Oxford (England) -- History; University of Oxford -- History
But what became of the books of the bishop and bibliophile, Richard de
Bury? Some of them, indeed, his executors were obliged to sell, but we
need not distrust the tradition which asserts that some of them at least
did come to Oxford. There, it is supposed, they remained till Durham
Hall was dissolved by Henry VIII., when they were dispersed, some going
to Duke Humphrey's library, others to Balliol College, and the remainder
passing into the hands of Dr George Owen, who purchased the site of the
dissolved college.
Whatever happened to Bury's books, it is certain that the room which
still serves as a library was built in 1417, and it may be taken to
form, happily enough, the connecting link between the old monastic house
and the modern Trinity College. Some fragments of the original "Domus et
clausura" may also survive in the Old Bursary and Common Room.
The stimulating effect of the friars upon the old Orders is shown also
by the foundation of Rewley Abbey, of which the main entrance was once
north-west of Hythe Bridge Street. Rewley (_Locus Regalis_ in North
Osney) was built for the Cistercians.
Richard, Earl of Cornwall, brother of Henry III., who like the King had
often been at Oxford, directed in his will that a foundation should be
endowed for three secular priests to pray for his soul. His son Edmund,
however, founded an Abbey of regulars instead, Cistercian monks from
Thame. He gave sixteen acres to the west of the Abbey for walks and for
private use. To represent the twenty-one monks of the foundation,
twenty-one elm-trees were planted within the gates, and at the upper end
a tree by itself to represent the abbot. It was to this Abbey, then,
that the Cistercian monks came up to study, till Archbishop Chichele
founded S. Bernard's for them (1437). The college which Chichele founded
for the Bernardines, the "Black" Cistercians who followed the reformed
rule of S. Bernard, was built on the east side of S. Giles', "after the
same
[Illustration: Oriel College]
mode and fashion for matters of workmanship as his college of All
Souls." It is the modern college of S. John Baptist. But a large part of
the buildings date from Chichele's foundation, and the statue of S.
Bernard still stands in its original niche to recall to the modern
student the Bernardines whom he has succeeded.
The Abbey was dissolved by Henry VIII., who gave the site to the
Cathedral of Christ Church. The ruins were still standing in Wood's day,
"seated within pleasant groves and environed with clear streams." Only a
fragment of a wall and doorway now remain. A memorial stone, purchased
from the site of Rewley by Hearne the Antiquarian for half a crown, is
preserved in the Ashmolean. It bears the name of Ella Longepée, the
benevolent Countess of Warwick, "who made this chapel."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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