home, and fint Cecilie
Withinne his chaumbre wilh an aungel stonde.
This aungel had of roses and of lillie
Corounes two, the which he bar in honde.

THE "ST. CECILIA" WINDOW. BY SIR EDWARD BURNE-JONES.

THE INTERIOR. IOI
"The lilies, symbolical of virgin purity ; the roses, of victory
over death. In the third, the executioner holds her by one
hand as she kneels on the floor of her bath-room, which is seen
in the background, the steam still rising in it after the in
effectual attempt to roast her to death. With his sword raised
he is about to strike the first of the three blows which failed to
cut off her head. " And for ther was that tyme an ordinaunce
That no man sholde do man such penaunce
The ferthe stroke to smyten, softe or sore,
This tormentour durste do no more."
At the end of the south choir aisle is the third figure window
of Burne-Jones. It is dedicated to St. Catherine, and is in
memory of Edith LiddeU, a daughter of the late Dean, " who,
having been scarcely five days betrothed, seized by a sudden
attack of illness, rendered her spirit to God, June 26th, 1876."
St. Catherine, crowned, is the central figure : she is painted
in the likeness of Edith Liddell. On the right is the Angel of
Suffering and Submission, with mutilated hands, the wheel of
torture and flames beneath ; on the left is the Angel of
Deliverance, crushing the wheel of torture and scattering the
flames. The draperies are white, the wings of the angels are
a pale blue, and the curtains hanging at the back of the figures
of a rich greenish blue, while the detailed background is cut
out of violet-coloured glass, a daring but thoroughly success
ful arrangement. In the tracery above are angels playing
triumphant music. The whole is as beautifully executed as it
is finely conceived. In the three lower panels are scenes from
the life and death of the saint: — (i) She disputes with philos
ophers, pleading for her fellow Christians, and demonstrating
avec force syllogismes the truth of Christianity, and the
falsity of paganism. This little panel has as large an effect as
if it were a fresco covering half a wall. (2) Her dream, in
which she is led through a wilderness by the blessed Virgin
into the presence of our Lord, who is seated amid a concourse
of cherubim. The way in which the cherubim are cut out of
tones of ruby, full of depth, and without a suspicion of crude-
ness, should be noticed, and compared with the treatment of
ruby glass elsewhere. This is perhaps the most beautifully
drawn picture of all ; and the figure of St. Mary is something

I02 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
not to be forgotten. (3) St. Catherine is laid in the tomb by
angels. The inscriptions are : — Ag?ius reget illos, et deducet eos
ad vitae fontes aquarum, et absterget Feus omneni lachrymam
ab oculis eorum. Timor Fomini ipsa est sapientia. Beati
mundo corde quoniam Feum videbiint. Cum dederit dilectis suis
somnum. The two first windows in the wall of the south choir aisle, in
memory of Dr. Jelf, Canon from 1830-187 1, are by Hardman.
Next is a most interesting glass painting of Bishop King, last
abbot of Oseney, and first Bishop of Oxford, which is perhaps
from the hand of Van Ling. This window, with some others,
was taken down during the Civil War, buried for safety by a
member of the family, and put up again at the Restoration.
The Bishop is represented standing vested in a jewelled cope
of cloth of gold, and mitre, a pastoral staff in his gloved hand.
In the background, among the trees, is a picture of Oseney
Abbey in its already ruined condition (c. 1630), drawn without
much feeling for its architecture, but of great value as almost
the only picture of the place we possess. The western tower
was the first home of what are now the Christ Church bells.
Three coats of arms (being those of the Bishop, impaled with
the abbey of Oseney and the see of O.xford) complete the rich
ness of what is a very good example of seventeenth century
painted glass, in the strict sense of the word.
It is to be regretted that some of the glass, which formerly
was seen by everybody in the cathedral, has been removed to
the chapter-house, where it is seen by few : among the glass
thus removed the lovely I.H.C. should not be missed.
The Latin Chapel (St. Catherine's, or the Divinity
Chapel, St. Catherine being the patroness of students in
theology) was built on to the rest in two parts, the walls of the
Lady Chapel being cut into arches, and duly fitted with shafts.
The first bay from the west is, like that of the Lady Chapel,
part of the transept aisle; the second bay was built in the
thirteenth century, so as to form a chapel like that of St. Lucy
on the south side of the church; the third and fourth were
added in the fourteenth century, and make now one large
chapel, very secluded and self-contained, a kind of hortus in-
clusus that has an attraction peculiarly its own, and dwells
pleasantly in the memory of every one who sees it. It is
that supremely excellent thing, a church within a church.

THE INTERIOR.

lO^

WINDOW IN THE LATIN
CHAPEL.

without which no cathedral can be what its builders intended
it to be; nor any religious building fulfil that instinctive
desire of men for an inner place, where they can find their
way to the inner places of their own hearts. In such a home
of recollectedness, doubly guarded against the dogging worid
without, is " rest without languor and recreation without excite
ment " ; in such a place one is "never less alone than when
alone"; and the fine sympathy with the needs of workaday
humanity, which led medieval archi
tects to bufld such sanctuaries as this
chapel here, or the Lady Chapel of so
many churches, had led men in far
earlier ages to find room even within
the travelling tabernacle of a Avander-
ing tribe for a holy place and a holy
of holies. Such being the case, it was
like the crude instincts of the "dark
ages of architecture " to choose this
very chapel as most suitable for a
lecture-hall — out of all the lofty rooms
in the spacious college. Quite lately
this practice has been dropped, and the Latin Chapel restored
to something of its ancient sanctity, though a good deal remains
to be done in a place where there is not as yet even a chair to
proclaim a siste viator.
The Decorated vaulting was built when the chapel was en
larged in the fourteenth century. The foliage of its bosses is
very beautiful ; the water-lihes especially of the third boss, so
suggestive of O.xford streams, and the roses a little further
¦east, are a happy combination of naturalistic treatment with
decorative restraint. It will be noticed that the vaulting does
not run true in the third bay, the Decorated work there having
been somewhat awkwardly joined to the Early Enghsh of the
second bay. That part of the old wall which forms the pier
.at the juncture has been left in a strangely rough condition ;
the builder having seemingly given up the problem of fitting
the vaults to the unequal spaces of the bays, and left the pier
as a simple bit of old wall, without even a moulding to mark
its juncture with the vault.
A prominent feature in the Latin Chapel is the old oak
staffing, which a second inspection proves to be patchwork.

104 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
The returned stalls at the west end probably belonged to the
choir of the conventual church, and in that case would have
been fitted in here when Dean Duppa " adorned" the choir by
destroying the old wood-work. Near to these is some of the
work prepared for Cardinal Wolsey's new chapel. The poppy-
heads are good specimens of wood-carving, and contain a
monogram I.H.S., a heart in a crown of thorns, a cardinal's
hat, and other devices. The pulpit, with its dehcate canopy,
an excellent specimen of seventeenth century wood-work, was
formerly the Vice-Chancellor's seat in another part of the
church, occupied by him during university sermons. It was
then used by the Regius Professor of Divinity for his lectures,
but since the altar was restored six years ago, the chapel has
been no longer used as a lecture room. At the time when it
was refitted, a handsome ogival arch was found in the wall
near the north end of the altar : the moulding is deeply re
cessed, and once the arch terminated in what must have been
an ornate finial. The top of this finial has been cut down
to a level with the window ledge, and the face of the moulding
hacked off to make the wall flat for the panelling, which has
now been removed. It was probably the " Easter Sepulchre,"
where the Host was deposited on Good Friday, but it may have
been the tomb of the founder of the chapel. The curious break
in the masonry at the back has not been yet explained.
The wall behind the altar is pleasantly hung with Morris
velvet. The altar itself was the high altar before the restora
tion of 1870. In 1S90 new legs were made for it out of the old
organ screen, and it was placed in its present position.
The eastern window (inserted as a memorial to Canon Bull)
is a pathetic instance of the corrupt following of Mr. Ruskin,
which also inflicted upon Christ Church the gaunt Meadow
Buildings. It is, of course, really as unlike Mr. Ruskin's well-
loved Venetian work as anything can possibly be : as heavy
as that is light, as clumsy as that is graceful, it is ugly and
cold and dead ; but it represents a genuine enthusiasm of the
fifties, and commands our respect as an honest though mis
taken effort, a landmark in the history of the architectural
revival. It also illustrates a truth which one is apt sometimes
to forget, — that it is easy to appreciate beauty, and very hard
to create it.
Fortunately it is nearly lost sight of in the splendid Burne-

THE INTERIOR. 105
Jones glass which fills it, and represents another side of the
artistic revival not less important than the architectural.
Glass in Latin Chapel. — The beautiful windows at the
side are filled with fine fourteenth century glass, which was
replaced after a long period of exile by Dean Liddell. In the
middle of each light is a figure in canopy work, the rest of
the light being covered with " quarries," — that is, diamond-
shaped pieces of glass with leaves and flowers lightly burnt
upon them. The spaces in the tracery are ornamented with
curious medallions, and the borders with various beasts, as in
St. Lucy's Chapel, monkeys among them. The Courtenay
Arms — Three Torteaux — suggest that the family may have
contributed towards building the chapel. Beginning at the
west, the first window contains a St. Catherine in the first light,
next a Madonna and holy Child (the blue pattern at the back
of these figures should be noticed) ; next a figure of St. Frides
wide, or her mother Saffrida.
The second window contains the figure of an archbishop,
holding a cross curiously blended into a crooked pastoral staff ;
angels are on either side.
The next has St. Frideswide in the centre, with St. Margaret
and St. Catherine at her side. The patroness holds the curiously
foliated sceptre which has led to the identification of her figure
in the choir boss, and Catherine handles her wheel and sword
in the same way as her statue over the dean's stall in the
choir. The last window on this side is by Clayton and Bell,
and a particularly feeble one.
The St. Frideswide window at the east end of the Latin
Chapel was designed by Sir E. Burne-Jones and executed by
Messrs. PoweU of the Whitefriars Glass Works, the firm which
is now making the glass for the mosaics at St. Paul's. " Burne-
Jones, an Oxford undergraduate, destined for the Church,
but gifted with high powers of romantic design, sought out
Rossetti towards June 1856, and showed him some drawings.
Rossetti told him' at once that he ought to be, and must be,
an artist, and he became one." In the next year Rossetti
drew the attention of the Powells to the young artist, and they
had the penetration to recognise his worth and to employ
him. But though this is one of the first windows that Burne-
Jones ever designed, it is one of his best. Better suited (as
many think) to the purpose of a window, at all events in this

I06 OXFORD CATHEFJRAL.
enclosed chapel, than the freer method of the other glass,
it carries on the best traditions of the craft, in its infinite
variety of gemdike colour and complexity of detail ; while
it attains a degree of perfection in pictorial effect and figure-
drawing which was impossible during the great era of mediteval
glass-painting. The death of the saint, with its lovely effect of
light through the latticed window, for instance, and the picture
of her in the pig-sty, would be perfect as finished pictures, and
yet do not for an instant outstep the convention which is
necessary for their function as part of a window. The fact that
the subjects are a Httle crowded is not the artist's fault. Mr.
Woodward, the architect to whom the commission was due,
made an unlucky mistake about the measurements, being in
very ill-health at the time, and indeed on the point of death.
Mr. Burne-Jones' cartoon had therefore to undergo a mechanical
reduction which has slightly affected the clearness of the designs.
The colour is, in spite (or rather because) of its radiant variety,
not so immediately attractive to everyone as that of the other
Burne-Jones windows ; but when one has sat down for five or
ten minutes and deciphered the various scenes, its unapproach
able beauty becomes apparent, and each succeeding visit
deepens the impression of the splendour and poetry of this
incomparable work.
The scenes depicted are, by the artist's own account, as
follows : — First Light,
St. Frideswide and her companions brought up by St. Cecilia and St.
Catherine. St. Frideswide founds her first convent.
A messenger from the King of Mercia demands her in marriage.
The King comes to take her by force, and the first convent is broken up.
Second Light,
Flight of St. Frideswide to Abingdon.
The King of Mercia and his soldiers in pursuit.
The Flight continued.
The Pursuit continued.
5t. Frideswide tal^es refuge in a jijig-sty.
lliird Light.
Flight of St. Frideswide to Binsey.
The King of Mercia in pursuit.
St. Frideswide founds a new convent at Binsey.
Her merciful deeds.

SECTION OF TOWER, WITH A COMPARTMENT OF BAY ANFJ CHOIR,
BEFORE THE RESTORATIONS {Britton),

Io8 OXFORD C.\THEDRAL.

Fourth Light.
Return of St. Frideswide to Oxford.
The .Siege of Oxford by the King of Mercia.
The Siege continued.
The King struck blind.
The Death of St. Frideswide.
In the tracery above are the trees of life and of knowledge,
and a ship of souls convoyed by angels.
This east window was purchased with money left by Dr.
Bull (1853), to whom there is a monument against the western
wall. There are also brasses to the eminent Dr. Mozley (Regius
Professor of Divinity tiU 1878), Dr. Ogilvie (1873), Dr. Shirley
(1866), Dr Barnes (1859), .Archdeacon Clerke (1877).

CHAPTER IV.
HISTORY OF THE FOUNDATION.
St. Fridf.swide (Fritheswithe, " The Bond of Peace "), found
ress and patron saint of the church, lived early in the eighth
century, when Ethelbald was King of Mercia. Her father
Didan was probably the under-king of the little town of Oxford,
which was then a frontier city of Mercia. In spite of the legen
dary atmosphere that has gathered about her memory, there
is no reason to doubt the main facts of her life ; indeed, the
best modern authorities endorse them.
Here is her story, told in the delightful words of Anthony
a Wood, who wrote towards the end of the seventeenth cen
tury : —
"About the year of our Lord 727, as authors say, lived in
the city of Oxford a prince (or as Malmesbury hath, a king)
named Didan, one of incomparable honesty and virtues, who,
by his wife Safrid, of a Saxon family, had an only daughter
called Frideswyde, born at this place, and by her parents brought
up in all manner of honest and liberal breeding, befitting her
descent." Then is described her early piety, her refusal of
marriage, and her refusal also to be a nun. The narrative
continues : —
" And furthermore, with great zeale, she added that seeing
he had large possessions and inheritances and that she was
like to enjoy most of them after his discease, he could not doe
better than bestowe them upon some religious fabrick wherein
she and her spirituall sisters (votaresses also) might spend their
dayes in prayers and singing of psalmes and hymmes to God.
To which the father giving an attentive eare and considering
withal 1 that his issue was like to be discontinued, took upon
him a resolution to performe the same that soe he might leave

no OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
his child in a comfortable manner and then dye in peace.
AVherfore, not long after, the good old man buflt a church
within the prsecincts (as 'tis said) of the city of Oxon, and
dedicated it to the honour of the Holy Trinity, the Virgin
Mary and xA.ll Saints, and soe committed it wholy to the use
of his daughter Frideswyde purposely to exercise her devotion
therin." Then is told how Frideswide afterwards took the veil, induc
ing " 12 virgins of noble extract to follow her"; how her father
" erected other ^edifices adjoyning to the church to serve as
lodging rooms for the said virgins," settled lands upon the
Nunnery, and died. The central story of her life next
follows : —
" Frideswyde, continuing most constant in her strict course
of life, was not only reputed famous for that particular, but
also for those excellent parts that nature had endowed her
withall ; insomuch that both being conjoined in one body,
was accounted the flower of all these parts. Which being
quickly rumoured in other countryes, gave occasion to a young
spritely prince, named xAlgar, king of Leycester, to become her
adorer in way of marriage. Which she by his proxies and
others of his wellwishers understanding, triumphed soe highly
in her virginity, that she with an open profession utterly despised
both him and his princely bed ; neither left the least incourage-
ment for him to proceed in this his designe. The king having
such a sudden repulse, and supposing it to be a flashy resolu
tion, encited him the more to goe forward ; and sometimes.
considering her beauty, then her incomparable quahties, and
both obscured under a minchon's hood, could not but attempt
once more. AVhich, though he performed with all the in-
treaties and gifts imaginable, did not in the least disjoynt her
purpose, but rather occasioned her to trample upon his accost-
ments and with a coy deportment despise his offers. All it
seemes was in vaine : nothing to be heard but nays : nothing
to be received but foyles : nothing but what if pursued, usher
him to dispaire : and the like. What shall we imagine this
yong amoretto now to doe ! Noe place is able to containe him,
nobody please his curious fancy but deare Frideswyde ! Noe
note now but ^ hei mihi, quod nullis,' etc. !
" To remedy this, therefore, and attaine his cure, he con
sidered very well from the prsemises could not be compassed

HISTORY OF THE FOUXDATIOX. nr
unless it was by a forced stealth. These were his last thoughts ;
and this he was resolved to prosecute.
" Wherefore, immediately summoning some of his faithfull
servants, sent them as embassadours to prefer (under pretence)
his last desires for marriage, with full power, if like to prosper,
to complete it. With this speciall and soveiraign caution, if
she did not concede, to watch their opportunity and carry her
away by force."
Then follows the account of the visit of the ambassadors,.
their threats of force, and the Saint's undaunted reply. The
story proceeds : —
" Well, the night is spent in consultation, and at the dawning
of the day they sallied from their lodgings and made their
appearance towards the Nunnery, where clambering the fences-
of the house and by degrees approching her private lodging
promised to themselves nothing but surety of their prize. But
alas ! their purposes came short. What shall we think the
event of this designe ? Why ! their hopes were utterly frustrated.
For shee, either by the noise they made at their entrance or
else (as 'tis said in another place) by the instinct of some good
spirit, awakened and suddenly arose to see what was the matter.
And immediately discovering who they were and their intent
for what they came, and finding it in vaine to make an escape
frotn them by flight being soe closely beseiged, she (as the best
remidy) straightway prostrated her selfe flatt on her face and
fervently prayed to the almighty that he would prgeserve her
from the violence of those wicked persons that were now ready
to take her away, that he would show some speciall token of
reveng upon them for this their bold attempt. Wherefore the
embassadors (as 'tis delivered) were miraculously struck blind,
and like mad men ran headlong yelling about the city."
The townsmen were much amazed at this strange sight, and
— " Upon this the cheifest of them went straightway to her and
falling upon their knees, humbly desired her to grant those
simple and impertinent people their sights, promising withall
that, as sone as they were perfected, would see them out of
towne and enjoyne them noe more to returne. Hereupon she
commanded them to be brought to her ; and after fervent
prayers in their behalfe, were as wonderfully restored to their
eyes againe, as before they were deprived of them."
On the ambassadors' return to xA.lgar, he was filled with

112 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
rage against " that witch, hagge, and fury Frideswyde," and
planned vengeance : — " The king then gathering a force and
intending for Oxon, breathed out nothing but fire and sword
to this place. But the night before he came hither, there was
an angel (as the story goes) appeared to Frideswyde in a dreame,
saying to her these words : ' Ignoras, O Virgo,' ike: ' thou art
as yet ignorant, O virgin, what will befall you to-morrow : for
King Algar with his assistants intend to sett upon you and if it
be possible will satisfy his lust upon you and leave you a
miserable creature. But doe not feare : there is a safe place
provided for you ; and he for this his attempt shall be struck
blind and never recover his sight. Arise therefore, and make
hast to the way that leads to the river Thames, where you shall
find a ship boat ready provided for you and one in it to convey
you away in safety.' After this was pronounced Frideswyde
awakened ; and, suddenly arising from her couch, took two of
her sisters the nunns named Katherine and Cicely ; and
walked to the place appointed her by the angell in her
dreame. Where according to his admonitions, she found a
boat by the river's side and in it the appearance of a yong
man with a beautiful countenance and clothed in white : who,
mitigating their feare with pleasant speech, placed them in the
boat, in which, the space of one hour, shee and her sisters
arrived neare the towne called Benton [Bampton or Bensington],
ten miles and above distant from Oxon.
" Wh-ire after their landing, followed a path adjoyning, which
conveyed them into a vast and dismall wood. And wandring
therin too and fro, met at length with a kind of hovell or
shelter purposely erected to harbour swine and other cattell in
times of cold and wett weather ; and there taking up a resolu
tion to fi-x, crossed themselves and retired therin. Which place
being quickly overgrowen with ivy and other sprouts, they
continued therin a long time, being in fasting and prayers, and
utterly unknown to the inhabitants therabouts."
xAlgar in the meanwhile had gone to Oxford, found Frideswide
flown, and in the midst of his fury been smitten with blindness.
xAfter living three years in close retirement in the Benton wood,
Frideswide, to comfort the nuns whom she had left, came by
boat to Binsey near Oxford, and there lived for some time.
Soon after she came back into Oxford, and spent her days in
the service of the people, working in especial many miracles of

HISTORY OF THE FOUND.ATION.

I I ¦

healing. The Cottonian MS. relates her first miracle as happen
ing at " Bentonia," when St. Frideswide cured a blind girl of
seven through virtue of the water wherein the saint had washed
her hands. Shortly after she helped a young man {infortunatus
juvenis) named Alward, who, while cutting wood on a Sunday
(parvi pendens diem Resurrectionis Fominicce), found his hand
fixed to the handle of his axe, so that he could not let it go.
A beautiful story is told about her entry into Oxford : that a

«- i ^

f 1^ f;

THE EXTERIOR IN 1857.
leper met her, and begged her to kiss him, which, after making
the sign of the cross, she did, and he was healed of his leprosy.
Of her last sojourn in Oxford, WiUiam of Malmesbury says :
— " In that place, therefore, this maiden, having gained the
triumph of her virginity, established a convent, and when her
days were over and her Spouse called her, she there died." I

114 OXFORD C.VTHEDR.VL.
"Some time," says Dugdale, "after the glorious death of St.
Frideswide, the nuns having been taken away. Secular Canons
were introduced." We cannot fix the date when the com
munity of nuns which the saint had founded was thus removed,
but the passage which follows in Dugdale makes it clear that
the seculars were in possession in 1004, when Ethelred II.
rebuilt the church. It seems strange that the nuns, for whom
Frideswide had suffered so much and laboured so successfully,
should ha\e been thus early made to give place to a chapter
of married priests ; but early it must have been, for by the
middle of the tenth century Dunstan was busy suppressing the
seculars, and enforcing everywhere the stricter monastic rule.
Nor did the nuns ever come back ; for, when the Secular
Canons had finally disappeared, by the time of the Norman
Conquest, the priory, after being for a long time in ruins, was
made over, first to the great Benedictine moi^astery of xAbing-
don, of which it became a " cell " or dependency, shortly after
wards to the warlike Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, " but only for
the profits issuing from their lands, which he, after its restoration,
returned again with great reluctancy " ; and it was finally restored
under Henry I. (nn) as a house of the Canons Regular of St.
Augustine, an order holding a position midway between monks
and secular canons, in whose hands it continued henceforward.
Guimond was the first prior, and a curious story is told by
several old writers as to the manner whereby he won the king's
favour : —
"On Rogation Sunday (30th April 1122), when the king
was at mass and Guymundus performing divine service before
him, did when he came to that parcell of the prophet, ' it did
not rain upon the earth for the space of III. years and six
months,' read thus, ' it did not rain upon the earth one, one,
one years and six months.' \\'hich the king observing, and
all the clerks marvelling and laughing at, did when mass was
ended reprove him for it, and furthermore asked him the
reason why he read after that manner. Guymund smilingly
answered, ' Because you, my liege, are used to bestow your
bishopricks and other church benefices to them that read so ;
and therefore be it known to you, henceforth I will serve no
other master but Christ my King and Sovereign, who knoweth
as well how to confer temporal as eternal benefits upon his
servants that always obey him.'"

HISTORY OF THE FOUND.^TIOX. I 15
By the eleventh century important national meetings were
held in O.xford, as when in 1020, Cnut being then king, the
English and Danes were reconciled, and both nations agreed
to observe the laws of Edgar. But no king ventured to visit
the city, for, after the failure of Algar, there was a tradition
that boded misfortune to any king who entered within the city
walls. Henry III. was the first to defy it by coming to worship
at the shrine of St. Frideswide in 1264 ; but his example was
an unfortunate one, for within six weeks Nemesis came in the
Battle of Lewes. Edward I. was less daring than his father,
for in 1275, when he reached the gates of Oxford, he turned
his horse about, and sought a lodging outside the town.
Later in his reign, however, he made the venture, and de
stroyed the superstition.
St. Frideswide's Priory did not, according to the latest
authority on mediaeval universities, Mr. Rashdall, create Oxford
University,* but reasons of convenience of access and other like
matter-of-fact causes ; for, if the University had needed only
a religious house round which to cluster, the neighbouring
monastery of Abingdon was far larger and more suitable.
Yet there is great probability that the first germs of the
University were produced by the Priory. It is said, indeed,
that the Mercian kings built inns or halls in the neighbourhood
of the convent, but we may suspect this as a legendary state
ment not more substantiable than the story of King Alfred's
founding University College, since the first actual notice of
" Oxeneford " does not occur till 912. But it is much more
certain that, during the wise rule of Guimond (1122-1 141), the
first Regular Prior, and of Robert of Cricklade,! his successor,
there was a school connected with the convent, as indeed was
the case with most convents, and probably with St. Frides
wide's itself before Guimond's time. This school stood near
* Mr. Rashdall's theory has, however, already been called in question
by Mr. A. F. Leach, who {National Revina, September 1896) asserts
-decisively that there were schools at O.xford even before Guimond's time,
and that " Oxford is as much, there is every reason to believe, a natural
growth from the .schools and schoolmasters of St. Frideswide's as Paris
from those of Notre Dame."
t Prior Robert published an abridgment of Pliny, addressed "to the
studious, and especially to those in cloisters and schools." He also pub
lished another work on Jacob's Marriage, which he said he had written
when he was himself a scholar and "a regent master."

Il6 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
the west end of the church, about the middle of what is now
Tom Quad. \\'riting of the arrival of ^'acarius, in King
Stephen's reign, Mr. J. R. Green says : — " \\'e know nothing
of the causes which drew students and teachers within the
walls of Oxford. It is possible that here, as elsewhere, the
new teacher had quickened older educational foundations, and
that the cloisters of Osney and St. Frideswide already possessed
schools which burst into a larger life under the impulse of
A"acarius." The Priory was also one of the centres of university life
in its early days, occupying perhaps in some sort the position
held by St. Mary's at the present day. From the time of the
Translation of St. Frideswide, the chancellor and scholars of
the University used to go in Mid-Lent and on Ascension Day
" in a general procession to her church, as the mother-church
of the University and town, there to pray, preach, and offer
oblations to her shrine." The Civil Law School belonged to
St. Frideswide's as well as .St. Patrick's .Schools, and some
others situated near to School Street. .Among the Halls that
the Priors jiossessed, Brend Hall was in 1438 made over to
Lincoln College ; Urban Hall and Bekes Inn were bought by
Bishop Fox to procure a site for Corpus Christi College.
Vet St. Frideswide's does not seem to have been so great
a power in educational matters as its position would have
warranted. In fact, most of the other orders were ahead of
the xAugustinian Regulars in this matter, for we do not hear of
their doing anything much until the fifteenth century, when
St. Mary's College near Northgate Street was an Augustinian
establishment. It was the new orders, the Black Friars
(Dominicans) and the Grey Friars (Franciscans), who did so
much for the educational advance of Oxford. The Franciscan
schoolmen, especially, gave the University a European reputa
tion, for Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, and \Vflliam Occam
were trained by them. Cardinal Wolsey, though he did much
harm to St. Frideswide's church, did at least make the place a
great educational centre.
In one indirect way we find that the Priory helped to attend
to the scholars' interests in the thirteenth century. " Owing to
the general poverty," says Mr. Boase, "charitable people founded
chests, from which loans might be made to poor scholars.
Cirostete began the system in 1240 by issuing an ordinance

FIISTORY OF THE FOUNDATION. 1 17
regulating St. Frideswide's Chest, which recei\ed the fines paid
by citizens ; and we hear on the whole of about two dozen of
these charitable funds, amounting in all to nearly 2000 marks.
The money was lent out on security of books, plate, or other
property, and it was, in fact, a pawnbroking business which
charged no interest." The money accruing to the University
was placed in a chest at St. Frideswide's, when the borrower
was required to deposit some pledge — a book or a cup, or' a
piece of clothing. Pledges not redeemed within a year were
sold by public auction. .Vs time went on, private bequests
were added to the Frideswide chest, to the great relief, no
doubt, of the scholars, who were as poor as could be.
The Fair of St. Frideswide was another useful institution con
nected with the Priory, for in early days the fairs not only
afforded much innocent amusement, but they also served to
mark the seasons of the year, and were of great practical value
in the domestic economy of the people. St. Frideswide's Fair
lasted for seven days, and during that time the keys of the city
passed from the mayor to the prior, and the town courts were
closed in favour of the Piepowder Court, held by the steward
of the Priory for the redress of all disorders committed during
the fair. By Stuart times the Fair had fallen almost to nothing,
but its memory is still kept up by the annual cakest.all in St.
Aldate's. One of the strongest Jewries in England existed in Oxford,
so the chest was a useful form of charity in the days when Jews
were the only mone5'-lenders, and it was found necessary to
pass a law preventing the Hebrews of Oxford from charging
over 43 per cent, on loans to scholars. In 1268 St. Frideswide's
provided a curious proof of the strong protection which the
Jews enjoyed till their expulsion from England for four centuries
in 1290.
" The feud between the Priory and the Jewry went on for a
century more, till it culminated in a daring act of fanaticism
on xAscension Day 126S. .As the usual procession of scholars
and citizens returned from St. Frideswide's, a Jew suddenly
burst from the group of his friends in front of the synagogue,
and snatching the crucifix from its bearer, trod it underfoot.
But even in presence of such an outrage, the terror of the Crown
shielded the Jewry from any burst of popular indignation.
The king condemned the Jews of Oxford to make a heavy

Il8 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
silver crucifix for the University to carry in the processions, and
to erect a cross of marble on the spot where the crime was
committed ; but even this was in part remitted, and a less
offensive place was allotted for the cross in an open plot by
Merton College." The event which had opened the feud be
tween the Priory and the Jews happened about 1185, when
Prior Phillip complained of a certain Feus-eum-creseat {GedaViah),
son of Mossey, who stood at his door as the procession of St.
Frideswide passed by, and mocked at her miracles, no one
daring to meddle with him.
An instance of the widespread fame of the shrine of St.
Frideswide, and the veneration in which it was held even
shortly before its destruction, is given in ^^'ood's " Annals." In
1 5 18, "Queen Katherine being desirous to come to Oxford,
was attended in her journey by the Cardinal [Wolsey] : and being
entered within the limits, was received by the scholars with all
demonstrations of love and joy. After she had received their
curtesies, she retired to St. Frideswydd Monastery to do her
devotions to the sacred reliques of that Virgin Saint, being the
chief occasion, it seems, that brought her hither."
But the great change was rapidly approaching. It had
indeed been foreshadowed nearly a century and a half before,
as when, for instance, on Ascension Day 1382, Wyclif's disciple
Nicholas Hereford, preaching in the churchyard of St. Frides
wide's, made a violent attack on the Mendicant Friars, and
boldly asserted his sympathy with Wyclif
The suppression ofthe Priory in 1524 was not, however, a Pro
testant act ; for Wolsey obtained a bull from Pope Clement VII.,
authorising him, with the royal consent, to suppress the Priory
of St. Frideswide, and to transfer the canons to other houses of
the Augustinian order, so that their dwelling and revenues
might be assigned to the proposed college of secular clerks.
Wolsey had magnificent ideas about education, — "indeed,"
says Fuller, " nothing mean could enter into this man's mind ";
he was bent on founding institutions which should surpass
even those of William of Wykeham and William Waynflete ;
and he saw that monasticism had fallen into disrepute, with
no prospect of restoration to public favour. He adopted,
therefore, the hitherto exceptional method of suppressing
certain priories, in order that he might endow with their
revenues his new foundation of Cardinal College, as it was first

HISTORY OF THE FOUNDATION. 1 19
Styled. Henry VIII. readily assented to the scheme, and his
minister was thus enabled to dissolve the oldest religious
establishment within the walls of Oxford, and to dispose of its
income of "almost ^,300 a year." Dr. John Barton, the last
Prior of St. P'rideswide's, was elected to be Abbot of the
neighbouring monastery of Oseney, just as (a little later)
Bishop King, the last x\bbot of Oseney, was made first Bishop
of Oxford.
There was much popular opposition to \\'olsey's act in sup
pressing St. Frideswide's, and (by a second Papal Bull) certain
other monasteries. Hall, a chronicler unfriendly to Wolsey,
averred that " the poor wretches " ejected from the monasteries
received scarcely any compensation. Complaints such as these
drew from Wolsey this earnest and redundant contradiction : —
"iMmighty God I take to my record, I have not meant,
intended, or gone about, ne also have willed mine officers, to
do anything concerning the said suppressions, but under such
form and manner as is and hath largely been to the full satisfac
tion, recompense, and joyous contentation of any person which
hath had, or could pretend to have, right or interest in the same,
in such wise that many of them, giving thanks and laud to God
for the good chance succeeded unto them, would for nothing, if
they might, return or be restored and put again in their former
state, as your Highness shall abundantly and largely perceive
at my next repairing unto the same.
" A^erily, sir, I would be loth to be noted that I should intend
such a virtuous foundation for the increase of your Highness'
merit, profit of your subjects, the advancement of good learning,
and for the weale of my poor soul, to be established or acquired
ex rapinis."
It was indeed, says Mr. Maxwell L)'te, part of Wolsey's
" grand and statesmanlike scheme of establishing episcopal sees
in some ofthe larger monasteries, and annexing thereto smaller
monasteries to provide greater revenues." The graduates of
Oxford were very grateful, and promised to remember him in
their prayers to the end of time; but great fear came over the
monks. His proceedings, says Fuller quaintly but truly, " made
all the forest of religious foundations in England to shake,
justly fearing the king would finish to fell the oaks, seeing the
Cardinal began to cut the underwood."
Thus was" Cardinal College founded. Its magnificence

I20 OXFORD C.VTIIEDRAL.
certainly made a great impression upon Englishmen, as is
shown by the fact that it is the only existing college men
tioned by Shakespeare. In Henry VIII. Wolsey is praised
for his new foundation : — ¦
" though unfinished, j'et so famous.
So excellent in art, and yet so rising.
That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue."
But ah A\'olsey's great buildings, and projects still greater,
were stopped by his sudden fall in 1529. Three years after
wards " bluff Harry broke into the spence," and, placidly
transferring the whole credit of the idea to himself, refounded
Cardinal College with the tide " King Henry VIII. his College."
Then he suppressed his own foundation, and, on Nov. 4th,
1546, reconstituted it, adopting the novel and economical
expedient of combining a cathedral with an academic
college. The new style was Ecclesia Christi Cathedralis Oxon
ex fundatione Regis Ilenrici octavi ; so St. Frideswide's church,
which had for seven years been the chapel of Cardinal CoUege,
and of King Henry's College for thirteen years, became at
length the Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford, and also the
chapel of the college now at length called Christ Church, and
presided over by the Dean of the cathedral. Ever since, the
ancient church has had a two-fold character as cathedral
church and coflege chapel ; and " as the Dean of Christ Church
is always present, and the Bishop of Oxford very seldom,
acadeinic usages and appearances rather prevail over the
ecclesiastical, in a way that may have been the reverse of
satisfactory to more than one occupant of the see of Oxford."
Wolsey had contemplated establishing a hundred canons ;
but Henry reduced the number at a stroke to twelve, and then
to eight ; later they were further reduced to six, which is the
present number. Besides the canons, dean, [ and bishop,
Henry's foundation included eight petty canons or chaplains,
a gospeller and a postiller or bible-clerk, eight singing clerks,
eight choristers and their master, a schoolmaster and an usher,
an organist, sixty scholars or students, and forty " chfldren,"
corresponding no doubt to the scholars of later days. Soon
after, however, the whole scholastic part of the estabhshment
was replaced by one hundred students, who (with the one
" outcomer " of the Thurston foundation) are stfll nightly tolled

HISTORY OF THE FOU.NDATION. 12 1
by the hundred and one strokes of great Tom, this being the
signal for college-gates to be closed all over Oxford.
Such was the arrangement of the new establishment, which,
as the name of Ecclesia Christi was replaced by . -Edes Christi,
came to be called, according to the double use of the word o-dcs,
both Christ Church and the House. The history of the see of
Oxford, which was first set up at Oseney in 1542, will be found
in another chapter.
Curiously enough, the suppression of the monasteries, and
the new vigorous religious movement, did not benefit the
University, in spite of the addition of Wolsey's great college ;
on the contrary, the Reformation nearly emptied the University,
which had already lost much of its old activity during the intel
lectual stagnation ofthe fifteenth century, so that, in Edward VI. 's
reign, washerwomen took to hanging out their clothes in the
schools. Most of the halls disappeared for ever, and from that
time Oxford passed out of the hands of the poor man, Christ
Church as the royal college becoming the special home of the
gilded youth. The first functions of the House seem indeed to
have been mainly ornamental : Henry VIII. was entertained
there, public declamations were given before the University
under Edward A"I., Cranmer was unfrocked in the cloister
under Mary. In Queen Elizabeth's reign, as well as in the
seventeenth century, Christ Church Hall was used for the
performance of plays, as when in 1583 Fido was acted, and
" there was a pleasant sight of hunters, with a full cry of a
kennel of hounds, and Mercury and his descending and
ascending from and to a high place. The tempest also, where
in it rained smafl comfits, rose-water, and snew artificial snow,
was very strange to the beholders."
The Deans in Elizabeth's time were undistinguished. There
was Martiall, who was appointed by Mary, and deprived in 1559
for his rehgion, " which though he had two or three times
changed, yet having made himself Enemies by his indiscreet
Carriage, he was obliged to go into Vorkshire " ; and there was
Sampson, who was " so professed an enemy of the ceremonies
of the Church of England," and of organs and vestments, that
he was removed by Archbishop Parker, 1 565. But there was no
one else of much note till Brian Duppa was installed in
1629. This staunch old man left Christ Church in 1641
for the Bishopric of Salisbury, after having " adorned " the

122 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
cathedral, with the mixed results we have witnessed. He was
extremely generous and unselfish ; and he stuck to the king
through his evil days, even sharing his imprisonment in
Carisbrooke Castle, where he is thought materially to have
assisted in writing the " Eikon Basilike." Duppa, Mr. 'Wake-
man tells us, "amid many dangers had boldly found means to
carry on the torch of apostolic grace, even amid the proscrip
tions of Cromwell."
During the troubles of the Civil War, Christ Church came
in for its share of the work: in 1642 a University regiment
of Cavaliers was drilled in Tom (^uad, and of the hundred
and one students of the House twenty became officers in the
king's army. After Edgehill, Charles I. occupied Oxford,
and kept his court with Prince Charles in Christ Church. On
February 3rd, 1644, the king appointed a thanksgiving to be
made at evensong for the taking of Cirencester by Prince
Rupert the day before. The doctors were then in their red
robes, the officers and men in laced buff coats and polished
breastplates. " But there was no new Form of Thanksgiving
said, save only that Form for the victory of Edgehill, and a
very solemn anthem, with this several times repeated therein —
' Thou shalt set a Crown of pure gold upon his Head,, and upon
his Head shall his Crown flourish.' "
In 1646 Oxford was taken by the Roundheads, and in 1648,
at the visitation of the Parliamentary officers (the Dean, Samuel
Fell, being in custody), Mrs. Fell, with some other ladies, and
her children, refused to walk out of the Deanery, and had to be
carried out with her companions, and " deposited in the quad
rangle in feminine protest against extrusion." Dean Samuel
Fell, who had finished Duppa's wood and glass work in the
cathedral, and built the fine staircase into the hall, died heart
broken on February ist, 1648, "the Day he was acquainted
with the murder of his Royal Master King Charles I. ": he
was buried at Sunningwell, near Abingdon, with this inscrip
tion of touching brevity — Fepositum S. F. Februar. 1648.
The use of the Latin version of the Prayer Book, and the
English version as well, had ceased three months before ;
but it was kept up in a house in Merton Street by three
Christ Church men, one of whom was the Dean's son, John
Fell, afterwards himself to become Dean and Bishop of Oxford.
The intruding Dean and Chapter seem to have behaved

HISTORY OF THE FOUNDx\TION. 125,
villainously; for, in an account given by the Chapter of 1670,
it is stated that the entire revenues of the College had been

THE INTERIOR BEFORE THE RESTORATIONS.
exhausted by the intruders, all the unfinished work on the
north side of Tom Quad demolished, and the timbers actually

124 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
sawn down from the walls and roof to be used as firewood.
jMmost every part of the College was damaged in this way, and
the huge expense of making the destruction good had to
be borne by the new Chapter after the Restoration.
Samuel Fell's first Puritan successor in the Deanery was
Reynolds, a Presbyterian who, in two years (165c), was turned
out "to make room," says Browne \\'illis, "for that noted,
canting. Independent, Time-serving Hypocrite John Owen."
This Owen was himself turned out in 1659, and "retired
among the Dissenters at London, and there ended his Days
(jireaching up .Sedition in Conventicles)." He was buried in
Bunhill Fields, with a portentously long epitaph, whereof one
sentence may suffice as a specimen — In ilia viribus plusquam
Herculeis, Serpeniibus tribus, Akminio, Sociko, Cano,
¦venenosa strinxit guttura.
Reynolds was restored by the Presbyterians in 1659, but
them deserting, he became Bishop of Norwich, and was
succeeded at Christ Church in 1660 by Marley, who, in the
same year, became a Bishop, and afterwards succeeded the
tough old Duppa in the see of \Vinchester, 1662. John Fell,
who had seen so much trouble in his father's old house, was
next installed therein, in 1660. His biography will be found
among- the 'oishops.
James II. made Massey, an ex-Presbyterian convert to the
Roman Church, Dean of Christ Church, and the Holy Com
munion was celebrated according to the Roman use every day
in the House. When the king visited Oxford in 1687, he was
lodged in the Deanery, and a chapel fitted up for his use.
He summoned the fellows of Magdalen, who had refused to
admit Bishop Parker as their president, into Christ Church Hall,
and said : — " Is this your Church of England loyalty ? (yet you
gone. Know that I, your King, will be obeyed, flo and admit
the Bishop of Oxon. Let those who refuse look to it. They
shall feel the whole weight of my hand." They refused, and
twenty-five of them were expelled. James, by-the-way, touched
for the King's Evil in the cathedral about the same time.
.Aldrich, the versatile, followed in the Deanery, nothing being
said of Massey in the letters patent which installed him as
direct successor to John Fell. We have alluded to him more
than once in this book, and his monument in the na\'e is
mentioned in its place.

HISTORY OF THE FOUNDATION. 125

o

After Aldrich came P'rancis Atterbury in 171 1, who in 171^
left Oxford to combine the rather dissimilar functions of Bishop
of Rochester and Dean of Westminster He found his way
into the Tower of London in 1722, being convicted of corre
spondence with the Pretender.
By the eighteenth century Oxford had sunk into a state of
torpor, from which it began to recover in 1807, when the first
honour schools were founded ; though from 1783 Dean Cyril
Jackson had been doing a great work in the restoration of order
and efificiency at the House. Christ CJhurch thus bore an
honourable part in the revival of learning, and gradually de
veloped from a rich man's plesaunce into a home of learning ;
the names of Ruskin, Gladstone, and Ptisey are typical of the
great men in different walks of life that have belonged to the
cathedral college in our own era. Dean Gaisford more than
half a century ago did much to help on the progress ; and the
long rule of his successor. Dean Liddell (1855-91), familiar to
every schoolboy through his famous lexicon, covered a period
of immense change both in the cathedral and in the college.
Dr. Liddell is now living in retirement, his successor being Dr.
Francis Paget, one of the writers in " lux Mundi," and the
author of some well-known volumes of addresses.
Fifty years ago it was said that Christ Church was the only
cathedral in Christendom where there were neither services nor
sermons for the people of the diocese. But the new life, which
has since then wrought S'uch great changes in university,
cathedral, and diocese alike, has left Christ Church, if still the
smallest, yet not the least important of the great centres of
ecclesiastical activity.

CHAPTER V.
THE DIOCESE OF OXFORD.
Down to our own time, Oxford remained one of the new
-dioceses of the English Church, having been set up by Henry
A^III. by way of compensation for his confiscation of the
monastic properties. Before 1542 Oxford belonged to the
-enormous diocese of Lincoln ; but in that year the new see
was created, and Robert King, the last Abbot of Oseney, was
made first Bishop of Oseney, and the Bishop's stool set up in
his magnificent abbey church of St. Mary.
This Abbey of Oseney, which had been founded by Robert
D'Oilgi in 11 29, and rebuilt in 1247, was, like St. Frides
wide's, a house of Augustinian Canons, but far larger. It was,
indeed, one of the finest abbeys in England, its principal
cloister being as large as Tom Quad, and its church no less than
352 feet by 100, with double aisles, and twenty-four altars.
Gardens and courts, and comely outbuildings, ran along the
side of the river ; in every corner a busy life went on among
the orieled windows and high-pitched roofs, within the fretted
cloister, the schools and libraries, the refectory, and the kitchen,
whither a conduit brought the water from the river side. A
great gate looked. on to the high road ; and the abbot's lodgings
were so spacious that six men could walk abreast up the steps
which led into his hall. Yet others were not forgotten ; besides
the guest-house, there was a building reserved for poor clerks.
But Henry's mania for destruction could not let the Abbey
stand. In 1546 he moved the see to St. Frideswide's, recon
stituting the old Priory, which Wolsey had turned into a college,
as both college and cathedral. The doom of Oseney was
pronounced, and in that year the demolition began.
In 1566 Agar's map represents Oseney Abbey as still stand-

THE DIOCESE OF OXFORD. 12/
ing, but roofless ; in 1644 a good deal remained, but Charies 1.
used the greater part to complete the fortifications of Oxford
against the Cromwelhans; in 17 18 the abbot's chamber and
the great stone staircase were all that was left. In Dr.
Johnson's time a few ruins could still be seen, of which the
great man said (at a time when such sentiments were un
common) — " Sir, to look upon them fifls me with indignation."
At the present day the remains are almost invisible ; they
consist of a portion of a building attached to the mifl, a
fragment of the foundations of the gateway at the end of the
same building, a small portion of the wall near the great gate,
-a few loose fragments of masonry, and some encaustic tiles.
Bishop King's window in the cathedral gives one a vague
reminder of its former aspect ; and only the bells, which were
transferred to Christ Church, remxtin intact. Thus perished
the first cathedral church of the see of Oxford.
Of it there now remains no memory
Nor any little monument t<j see ;
By which the traveller that fares that way.
That once she was may warned be to say.
x\part from questions of vandalism, the destruction of this
the first cathedral of Oxford was an egregious piece of waste
•and folly. Such places have been only too much needed by
the University — indeed the need was felt a few years after the
¦destruction— and vast sums have been spent in the erection
of immeasurably inferior buildings. If Oseney Abbey, wuth
its crowd of beautiful outbuildings along the water side, had
been converted into a college, it would have been of immense
use, and every other college now e.xtant insignificant compared
with it. Of all the headstrong and wanton actions of an
irreverent age, the destruction of Oseney was one of the most
wicked ; and, as the train moves into Oxford railway station,
the stranger may remember that the present approach to the
¦old city is only so hideous because the glorious old abbe)' has
.given place to a collection of gasholders, coal-heaps, railway-
:sidings, modern tombstones, and obscene jerry-buildings.
The diocese of Oxford now includes the deaneries of xAston,
Burcester, Chipping-Norton, Cuddesden, Deddington, Dor
chester (Oxon), Henley, Whitney, Woodstock, and Oxford
City.

128 OXFORD CATHEDRx-VL.
Robert King (1542-1557), the first Bishop of Oseney and
of Oxford, and the last Abbot of Oseney and of Thame, began
life as a Cistercian monk. On the conversion of his abbey into
a cathedral, he continued, as bishop of the new see, to preside ;
but he had already, seven years before, been raised to the
episcopate, as suffragan of Lincoln, under the title (conferred
by the Pope) of Bishop of Rheon in the province of Athens.
He seems to have taken the Reformation pretty easily, passing
through afl the changes under King Henry, King Edward, and
Queen Mary. He died at an advanced age in 1557, and was
buried in Christ Church Cathedral. He left considerable
riches to his nephew Phillip King, " which it seems," says
Fuller, " was quickly consumed, so that John King, Bishop of
London (son of PhiUip), used to say he believed there was a
fate in abbey money no less than in abbey land, which seldom
proved fortunate, or of continuance to the owners."
After Queen Elizabeth had kept the see vacant for ten years,
Hugh Curwen (i 567-1 568), a "moderate papist," accord
ing to Fuller, who had been made Archbishop of Dublin by
Queen Mary, and now wished to end his days in peace, was
translated to Oxford. " Very decrepid, broken with old age
and many state affairs," he died next year. AVhereupon
Elizabeth kept the see vacant for twenty-one years more, "out
of pure devotion to the leases, as some writers say."
John Underbill (1589), Rector of Lincoln College, and
one of Queen Elizabeth's chaplains, was next appointed, "being
persuaded," says Willis, "on certain considerations, to accept
it in the way of a better." But it proved " very much out of
his way ; for ere the first-fruits were payed he died in great dis
content and poverty about the beginning of May 1592."
Again Elizabeth, who had already taken away some of the
best estates from the bishopric, kept it in her hands the third
time (1592-1604) : "who," says Willis, " constituting no bishop
forty-one years of her forty-four, disposed of its income to her
courtiers as she thought fit, giving whatever they had a mind to
ask ; though, as some writers remark, it proved miserably fatal
to them, particularly to her great favourite the Earl of Essex."
AMth John Bridges (1604-1618) commences the unbroken

THE DIOCESE OF OXFORD. 1 29
succession of Bishops of Oxford. It is suggested by Fuller in
his " Worthies " that " the cause that church was so long a
widow was the want of a competent estate to prefer her " ; but
at this time, Elizabeth being dead, the endowment of the see
had been increased ; and henceforward occupants for it were
found. Bridges is known to history mainly from his name
-appearing at the head of the title-page of the first two Marpre-
late tracts. He was then, 1587, Dean of Sarum, and had
written a temperate reply to the Puritan pamphleteers who
were pouring violent abuse upon Episcopacy. Martin Marpre-
late seized upon his book, "A Defence of the Government
Established in the Church of England," and headed the
"Epistle" and the "Epitome" with, "Oh read over D. John
Bridges, for it is a worthy worke."
John Howson (1619-1628) was a great controversialist of
the time, his four sermons against the Pope's supremacy having,
according to Fuller, " made him famous to all posterity." He
was one of the original members of Chelsea College, an institu
tion founded by James I. "to afford divines leisure and other
conveniences to spend their time wholly in controversy."
Mercifully this terrible design soon gave way, and Chelsea
College became Chelsea Hospital. Bishop Howson was
translated to Durham in 1628, where he died at the age of
ninety-five. Richard Corbet (1628-1632) was " a distinguished wit in
an age of wits, and a liberal man amongst a race of intolerant
partizans." But perhaps his liberality (which did not prevent
him, by-the-way, from carrying out the Laudian discipline with
a high hand) was due to his own easy way of living : for he
and his chaplain were wont to lock themselves in the wine-
cellar and be merry. He seems to have been a genial, kind,
generous, and spirited prelate; sincere and affectionate in
private life, he was, says GUchrist, " correct, eloquent, and in
genious as a poet." At least he was a man of character. From
1632 to 1635 he was Bishop of Norwich.
John Bancroft (1632-1641), Master of University College,
and nephew of the Archbishop of Canterbury of that name,
was a great benefactor to the see. Being a single man, he
K

130 OXFORD CATI-IEDRAL-
devoted his money to this purpose ; and besides many financial
acquisitions, he built an episcopal palace at Cuddesden at the
suggestion of .Vrchbishop Laud. This palace, the first since
the time of Edward VI., was finished in 1634, and burnt down
ten years later by Colonel Legg, to prevent its becoming useful
to the parliamentary forces. It lay in ruins till the time of
Bishop Fell.
Robert Skinner (1641-1663) was translated to Oxford
from Bristol. He was imprisoned in the Tower by the Puritan
party, and remained in obscurity during the Commonwealth.
At the Restoration, being then over sevent)', he was translated
to Worcester.
William Paul (1663) and Walter Blandford (1665) did
nothing memorable.
Hon. Nathaniel Crewe (1671-1674) entered into holy
orders in 1664 ; in the short space of five years he was Dean of
Chichester, and two years after that Bishop of Oxford. He
was an ambitious and restless man : in 1673 he had the bold
ness to perform the marriage ceremony between the Duke of
Vork and Mary of Este, in defiance of the House of Commons.
As a reward for this act, the Duke procured him the see of
Durham, whither he was translated in 1674. y\t the Revolu
tion, as a consequence of his politiciil intrigues, he was excepted
from the general pardon, and obliged to fly to Holland. But
he afterwards made his peace ; and, on the death of his elder
brother, becoming Lord Crewe, he was the first man to be
summoned to Parliament both as baron and bishop. He lived
on till 1722.
Hon. Henry Compton (1674-1675), son of the Earl of
Northampton, who died fighting by the king at Hopton Heath
in 1644, was after the Restoration a cornet in the army before
he took orders. He was conspicuous throughout his long life
for his efforts to reconcile the dissenters with the Church of
England, and for his opposition to Rome ; he was the first to
sign the declaration for the Prince of Orange on AVilliam's
arrival in London. But at Oxford he was a bird of passage,
being translated to London in 1675.

TFIE DIOCESE OF OXFORD. 131
John Fell (1676-1686), the best known, and also the best
of the Bishops of Oxford, was well-fitted to restore the traditions
of the place ; for his father Samuel Fell was Dean of Christ
Church from 163 7-1 649, and had been elected student of the
House as far back as 1601 : thus John Fell must have had an
intimate knowledge of the traditions of Christ Church as far
back as the third interregnum of Elizabeth. A strong royalist.
Fell kept in seclusion till the Restoration, when, in 1660, he
was made Dean. Lie at once commenced to restore both the
discipline and the buildings of the College. On his appoint
ment to the Bishopric, he was permitted to retain the Deanery
as well, in order "that he might better carry on his noble
designs, which were so many that they contributed to wear him
quite out and shorten his life." He employed Sir Christopher
Wren to build Tom Tower, and finished the north side of
Tom Quadrangle ; he also built a new episcopal palace upon the
ruins of the old one at Cuddesden. He founded ten exhibi
tions, and caused the University Theatre to be erected, and
the Printing Press to be " advanced to a glory superior to any
place in Christendom." He showed exemplary care in govern
ing his diocese, and established daily prayers at St. Martin's
(as the principal city church of Oxford) at eight in the morning
and eight at night. His most important book is the " Life of Dr.
Henry Hammond," 1660; he also wrote several theological
books, edited St. Cyprian's works, and produced a well-known
edition of the New Testament. He died in 1686, " having by a
most pious unspotted single life left behind him an everlasting
character," and was buried in the cathedral, where, in the ante-
chapel, there is a monument to him. There is also a beautiful
statue of him over the archway that leads past the deanery into
Peckwater Quadrangle, by Mr. Bodley.
Anthony a Wood records of him that he was " the most
zealous man of his time for the Church of England." Stfll
John Fell had his weak points, as this same Anthony Wood
had cause to know. For it so happened that Wood had
mentioned Hobbes, the redoubtable author of the " Leviathan,"
in terms of great admiration, in his History and Antiquities of
the University. Wood was himself a strong high-churchman, with
(it had been said) a weakness for popery ; in praising Hobbes he
therefore acted with a generosity and fairness beyond his age.
FeU, however, was not so liberal ; he considered Hobbes no

132 OXFORD CATHEDRAL.
better than an atheist or a deist, and when one Peers was
employed by ^\'ood to translate his book into Latin, Fell got
on the right side of the man, and made him alter all Wood's
praises of Hobbes to expressions of abuse. The author of the
" Leviathan," meeting the King in Pall Mall, got leave to reply,
and hit the Bishop rather hard. Fell retorted with an answer
that contained the famous description of Hobbes as irritabile
illud et vanissimum Malmesburiense a?iinial. Wood, of course,
was furious, and the wretched Peers suffered at the hands of
the muscular old Antiquary, so that "as Peers alway cometh
off with a bloody nose or a black eye, he was a long time
afraid to goe anywhere where he might chance to meet his too
powerful adversary, for fear of another drubbing."
Samuel Parker (1686-1687) was a typical specimen
of the place-hunter of the period. He was brought up
a strict Puritan at Northampton, and, coming to Wadham
College in 1656, when the Puritans were in power, he
distinguished himself as " one of the most godly young men
in the University," and was under the tuition of a rigid Presby
terian. Shortly after the Restoration, however, he changed his
mind, and in 1663 he took orders, becoming " a zealous
advocate of the Church of England." By 1686, however, he
was the creature of James II. , and was forced by that monarch
upon Magdalen College, Oxford, as its President, in 1687,
in the place of the lawful President, John Hough. At the
installation only two of the Magdalen Fellows attended ; the
porter threw down his keys, the butler had to be dismissed
because he would not scratch Hough's name from the buttery
hst, no blacksmith even could be found in Oxford to force the
lock of the President's lodgings; and the whole University,
which had suffered so much for the Stuarts, was alienated at
last. Parker himself died very soon after, in the lodgings that
he had unlawfully occupied. He lies buried in the ante-chapel
of Magdalen, but no monument marks his grave. Antony
Wood intimates that he would have become a Papist, but
for his wife, who was unwilling to be parted from him ; and
he certainly wrote in defence of transubstantiation. Still,
Parker, according to Mr. \\. H. Hutton {Social England,
iv. 421), was by no means a despicable man. .As a philo
sopher in his Fisputationes de Feo, and Censure of the

THE DIOCESE OF OXFORD. 1 35,
Platonick Philosophie, as a satirist in his Fiscourse of Ecclesi
astical Polity, and an ecclesiastical historian, he is eminent.
"But most of all is he commended to modern thinkers by
his little tract containing reasons for the abolition of the Test
Act." Timothy Hall (1688-1690), another of James II. 's creatures,
was also originally a Nonconformist, but afterwards, " getting
nothing," says Willis, "for his loss of a small living in Middle
sex, he complied." Being a very obscure and inconsiderable
person, and on no account for learning, no one took any notice
of him. At the Revolution he fled from Oxford, and died
" miserjibly poor at Hackney near London, and was buried in
the church there without any memorial."
John Hough (1690-1699), the President of Magdalen
whom King James had ejected, was the next bishop. He
retained the Presidency during his episcopate. In 1699 he
was translated to Lichfield, thence in 1 7 1 7 to Worcester, where
he died in 1743. He was, says Macaulay, " a man of eminent
virtue and prudence, who, having borne persecution with
fortitude and prosperity with meekness, having risen to high
honours, and having modestly declined honours higher still,
died in extreme old age, yet in full vigour of mind," fifty-six
years after the eventful struggle with James.
William Talbot (1669-17 15), father of Lord Chancellor
Talbot, was translated to Sahsbury in 17 15, and to Durham
in 1 72 1.
John Potter (1715-1737), son of a linen-draper in Wake
field, wrote a well-known book on the "Antiquities of Greece."
He was " a learned and exemplary divine, but of a character
by no means amiable, being strongly tinctured with a kind of
haughtiness and severity of manners." He became Archbishop
of Canterbury in 1737.
Thomas Seeker (1737-1758) came of dissenting parents,
but was persuaded by the great Bishop Butler to abandon the
study of medicine and to take orders in the Church. He was
an estimable and able person, and in 1758 became Archbishop

134 OXFORD Cx\THEDRAL.
of Canterbury. His portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds is at
Lambeth. John Hume (i 758-1 766), Bishop of Bristol 1756 : trans
lated to Salisbury 1766.
Robert Lowth (1766-1777) was the author of a variety of
works, including a " Life of \Villiam of ^Vykeham," and a
"Short Introduction to English Grammar." His controversy
with Warburton, and the " Letters " to which it gave rise, are
well known. Of his " Isaiah " Philip Skelton said that
" Lowth on the Prophecies of Isaiah is the best book in the
world, next to the Bible." He was moved to London 1777,
.and he refused the iArchbishopric of Canterbury.
John Butler (17 7 7- 17 88) was a popular preacher and
political pamphleteer; in reward apparently for his efforts in
the latter function, Lord North advanced him to see of Oxford,
though he was not a university man. Translated to Hereford
1788. Edward Smallwell (1788-1799), St. Dxivid's 1783. The
first bishop since Dr. Fell to remain faithful to the diocese.
John Randolph (i 799-1807), regius professor of Greek and
a trustee of the British .Museum, was the author of many
sermons and charges. One of his last works was a report of
the progress of the National School Society. Translated to
Bangor 1807, and to London 1809.
Charles Moss (1807-181 1) avoided translation, and died
shortly in the palace at Cuddesden, and " leaving his splendid
furniture for the use of his successors."
William Jackson (1812-1815) was a prominent Oxford
man, being regius professor of Greek and curator of the
Clarendon Press.
Hon. Henry Legge (1816-1827) was a son ofthe Earl of
Dartmouth; he had been Dean of AVindsor, and in 1817 be
came Warden of xAll Souls, retaining the bishopric.

THE DIOCESE OF OXFORD. 1 35
Charles Lloyd (1827-1829). Had he not died at the early
age of forty-five, Lloyd would have played a great part in the
stirring times that were in store for the Church. He was, says
Mr. Gladstone, " a man of powerful talents, and of character
both winning and decided." He was a Christ Church don,
and had Sir R. Peel among his pupils and constant friends.
Lloyd warmly supported the Roman Catholic Relief Bill in
1829. He was the first to publish the Prayer Book with red
lettered rubrics.
Hon. Richard Bagot (1829-1845), translated to Bath
and \Vells. He graduated in 1803, and it is characteristic of
his times that in 1804 he was feflow of All Souls, in 1806 rector
of Leigh, and in 1807 canon of Windsor, — all within seven
years of his matriculation at Christ Church. He was bishop
at the time ofthe Oxford movement, and was reluctantly obliged
to play a part in its history. He did not exactly please either
side, but he behaved with great fairness and courtesy. In 1845,
being ruined in health by the worry of previous years, he was
translated to Bath and Wells.
Samuel Wilberforce (1845-1870), translated to ^\'ln-
chester. This famous bishop was the third son of ^Villiam
Wilberforce, the great slave emancipator. At the early age of
forty he was made bishop of Oxford, and he administered the
diocese with wonderful ability for a quarter of a century, guiding
it through the most difficult period, when the Tractarian storm
was at its height, without offending either party. His extra
ordinary tact and charm enabled him to perform a valuable
work for the Church by binding the various sections together
at a time when party-feeling ran high. He was the most ac
complished preacher in the English Church, one of the fore
most parliamentary orators of his day ; " the most witty and
genial of companions, he was the favourite of social life, and was
equaUy irresistible in the drawing room or on the platform."
xAs a theologian he was the inferior of his brother the Arch
deacon ; he wrote, however, several books, of which the best re
membered are " Agathas " and " Rocky Island." He wjis killed
by a fall from his horse when riding with Lord Granville in 1873.

John Fielder Mackarness (1870-1888)

was recom-

136

OXFORD CATHEDRAL.

mended to the bishopric by Mr. Gladstone, having lost his seat
in convocation through refusing to oppose the disestablishment
of the Irish Church. He was a hard-working prelate of great
courage and independence. When an attempt was made to
force him to take proceedings against the rector of Clewer, he
argued the case in person before the judges of the Queen's
Bench, and at last won his case on appeal. On surrendering
to the ecclesiastical commissioners the management of the
Oxford bishopric estates. Dr. Mackarness paid them the sum
¦of ^1729, which he estimated that he had received in excess
of his statutory income during the previous nine years. He
had been made a fellow of Exeter College on taking his degree ;
he wrote several pamphlets, among them " A Plea for Tolera
tion, in Answer to the 'No Popery' Cry, 1850." He resigned,
owing to failing health, in 1888, and died in the next year.
William Stubbs, the present bishop, was translated from
Chester in 1888, being already a Student of Christ Church.
He is one of the leading historians of our time, and his Consti
tutional History has long been the standard work upon the
subject.

ARMS OF CHRIST CHURCH.

AND COMPAXV, PRINTERS, EDINHCEGH.

Bell's Cathedral Series.
EDITED RY
GLEESON WHITE a.xd E. F. STRANGE.
In specially designed cloth cover, rroion 8?^, i.f. M. each.
X'o«- Rcad^• :
C.WTERBURY. ' SALISBURY.
CHESTER. ROCHESTER.
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In Preparation :
F.XETER. XORWIC-H. .ST. .\LRAX.S,
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LIX'COLX.

dFtist ©jjinions of tljr ^^Jifss.
"For the purpose at which they aim they are admirably done, and there
are few visitants to any of our nolile shrines who v\ill not eiijoy their visit
the better for being furnished with one of tliese delightful Iwoks, which can
be slipped into the pocket anrl carried \\ilh ease, and is yet ctistinct and
legible. . . . A vohinie such as that on Caiiter]tur\- is exactly what we want,
and on our next visit we hope to have it with us. It is tlioroughly helpful,
and the views of the fair city and its noble catliedial are beautiful, l^oth
volumes, moreover, will serve more than a temjiorary ]iur].^ose, and are
trustworthy as well as delightful." — Notes and Queries.
" \Ye have so frequently in these columns urged the want of chea[3 well-
illustrated, and well-u'ritten handbooks to our cathedrals, ti;t take the place
ofthe out-of-date publications of local booksellers, that \\-t are glad to hear
that they have been taken in hand by Ale>srs. (leorge Bell and Sons.'' — St.
James's Gazette.
" Visitors to the cathedral cities of Englanrl must often have felt the need
of some work dealing with the history and antiquities of the city itself, and
the architecture and associations of the cathedral, more portable th.an the
elaborate monographs which have been de\'oted to some of them, more
scholarly and satisfying than the average local guide-book, and more
copious than the section devoted to them in the general guide-book of the
county or district. Such a legitimate need the 'Cathedral Series' now
being issued by Messrs. George Bell and .Sons under the editorsliip of
Mr. Gleeson ^Vhite and Mr. E. F. Strange seems well calculated to supply,
'J'he volumes, two of which relating to Canterbury and Salisbury have
already been issued, are handy in size, moderate in price, well illustrated,
and written in a scholarly spirit. The history of cathedral .and city is
intelligently set forth .and accompanied by a descriptive survey of the
building in all its detail. The illustrations are copious and well selected,
and the series bids fair to become an indispensable companion to the
cathedral tourist in England." — limes.
"They are nicely produced in good type, on good paper, and contain
numerous illustrations, are well written, and very cheap. We should

imagine architects and students of architecture will be sure to buy the series
as they appear, for they contain in brief much valuable information. ' —
British Architect.
, "Half the charm of this little book on Canterbury springs froni the
writer's recognition of the historical association of so majestic a building
with the fortunes, destinies, and habits of the English people. . . . One
admirable feature of the book is its artistic illustrations. ' They are both
lavish and satisfactory — even when regarded with critical eyes." — Speaker.
" Every aspect of Salisbury is passed in swift, picturesque survey in this
charming little volume, and the illustrations in this case also heighten
perceptibly the romantic appeal of an unconventional but scholarly guide
book." — Speaker.
" There is likely to be a large demand for these attractive handbooks." —
Globe. " Bell's ' Cathedral Series,' so admirably edited by Mr. (Gleeson White, is
more than a descri]:tion of the various English c.ithedrals. It will be a
valuable historical record, and a work of much service also to the aichitect.
AYe Iiave received the small volumes devoted to .Salisbury and Canterbury.
The illustrations are well selected, and in many cases not mere bald
architectural drav\'ings but reproductions of ex(|uisite stone fancies, touched
ill their treatment by fancy and guided by art." — Star.
"Each of them contains exactly that amount of information wdrich the
intelligent visitor, wdio is not a specialist, will wish to have. The disposi
tion of the various parts is judiciously proportioned, and tlie style is very
readable. The illustrations supply a further important feature ; they are
both numerous and good. Taken altogether, therefore, the two ' Guides '
very worthily inaugurate a series which cannot fail to be \velcomed bv all
^\\\o are interested in the ecclesiastical buildings of England." — G/asgO'LO
Herald. " Those M'ho. either for purposes of pit')fessional study or for a cultured
recreation, find it expedient to ' do ' the luiglish cathedrals ^\'ill \velc<:)me
the beginning of Bell's 'Cathedral .Series.' This set of books, edited
generally by Air. Gleeson V\'hite, is an attempt to consult, more closel)'
and in greater detail than the usual guide-books do, the needs of visitors to
the cathedral towns. To judge it by its first t\A'0 volume^, those on
Canterbury and Salisbury, the series cannot but pro\e markedly suc
cessful. In each book a business-like description is given of the fabric of
the church to which the volume relates, and an interesting history of the
relative diocese. The books are plentifully illustrated, and are thus made
attractive as well as instructive. They cannot but prove welcome to all
classes of readers interested either in English Church history or iii eccle
siastical architecture.'' — Scotsman.
" A set of little books wdiich may be described asvery useful, very pretty,
and Very cheap .... and alike in tlie letterpress, the illustrations, and
the remarkably choice binding, they are ideal guides." — Liverpool Daily
Post. " They have nothing in common with the almost invariably wretched
local guides save portability, .and their only competitors in the quality and
quantity of their contents are very expensive and mostly rare worlds, each of
a size that suggests a packing-case rather than a coat-pocket. The
'Cathedral Series' are important compilations concerning history, archi
tecture, and biography, and quite popular enough for such as take any
sincere interest in their subjects." — Sketch.

LONDON : GEORGE BELL AND SONS.

3 9002 00952 8176

m