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Corpus Christi College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It tends to perform well academically, and as a small college does surprisingly well in sporting activities within the University (e.g., Women's Rugby and Gentlemen's Cricket). It had won the annual sporting challenge against its larger sister college, Corpus Christi Cambridge, for six consecutive years, until its defeat in 2006. On 9 May 2005, a team representing Corpus won University Challenge.
History
The college was founded in 1517 by Richard Fox, the Bishop of Winchester. Although intended as a traditional training college for secular clergy, under the influence of Hugh Oldham it became the foremost humanist enterprise in Oxford, the model for many subsequent foundations. Fox was a humanist and interested in classical literature. He founded a library which was very progressive for the time. The library included books in Latin, Greek and even Hebrew – and was praised by Erasmus on a visit to Oxford as a "biblioteca trilinguis". The important Spanish humanist Juan Luis Vives taught at Corpus while tutor to Mary Tudor, later Queen Mary I.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the college was again involved in religious ferment. Reginald Pole, a fellow of the college in the 1520s, was Archbishop of Canterbury during the reign of Queen Mary, and a candidate for the papacy. John Rainolds, another fellow, and Corpus's seventh President, was involved in the inception and translation of the King James Version of the Bible, published in 1611. John Keble, a leader of the Oxford Movement, was an undergraduate at Corpus at the start of the nineteenth century, and went on to a fellowship at Oriel and to have a college named after him (Keble College, Oxford).
The humanistic ideas of the founder are still important to the college today, with a continued emphasis on the teaching of Latin, Ancient Greek, and ancient history.
The college attempts to select the brightest students regardless of their social background. Corpus Christi has around 350 students (of which roughly 220 are undergraduates), which makes it one of the smallest colleges in Oxford.
The Visitor of the College is ex officio the Bishop of Winchester, currently Michael Scott-Joynt.
Notable former students and fellows
- Thomas Arnold
- Al Alvarez
- Isaiah Berlin
- Robert Bridges
- William Cole
- David Curry
- Paul Grice
- David Hartley – signatory to the Treaty of Paris
- Charles G. Henderson – historian of Cornwall
- Richard Hooker
- Thomas Hornsby
- Alfred William Hunt
- John Keble
- Patrick McTaggart-Cowan
- David Miliband
- Roger Moorey – antiquarian and former Keeper of Antiquities, Ashmolean Museum
- Henry Nettleship
- Henry Newbolt
- David Normington – Permanent Secretary at the Home Office
- James Oglethorpe
- Richard Pate
- Henry Phillpotts
- Edward Pococke
- Reginald Cardinal Pole
- John Rainolds
- John Ruskin
- C. P. Scott
- Vikram Seth
- Michael Spencer
- Nicholas Udall
- William Waldegrave
- Ben Cannon
Academics/teachers
- Sir Brian Harrison (editor, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)
External links
- Corpus Christi College JCR – JCR/students' union page
- Corpus Christi College MCR – MCR page
- Virtual Tour of Corpus Christi College
- college choir
Colleges of the University of Oxford | 1517 establishments
Corpus Christi College (Oxford) | Corpus Christi College (Oxford)
"Corpus Christi College, Oxford"