Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church (Latin: Ædes Christi, the temple or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest and wealthiest of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, with an estimated financial endowment of £175m (2003), as well as the cathedral church of the diocese of Oxford.

Traditionally it has been seen as the most aristocratic college. It has produced thirteen British prime ministers (the two most recent being Anthony Eden from 1955 to 1957 and Sir Alec Douglas-Home in 1963–1964), which is more than any other Oxford or Cambridge college (and two short of the total number for Cambridge University, at fifteen). However today the proportion of undergraduates from maintained and independent schools is roughly equal, which is typical of most Oxford colleges.

The college is the setting for parts of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, as well as Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. More recently it has been used in the filming of the movies of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Distinctive features of the college's architecture have been used as models by a number of other academic institutions, including the National University of Ireland, Galway (which reproduces Tom Quad), and Hutchinson Hall at the University of Chicago (reproducing the college dining hall). The city of Christchurch, New Zealand is also named after it.

Organisation

Christ Church is the only college in the world which is also a cathedral (one of the smallest in England), the seat (cathedra) of the Bishop of Oxford. Its corporate title is The Dean, Chapter and Students of the Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford of the Foundation of King Henry the Eighth, and the Visitor of the House is the reigning British Sovereign. The cathedral has a famous men and boys' choir, and is one of the main choral foundations in Oxford. The Governing Body of Christ Church consists of the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral, together with about sixty "Students", who until the 19th century had no governing powers, but are now equivalent to Fellows in other colleges. There is a Senior and a Junior Censor (formally titled the Censor Moralis Philosphiæ and the Censor Naturalis Philosophiæ) who are responsible for undergraduate discipline. A Censor Theologiæ is also appointed to act as the Dean's deputy.

Student life

As well as rooms for accommodation, the buildings of Christ Church include the cathedral (which also acts as the college chapel), a great hall, two libraries, two bars, and common rooms for dons, graduates and undergraduates. There are also gardens and a neighbouring sportsground and boat-house.

Accommodation is provided for all undergraduates, and for some graduates, although some accommodation is off-site. Accommodation is generally spacious with most rooms equipped with sinks and fridges. Many undergraduate rooms comprise 'sets' of bedrooms and living areas. Members are generally expected to dine in hall, where there are two sittings every evening, one informal and one formal (where jackets, ties and gowns are worn and Latin grace is read). The buttery next to the Hall serves drinks around dinner time. There is also a college bar (known as the Undercroft), as well as a Junior Common Room (JCR) and a Graduate Common Room (GCR). There is a college lending library which supplements the university libraries (many of which are non-lending). Law students have the additional facility of the college law library, which has received large financial supplements from Christ Church law graduates. Most undergraduate tutorials are carried out in the college, though for some specialist papers undergraduates may be sent to tutors in other colleges.

Croquet is played in the Master's Garden in the summer. The sportsground is mainly used for cricket, tennis, rugby and soccer. Rowing and punting is carried out by the boat-house across Christ Church Meadow. The college owns its own punts which may be borrowed by students or dons.

The college beagle pack, which was one of several in Oxford, is no longer connected with the college or the university, but continues to be staffed and followed by undergraduates from across Oxford.

In June 2005, for the first time in 15 years, Christ Church held a white-tie Commemoration ball.

History

In 1525, at the height of his power, Thomas Cardinal Wolsey, Lord Chancellor of England and Archbishop of York, suppressed the Abbey of St Frideswide in Oxford and founded Cardinal College on its lands, using funds from the dissolution of Wallingford Priory. He planned the establishment on a magnificent scale, but fell from grace in 1529, before the college was completed.

In 1531 the college was itself suppressed, and refounded in 1532 as King Henry VIII's College by Henry VIII, to whom Wolsey's property had escheated. Then in 1546 the King, who had broken from the Church of Rome and acquired great wealth through the dissolution of the monasteries in England, refounded the college as Christ Church as part of the re-organisation of the Church of England and made it the cathedral of the recently created diocese of Oxford. It is sometimes referred to as "Christ Church College", but this is strictly incorrect.

Christ Church's sister college in the University of Cambridge is Trinity College, Cambridge, founded the same year by Henry VIII. Since the time of Queen Elizabeth I the college has also been associated with Westminster School, which continues to supply a large proportion of the scholars of the college.

Major additions have been made to the buildings through the centuries, and Wolsey's Great Quadrangle was crowned with the famous gate-tower designed by Sir Christopher Wren. To this day the bell in the tower, Great Tom, is rung 101 times at 21:05 GMT (9 o'clock p.m. solar time) every night for the 101 original scholars of the college. In former times this signalled the close of all the college gates throughout Oxford.

King Charles I made the Deanery his palace and held his Parliament in the Great Hall during the English Civil War.

Buildings

Christ Church has a number of architecturally important buildings. These include:

Christ Church Library
Peckwater Quadrangle
Great Quadrangle or Tom Quad including Tom Tower
Blue Boar Quadrangle
Canterbury Quadrangle
Christ Church Hall
The Meadow Building

Coat of arms

The college arms, adopted (as with those of most Oxford colleges) apparently without authority, are those of Cardinal Wolsey, and are blazoned: Sable, on a cross engrailed argent, between four leopards' faces azure a lion passant gules; on a chief or between two Cornish choughs proper a rose gules barbed vert and seeded or. The arms are depicted beneath a red cardinal's hat with fifteen tassels on either side, and sometimes in front of two crossed croziers.

There are also arms in use by the cathedral, which were confirmed in a visitation of 1574. They are emblazoned: Between quarterly, 1st & 4th, France modern (azure three fleurs-de-lys or), 2nd & 3rd, England (gules in pale three lions passant guardant or), on a cross argent an open Bible proper edged and bound with seven clasps or, inscribed with the words "In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum" and imperially crowned or.

Grace

Before formal Hall each evening, the following Latin grace is recited by a scholar of the House:

Nōs miserī hominēs et egēnī, prō cibīs quōs nōbis ad corporis subsidium benignē es largītus, tibi, Deus omnipotēns, Pater cælestis, grātiās reverenter agimus; simul obsecrantēs, ut iīs sobriē, modestē atque grātē ūtāmur.

Per Iēsum Christum Dominum nostrum.

The remaining words of the full grace replace Per Iēsum Christum, etc. on special occasions:

Īnsuper petimus, ut cibum angelōrum, vērum panem cælestem, verbum Deī æternem, Dominum nostrum Iēsum Christum, nōbis impertiāris; utque illō mēns nostra pascātur et per carnem et sanguinem eius fovēāmur, alāmur, et corrōborēmur.

There is also a similarly long formal grace intended for use after meals, but this is rarely heard. Instead, when High Table rises, by which time the Hall is largely empty, the senior don simply says Benedictō benedīcātur.

Deans of Christ Church

Notable members

Christ Church references

"The wind had dropped. There was even a glimpse of the moon riding behind the clouds. And now, a solemn and plangent token of Oxford's perpetuity, the first stroke of Great Tom sounded." Chapter 21, Zuleika Dobson (1922), Max Beerbohm

"I must say my thoughts wandered, but I kept turning the pages and watching the light fade, which in Peckwater, my dear, is quite an experience -- as darkness falls the stone seems positively to decay under one's eyes. I was reminded of some of those leprous facades in the vieux port at Marseille, until suddenly I was disturbed by such a bawling and caterwauling as you never heard, and there, down in the little piazza, I saw a mob of about twenty terrible young men, and do you know what they were chanting We want Blanche. We want Blanche! in a kind of litany." Brideshead Revisited (1945), Evelyn Waugh

"By way of light entertainment, I should tell the Committee that it is well known that a match between an archer and a golfer can be fairly close. I spent many a happy evening in the centre of Peckwater Quadrangle at Christ Church, with a bow and arrow, trying to put an arrow over the Kilcannon building into the Mercury Pond in Tom Quad. On occasion, the golfer would win and, on occasion, I would win. Unfortunately, that had to stop when I put an arrow through the bowler hat of the head porter. Luckily, he was unhurt and bore me no ill will. From that time on he always sent me a Christmas card which was signed "To Robin Hood from the Ancient Briton"" Lord Crawshaw, House of Lords, Hansard, Tuesday 8 Jul 1997