BY THE REV. R. ST. JOHN TYRWHITT, M.A., FORMERLY RHETORIC READER OF CHRIST CHURCH. For the purposes of this volume we apprehend that the history of Christ Church, Oxford, means chiefly its academical history, which begins in 1524 with the foundation of Cardinal College by Wolsey, in the ancient Priory of St. Frideswide’s. All his buildings and other works were stopped by his fall in 1529; and three years afterwards “bluff Harry broke into the spence” with his usual vigour, and refounded Cardinal College, to which he gave his own name, calling it “King Henry the Eighth his College.” Then he suppressed it, and re-constituted the whole foundation, November 4th, 1546; removing the new see of Oxford (erected at Oseney in 1542) to St. Frideswide’s, the then church, with the style of “The Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford.” This foundation comprised a Dean and Canons, with other capitular or diocesan officers, besides an academic staff, and probably numerous scholars of different ages. The ancient church has had a twofold character ever since. It is the Cathedral of the diocese, but it is also the College chapel; and as the Dean of Christ Church is always present, and the Bishop of Oxford very seldom, academic uses and appearances rather prevail over the ecclesiastical, in a way which may have been the reverse of satisfactory to more than one occupant of the see of Oxford. But the connection between the Chapter and the College cannot be severed; and as Christ Church certainly would not be itself without its most ancient buildings, some account of its ecclesiastical foundations (of almost pre-historic antiquity) seems highly advisable before we attempt to chronicle it as a seat of learning. St. Frideswide’s College certainly existed from of old in Wolsey’s time. Her story has passed through the hands of Philip, her third Norman prior; through William of Malmesbury’s and John of Tynemouth’s; and is found in Leland’s _Collectanea_. It runs as follows.[248] About A.D. 727 an alderman, or _subregulus_, of the name of Didan is discovered ruling in all honour over the populous city of Mercian Oxford. He and his wife Saffrida have a daughter called Frideswide. She embraces the monastic life with twelve other maidens. Her father, at her mother’s death, builds a conventual church in honour of St. Mary and All Saints, and thereof makes her prioress. The munificent kings of Mercia also build inns or halls in the vicinity.[249] This seems to anticipate even Alfred’s imagined foundation of University College; and is therefore to be adhered to as dogma for the present by all members of the larger House. But Mr. Boase’s remarks on the probabilities of the story are strongly in its favour.