Oxford and Its Story

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streets that you read, a tale made yet more sad by the sight of the pale, drawn faces of her street-bred people. Calcutta is the London of the East, but Venice, whether you view her first from the sea, enthroned on the Adriatic, or step at dawn from the train into the silent gondola, is always different yet ever the same, the Enchanted City, Queen of the Seas. And many other ports there are which live in the memory by virtue of the be

beyond are besprent with her grey "steeple towers, and spires whose silent finger points to heaven." And all around her the country is

who can obtain his first view of Oxford from Headington Hill, her Fiesole. From Headington has been quarr

ust as the beauty of Venice is the beauty of coloured marbles blending with the ever-changing colour of water and water-laden air, so, to a large extent, the beauty of Oxford is due to this soft stone of Headington, which blends with the soft humid atmosphere in ever

and from this spot, many a medi?val student, hurrying to learn from the lips of some famous scholar, first beheld the scene of his future studies; this, he will remember, is the Oxford of the Reformation, where, as has been said,[1] the old world and the new lingered longest in each other's arms, like mother and child, so much alike and yet so different; the Oxford also of the Catholic reaction, where the young Elizabethan Revivalists wandered by the Isis and Cherwell fram

the vitality of each generation's youth reacting on the sober wisdom of its predecessor, Oxford has passed through all these and many other stages of history, and the phases of her past existence have left their marks upon her, in thought, in architecture and in tradition. To connect events with the traces they have left, to illustrate the buildings o

d wend their way across the moor to the east gate of the city. There is no gate to stop you now, no ford, no challenge of sentinels on the

water-meadows, willow-laden, yellow with buttercups, purple with clover and the exquisite fritillary, and passing the reservoir ere it runs into the station, which occupies the site of Osney Abbey, it gives the observant traveller a splendid view of the town; of Tom Tower, close at hand, and

ing high the

ude fortress

ld veteran,

with many a

to visit her, all times are good. But best of all are the summer months. In the spring o

wer from Ad

hen the meadows are carpe

white-leav

drenched with de

chises with s

ws that fringe the Cherwell-at these times Oxford seems an enchanted city, a land where it is always afternoon. But you will come to know her best, and to love her perhaps more dearly, if you choose the later summer months, the Long Vacation. Then all the rich meadow-lands that surround her are most tranquil, green and mellow, and seem to reflect the peace of the ancient city, freed for a while fro

ld not

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ons of illu

could not

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waked, range tha

great intellect

ey are in hue and aspect, or amid the College groves and gardens, rich as is their beauty, perfect as is their repose. The glories of the surrounding country may tempt you most. You may wander many happy miles through cool green country, full of dark-leaved elms and furzy dingles, with the calm

the Wyt

and blond mead

allows and lig

know the Fyfield tree, the

what purple

rvest of the

m, down by San

brooks are Thame

trees, watered by the winding, willow-fringed Cherwell and the silver stream of Isis, "rivulets," as Wood quaintly phrases it, "which seem to the prying spectator as so man

of a Christian bishop. But it was not till the eighth century A.D. that the vill of Oxford, an unfortified border town on the confines of the kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex, came into existence; it was not till the year 727, one hundred and thirty years after S. Augustine's mission to England, that a religious

Frideswide returned at last to Oxford, and, after performing many miracles there, died and was buried in her church-are not all these things told at length in the charming prose of Anthony Wood? The Lady Chapel of the Cathedral, on the north side of the choir aisle, is the architectural illustration of this story in Oxford. It was enlarged in the thirteenth century, and has the early English pillars and vaulting of that period, but the eastern wall carries us back to S. Frideswide's day. And on the floor is a recent brass which marks the spot where the bones of the virgin Saint are now supposed to rest. Here too is the Shrine of S. Frideswide-that shrine which used to be visited twice a year by the Vice-Chancellor and the principal members of the University in solemn procession "to pray, preach and offer oblations at her shrine in the Mother Church of University an

at has been made on paper and not in glass, drawn with pencil and brush and not in lead. Worked out on a flat, opaque surface the fussy effect of the window would not be foreseen; bu

ures of S. Catherine, the patroness of students in divinity, two representations of

thedral (

fourteenth, from which period the decorated vaulting, with its bosses of roses and water-lilies, dates. The chapel was used til

day throughout the country, was carried out at Oxford. The Danes in their extremity rushed to S. Frideswide's Church, burst open the doors, and held the tower as a fortress against their assailants

ted. But after the massacre the King made a vow that he would rebuild S. Frideswide's, and

aisle; the south transept aisle, now S. Lucy's Chapel; the walls of the south choir aisle; the pillars of the choir and the open trif

asonry more finely jointed. We need not therefore be surprised at the excellence and ornamentation of the work in Oxford Cathedral, which is attributed to this date, nor, when we re

burned Oxford (1009). The climax came when Sweyn arrived. The town immediately submitted to

ormandy. In the south-east pier of the Cathedral tower there is a noticeable break in the masonry, wh

nd remarkable ornamentation, partly Saxon and partly Oriental in character, are eloquent of the exile of ?thelred and of the influence of the Eastern monks whom he met at the court of his brother in Normandy. An

lled Regulars, it was almost utterly forsaken and relinqueshed, and the more especia

But the nuns never came back, for, after many vicissitudes, the priory was finally restored, under Henry I. (1111), as a house of the Canons Regular of S. Augustine. Some have thought that Guimond, the first prior (1122), was responsible for the building of the whole church, but

nt of the triforium is remarkable. The massive pillars of the nave are alternately circular and octagonal. From their capitals, which are large, with square abaci, spring circular arches with well-defined mouldings. These are, in fact, the arches of the triforium, which is here represented by a blind arcade of two arches set in the tympanum of t

th-century restoration, save the rich and graceful pendent roof, which accords so strangely well with the robust Norman work it crowns. The clerestory was converted into Perpendicular, and remodelled to carry this elaborate v

Gilbert Scott, who also opened the lantern-story and made many other sweeping changes and restorations, nec

bably the southernmost of the three Saxon apses) to some notable place in the church. The King, the Archbishop, many bishops, and many of the nobility and clergy gathered together to take part in t

buildings. The fine old Norman doorway of the Chapter house, which is attributed to Prior Guimond (1122), still bears the red marks of that fire. The Chapter house itself is a very perfect chamber of the early English period. The rich and graceful carving of the capitals, the boss

lso the upper portion of the tower, and tha

d Cat

ow and simple-squat almost in appearance. Its lowliness is easily explained. It was perhaps the very first spire built in England. The masons were cautious, afraid of their own daring in attempting to erect so lofty a construction, octagonal, upon the solid base of the Norman lower story. In this first effort they did not dream of the tapering elegance of the soaring spire of Salisbury, any more than of

rble base of this shrine have been found, pieced together and set up in the easternmost arch between the Lady Chapel and the north choir aisle. These fragments of

ne had enjoyed a high reputation as a place of sanctity. Privileges were conceded to it by royal authority. Miracles were be

(the wife of Peter Martyr, a foreign Protestant theologian of high repute, who had been appointed Regius Professor of Theology) 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. Then came another change. The Roman Church, under Ma

therine Martyr's body. On January 11th, 1562, the bones of the Protestant Catherine and the Catholic S. Frideswide were put together,

borately wrought and very beautiful example of Perpendicular workmanship, which is supposed to have been t

ristchurch Herbe

the gold and jewels which hu

schools of S. Frideswide as naturally as that of Paris from the schools of Notre Dame-it is pleasant to remember, when you stand in the middle of Tom Quad, that you are on the site of this

wide that used to last seven days. During that time the keys of the city passed from mayor to prior, and the town courts were closed

ister were to spring, are, however, plainly visible. Of the old cloister of the monastery no trace remains save the windows and door of the chapter house; the fifteenth-century cloisters that do exist are not to be compared with those of New College or Magdalen. One side of them was destroyed by Wolsey to make room for the College Hall. On the south side of the cloister is the old library, which was formerly the refectory of the monastery. With the chapter house doorway it survives as a relic of the old conventual buildings, in quiet contrast to the splendour of the s

along the north side of Tom Quad which should rival the chapel of King's College at Cambridge. But this work was interrupted by his fall. The foundations of the chapel hav

d, used it as a quarry for the construction of his own quadrangle. Now, there had been constructed a new straight walk in the Meadows, and Fell, anxious to improve it, carted the chippi

t's C

really describes it now bett

bay which serves as a sort of ante-chapel to the nave and choir which now form the College Chapel of Christ Church. But the appearance of the Cathedral owe