The Cathedral Church of Oxford: A description of its fabric and a brief history of the Episcopal seeDearmer, Percy
History
The Cathedral Church of Oxford: A description of its fabric and a brief history of the Episcopal see
Dearmer, Percy
Christ Church Cathedral (Oxford, England)
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 Wolsey which went towards the blue Boare in Oxford and pulled
down by Dean Fell about 1671." 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 nearly 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 St. Frideswide's shrine. Anthony à 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 connected with the demolition
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 confiscated, 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 Horne
of the plate of Trinity College.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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