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)
The two first windows in the wall of the south choir aisle, in memory of
Dr. Jelf, Canon from 1830-1871, 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 Oxford) complete the richness 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 inclusus_ 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,
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 world without, is "rest without languor and recreation without
excitement"; in such a place one is "never less alone than when alone";
and the fine sympathy with the needs of workaday humanity, which led
mediæval architects to build 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 wandering 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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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