William Dobson self-portrait acquired jointly by the NPG and the Tate

The Art News website reported the other week that what is believed to be the earliest self-Portrait by  British painter, William Dobson, has been acquired in a major and significant joint venture by the National Portrait Gallery and the Tate Gallery. Not only has this secured the portrait for national collections but it recognises its importance as both a likeness and as a work by an often ignore but very important British artist.

Dobson, so to speak, picked up Van Dyck’s brushes when he died in 1641. At this time the country was sliding, seemingly inexorably, into civil war, and Dobson travelled with the Royalists to Oxford. It was there that most of his important commissions were painted at a studio in the High Street of the commanders and officers of the King’s army. I suspect that the initial period of the court being in Oxford were rather fun for those who established themselves in the city, but then it gradually turned to times of dearth and death, to hunger and fear as the Royalist cause floundered. Dobson himself died, in poverty and aged only 35 very soon after the surrender of Oxford in 1646.

Not only did he die tragically young but he is nowhere as famous as his works merit. Hopefully his self portrait will help to bring him the appreciation his work undoubtedly deserves 

The report about the acquisition of the portrait can be seen at Museums Jointly Acquire a $3.2 Million Painting by 'Britain's Rembrandt.' Who Was He?

Wikipedia has a life of Dobson with a good selection of his portrait works at William Dobson

Tales from the medieval Oxford and London Coroner’s Rolls

I was aware that the medieval Coroners’ Rolls for Oxford had been used by Trevor Aston as part of his study of the medieval University, and the results of his research can be found in Past and Present.

I remember reading it and, by analysing to and by whom violence was proffered, and where and when, it was clear that venturing out alone at night was definitely not advisable, especially if you were a student. I have come across at least one Oxford student, future bishop, Thomas Polton, was to be involved in a fight that resulted in the death of another student. The incident did little harm to his career, which took him to the deanery of York, the sees of Hereford, Chichester and Worcester, and the Councils of Constance, Pavia-Siena and Basle. The article argues that the safest members of the Oxford community were the respectable wives of the town tradesmen, who stayed home of an evening.

However I came upon a new presentation of some of this material in a video from Medieval Madness. This uses examples from the records from round about 1300 which deal with street crime, with domestic violence and with mishaps. In their rather laconic way the rolls reveal many incidental details of daily life as well as specific human tragedies. To anyone who knows Oxford these are all the more interesting as the roadways and some of the actual buildings still survive.

The video - the title suggests a surfeit of clickbait - can be seen at These Mysterious Medieval Murders Will Leave You Scratching Your Head...

The makers of the video have produced a similar one based on the evidence from the same period for London. Due to the way the city has been rebuilt and rede developed over the centuries the instance of given seem likely less immediate but they record an often violent world. Despite the somewhat curious pronunciation of place names by the narrating computer the stories are striking. That video can be seen at 5 Pretty Mysterious Medieval London Murders…

Establishing the Anglo-Saxon defences of Oxford

Archaeological investigations inevitably expand our knowledge of the past and Need us to reassess our understanding of what we think we know about the history of the environment around us. In centre of a city like Oxford the opportunities to carry out such investigations are inevitably limited by the very nature of the city that we know today. Any new building work likely to turn up evidence of past occupation in the city centre and indeed in the historic suburbs.

A very Good instance of this has happened at Oriel with the discovery of the line of the eastern ditch defending the tenth century town as originally laid out. This is often associated with the burh foundations made by Æthelflæd  Lady of the Mercians ( c.870-918 ) the daughter of King Alfred. This town, whose street plan underlies that of much of the present city centre, is where the town, and later city began as a trading community alongside St Frideswide’s religious foundation. Rebuilding of the kitchens at Oriel has revealed the width and depth of the defensive ditch which lies alongside what is now called Magpie Lane*. A century or so later this town was expanded east and south-eastwards along the line of the High Street down towards Magdalen Bridge. As a result the ditch was filled in or gradually accumulated soil and rubbish and disappeared as a consequence. 

The Oxford Mail reported on the discovery in an article which can be seen at Archaeologists solve 125-year-old mystery about origins of Oxford

More or less the same account can also be seen in the Daily Express at Archaeologists discover hidden secret behind one of the UK's prettiest cities

This is an important  insight into the history of the origins and development of the urban community in Oxford. 

Never let be said that Oriel has neglected its responsibilities to record the history of the city and university, even if we had to pull down the kitchens in order to do so.

 * The various names over the centuries of this narrow lane are of interest, and informative, but far too indelicate for a blog like this. The answer can be found in volume i of The History of the University of Oxford - try the map of Oxford in the thirteenth century.

 

Memories of Imperial Russia in Oxford

The website Royal Central has the following post today which has a special resonance for those of us who live in Oxford:

An Oxford House and Imperial Russia

by Elizabeth Jane Timms

A building in a suburb of Oxford has a remarkably unique history. At first glance, it could be yet another late-Victorian townhouse, although the presence of its distinctive blue double-doors suggests something more unusual. Although now split up into apartments, the building hints at having once been something else, despite having been flats for over 30 years. The building replaced the apothecary and almshouses of the Cutler Boulter Charity on St Clement’s Road. It remained the main dispensary for this East Oxford suburb until 1948 and is, therefore, historically significant to the area. The building had incidentally also been the main A.R.P telephone station for Oxfordshire until 1945. Several years after this, it attracted the interest of the person with whom it is now most closely associated.

Charles Sydney Gibbes with Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna 

Image: Romanov family Flickr / Wikimedia

Charles Sydney Gibbes, who became a well-recognised figure in Oxford, was originally from Yorkshire and educated at St John’s College, Cambridge. Gibbes initially went to Russia to teach English to the aristocracy but was later summoned to the Russian Imperial Court to be considered as tutor to the daughters of Tsar Nicholas II, the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia. In 1913, Gibbes became English tutor to the nine-year-old Tsarevich Alexei, the heir-apparent to the throne.

Following the Tsar’s abdication on 2/15 March 1917, the Imperial Family was detained under the Provisional Government, interned as prisoners within their residence of the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo (Tsar’s Village) outside St. Petersburg. Initially, the Imperial Family was moved to the 'Governor's House' at Tobolsk in Siberia, but in April 1918, orders were issued to move the Tsar and his family again, this time to Ekaterinburg. The Imperial Family was housed at the Ipatiev House (also dubbed the House of Special Purpose) where on the night of 16/17 July 1918, the entire family - together with their faithful retainers, the maid Anna Demidova and the former court physician Dr Botkin - were shot in the cellar of the house by Bolsheviks. Gibbes had not been allowed contact with the Imperial Family and was only able to enter the Ipatiev House later, following the murder, in the subsequent period when Ekaterinburg was briefly under the control of the White Army.

Gibbes returned to England and enrolled in an ordination course at St Stephen’s House in 1928; although, he subsequently decided against a career in the Anglican Church. On his return to Harbin, he was received into the Russian Orthodox Church as a tonsured monk, taking as his new name Father Nicholas, after the murdered Tsar Nicholas II. Gibbes again returned to England, moving to Oxford in 1941, where he established an Orthodox congregation in the medieval chapel at Bartlemas, which borders the recreation grounds of Oriel, Jesus and Lincoln Colleges. It was after the end of the Second World War when Gibbes found himself looking for somewhere permanent to settle that he came across the building in Oxford.

Father Nicholas purchased the house in 1949 and converted one ground-floor room of the house into a chapel dedicated to St Nicholas the Wonderworker, where the Russian Imperial Family was mentioned in the services which were celebrated there. It was within this chapel that Gibbes displayed many of the relics which he had preserved and carried with him across the world. Most poignantly perhaps, was the chandelier of red and white glass tulips which hung originally in the ‘House of Special Purpose’ at Ekaterinburg, which Gibbes had salvaged. Among the icons hung in the chapel were those which had been personally given to Gibbes by the Imperial Family or were those rescued from the dustbins and stoves of the ‘House of Special Purpose.’

Elsewhere, Gibbes carefully preserved his other relics of the Imperial Family, which included a handkerchief, pencil-case and bell owned by the Tsarevich Alexei. There was also a pair of Tsar Nicholas II’s felt boots which were kept near the altar. Gibbes established a library behind the chapel, which contained some exercise books of his Imperial pupils Grand Duchesses Maria and Anastasia, as well as some of his photographs. Other items included a coat-of-arms from the imperial yacht Standart and a collection of sleigh bells.

The house was subsequently split into flats, and the chapel that held such poignant relics of the Imperial Family was also turned into a flat. Nothing remains of Gibbes's time there. Much of his collection was sold to the Wernher Collection at Luton Hoo where a memorial chapel was made to house them, consecrated by Archbishop Anthony of Sourozh. When Luton Hoo became a luxury hotel, the Wernher Collection moved to Greenwich and was managed by English Heritage. The Gibbes collection, however, is now in private hands.

The house was successfully nominated as a heritage asset in 2015. It is also a building of spiritual importance regarding the history of Oxford’s Orthodox communities, as the Russian Orthodox Chapel in Oxford was only established much later and not within Gibbes’s lifetime. Appropriately enough, the chapel today contains an engraving of Gibbes in its main entrance hall, showing him as the white-bearded figure in black that he had familiarly become in 1950s Oxford. Fittingly, the chapel contains also icons of the Russian Imperial Family in its window niches, who were finally recognised - following much debate - as Passion Bearers by the Moscow Patriarchate in 2000.

Gibbes died aged 87 in 1963 and is buried in Headington Cemetery, his gravestone bearing the three staves of the Russian Orthodox Cross. In 2013, a memorial service took place at Headington Cemetery to mark his 137^th birthday, attended by the Russian Orthodox Community. The service took place in deep snow; ironically enough, it was a scene that fittingly could have occurred in Russia.

Royal Visit to Oxford

On Tuesday the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall undertook a series of engagements in Oxford, and the visit was covered by the Oxford Mail.

Pictures and "as-it-happens" reports from its webpages can be found at

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/15288532.As_it_happened___Royal_visit_of_Prince_Charles_and_Duchess_of_Cornwall/
and at
http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/15289659.PICTURES___VIDEO__Prince_Charles_and_Camilla_delight_the_crowds_across_the_city/

I have to admit that I did not know the visit was taking place - had I done so I would have gone along to see TRH, but so often in Oxford such visits are not well publicised in advance.

Down by the Isis

Here in Oxford it is Summer Eights Week, leading up to the final races on Saturday afternoon.

Last week the Special Correspondent sent me a very interesting piece on the history of the boat houses and their predecessors the College barges on the Thames - or Isis. It can be seen at https://heartheboatsing.com/2013/04/22/oxford-beer-boathouses-and-barges/ and in particular in respect of the barges gives an insightful account of what was once a distinctive feature of the river.

 

Sir Osbert Lancaster's  depiction of a college barge on a race day for an edition of Sir Max Beerbohm's Zuleika Dobson

Image.pbfa.org

A tour of Reformation Oxford

Last Wednesday I gave a tour of Oxford sites associated with the period 1547-1603. This was for a study week based at Rewley House, the University's Continuing Education section, and followed on from the previous two years when the same tutor and in several cases the same students looked at fifteenth century Oxford and at the period 1485-1547. They have booked me for next year for Jacobean and Caroline Oxford - so I must be doing something right.

Ralph Agas' map of the city from 1578 and the Beerblock drawings of the colleges enable one to visualise the city as it was. It is estimated that the population increased by 50% in the period 1558 -1642, and Hollar's map from the 1670s shows the effect of this on the building pattern.

We walked across the site of the Carmelite friary and looked at Worcester College. Originally built as Gloucester College for Benedictine monks and closed at the dissolution of the monasteries it was bought by Sir Thomas White, the founder of St John's College, and became a centre for recusancy. Gloucester Hall as it became known provided accommodation for the Catesby family, one of whose children was born there recusants, the sibling of Robert, the brains ( if that is the right term? ) behind the Gunpowder Plot. Students from the Hall used to slip away to Mass at the recusant centre at the former nunnery at Godstow a couple of miles upstream.

St John's College on St Giles was also founded by Sir Thomas White, using the former Cistercian St Bernard's College. The college still possesses two banners from the chapel consecration at the refoundation. Two of the most famous recusant martyr priests were members of St John's - the former chaplain St Cuthbert Mayne, the protomartyr from 1577, and St Edmund Campion, a Fellow in the 1560s, and Jesuit mission priest active in 1580-81 when he was captured and executed.

Oppsite is the modern home of Blackfriars in Oxford. In the reign of Queen Mary Spanish Dominicans were in Oxford seeking to understand as well as counteract the spread of Protestantism. Amongst these were Bartolome Carranza, later Archbishop of Toledo, who himself fell foul pf the Spanish Inquisition as can be seen here.

Passing the Martyr's Memorial of 1841 - a curiously backhanded compliment to the Oxford Movement - we looked at the site of the Catherine Wheel inn, at the junction of Magdalen St East and Broad St. It was here in 1589 that two Catholic priests and two laymen were arrested. The landlady was imprisoned for life and the four men were executed on the gallows at the end of Holywell St, where there is now a modern memorial. This incident points, I think, to the part played by inns as meeting places for recusants - as in John Gerard's autobiography in Norwich- and as Catholic "safe-houses"

In Broad St there is the site of the burnings of Latimer and Ridley in 1555 and of Cranmer the following year. At the time this was the remains of the city ditch, overlooked by the city wall. I am very skeptical of the claims that the scorching of the former gates of Balliol are from these fires - to do so would have required a pyre big enough to burn down central Oxford ...

Before their execution the three degraded bishops were held in the Bocardo prison which was in and over the Northgate of the city and adjoined the tower of St Michael at the Northgate.

Bocado just before its demolition in 1771

Image:oxfordhistory.org.uk

It was from the top of the tower that Cranmer was forced to watch the death of his two colleagues. Whilst all three were held there the previous year they were taken out to watch the restored Corpus Christi procession - which they of course saw as idolatrous, and one of the bishops hid in a shop doorway to avoid witnessing it. A door from Bocado is preserved in the treasury at St Michael's.

Bocado and St Michael's from the south

Image:TheAngus.rpc.ox.ac.uk

In St Michael's - itself a fascinating text book of parish church evolution - we looked at the font. This was brought from the church of St Martin at carfax, of which only the tower survives. the particular interest of it is that Shakespeare may well have stood by it in old St Martin's when his godson, the son of the owner sof the Crown Inn where he stayed on journeys between London and Stratford, was baptised. The Crown still exists as apublic house and I understand there is still a room there with sixteenth century painted decoration similar to that to be seen in Pizza Express in the former Golden Cross Inn.

It was along Cornmarket that Queen Elizabeth I made her entry into the city in 1566. She stayed in Christ Church, where anmongst the loyal addresses was was one delivered by the young Anglican Deacon Edmund Campion. As Alice Hogg points out in her excellent God's Secret Agents the government had already lost the sympathy of many within the University by this date, and mot oxford colleges provided martyrs for the Catholic cause.

The Queen came into Oxford from Woodstock manor, where she had been held under house arrest in the mid-1550s, so it was not perhaps a place of happy memories for her.

Jesus College, founded in 1571, is the only Oxford college founded in her reign. it was sdpecifically designed to be a college for students from Wales, and still keeps St David's day as its principal feastday, although the actual Welsh connectiuon has, I gather, largely disappeared. Over High Table in the Hall is afine portrait of Queen Elizabeth I.

Trinity College was founded in the reign of Queen Mary by Sir Thomas Pope. this was in 1554, and like St John's was part of the attempt to re-Catholicise the country. This is discussed in Eamonn Duffy's recent study Fires of Faith, which shows how much was achieved in a short period. Like St John' s it had been amonastic college, Durham College, for the Benedictines from the northern province. Sir Thomas' letters to his stepson, a very reluctant student at the new college are a reminder that time does not change generationakl conflict within families about future career plans.

We looked at the Bodleian, and how Sir Thomas Bodley (1545-1613) saved the Library from the decay into which the pillaging by the Royal Commissioners under King Edward had reduced it, and how he created the basis upon which it has developed, including the copyright status. His memorial in Merton chapel, where he had once been a Fellow has the delicate touch that the pilasters flanking his bust are composed of two piles of books.

The Bodley monument in Merton Chapel

Image: merton.ox.ac.uk

All Souls College survived the threat of dissolution along with the other chantries in 1548

St Mary's University church witnessed the trials and condemnation of the three Anglican bishops burned in the 1550s,a nd they and aselection of Oxford martyrs of all traditions from the 1530s to 1681 are commemorated on a modern plaque in the church. In the chancel - which always strikes me as conveying much of what many churches must have looked like four centuries or so ago, lacking stained glass, whitewashed, stripped of colour and most decoration - is the grave of Amy Robsart, whose mysterious death at Cumnor Place outside Oxford in the autumn of 1560 cast a serious shadow over the ambitions of her husband, Lord Robert Dudley.

It was in the church that Edmund Campion left 400 copies of his Decem Rationes, printed in secret at Stonor for the commencement ceremony on June 27th 1581 - a typical act of bravura. His capture occurred soon after at Lyford Grange where he was on July 14th and15th when he was apprehended.

St Edmund Campion1540-1581

Image:communion.stblogs.org

There is a useful set of links about St Edmund at The Jesuit Institute - St Edmund Campion SJ

Facing the church is Oriel, and on the High Street facade a statue of Cardinal Allen (1532-1594), of whom there is an account here.
Allen, an Oriel and St Mary's Hall man founded the seminary at Douai which helped maintain the supply of priests to England, later supplemented by the Jesuits. He was a key figure in maintaing the Catholic community, and, placed alongside Newman one could argue Oriel has produced the two most important post-Reformation Cardinals. Manning would, I think, be a close runner up - but he was a Balliol man...

That more or less concluded the tour - we had already run over time, so there was not the hope of talking about how Magdalen College's records recount changing liturgies and musical accompaniment through the purchase of new part books and such like, or to tell stories of an Edwardian Fellow there, Thomas Bickley profaning the Reserved Sacrament, and after exile under Queen Mary becoming an Elizabethan Warden of Merton and Bishop of Chichester ( 1586-96 ). Incidentally regular readers may recall I was thurifer at a 450th anniversary Requiem for Cardinal Pole in the chapel at Magdalen, his college, in 2008.

Nor was there time to look at a house of about 1600 just off the High Street that is now a Thai restaurant ...

Ah well, such are the historic treasures and associations to be found on a short walk around Oxford.

St Nicholas Owen

Today is, in this archdiocese, the feast day of St Nicholas Owen. This is a slightly revised version of a post I wrote last year.

A modern statue of St Nicholas Owen

Image: Church of St Nicholas Owen Little Thornton website

St Nicholas was the Jesuit laybrother who used his remarkable skills as a carpenter and stonemason to construct numerous ingenious priest holes to safeguard mission priests in the late sixteenth century. He was born in Oxford c.1550 in a house on the junction of what is now Queen Street and St Ebbe's Street, and his whole family were of Catholic and recusant sympathies. He died as a result of torture in the Tower of London on March 2nd 1606, having been apprehended in the follow-up to the Gunpowder Plot. His refusal to the point of death to disclose the names of priests and their hiding places safeguarded the Catholic mission at this critical time

The recent Oxford DNB life of him by Michael Hodgetts can be read here. There is also an online biography of St Nicholas, who was canonized in 1970 here, and there are some linked articles here about his life and about his capture and death.

Massacre in Oxford

Well that headline got your attention, but it is rather stale news. Today is the feast of St Brice and the anniversary of the massacre on that day of the Danes in Oxford, and elsewhere, in 1002 on the orders of King Æthelred II. It was ethnic cleansing eleventh century style.

There is an informative assessment online of King Æthelred II which reflects current historical thinking about his life and reign. An article about the massacre, with an interesting discussion of various historians interpretations of what actually happened can be seen here. As the article shows by quoting himself in a charter to St Frideswide's (now Christ Church cathedral) from 1004 things had been violent in Oxford two years earlier:

For it is fully agreed that to all dwelling in this country it will be well known that, since a decree was sent out by me with the counsel of my leading men and magnates, to the effect that all the Danes who had sprung up in this island, sprouting like cockle amongst the wheat, were to be destroyed by a most just extermination, and thus this decree was to be put into effect even as far as death, those Danes who dwelt in the afore-mentioned town, striving to escape death, entered this sanctuary of Christ, having broken by force the doors and bolts, and resolved to make refuge and defence for themselves therein against the people of the town and the suburbs; but when all the people in pursuit strove, forced by necessity, to drive them out, and could not, they set fire to the planks and burnt, as it seems, this church with its ornaments and its books. Afterwards, with God's aid, it was renewed by me.

The King does not appear at all penitent, other than for the incidental damage to St Frideswide's church, even though the massacre probably caused the Danish invasions which were to force him into exile in Normandy a few years later and after his restoration and death the establishment of the Danish line of Kings from 1016 until 1042.

A gold mancus of King Æthelred II
1003-06
British Museum

Image:Wikipedia

King Æthelred II
An illumination from the Abingdon Chronicle of c.1220

Image:Wikipedia

In 2008 building work for an extension to St John's college revealed a series of skeletons of young men who had suffered violent deaths and been dumped in mass grave outside the city on the site of a bronzeage temple circle. The dating would indicate that these were victims of the St Brice's day massacre. The choice of this place for the burial suggests that a place associated with demons or suchlike in their minds was where the inhabitants of Oxford thought the Danes belonged. There is a report on the discovery here.

Oxford city walls

I spent an agreeable morning guiding two Australian visitors around the city centre of Oxford, concentrating mainly on Catholic sites of interest. One other place which particularly interested them was the stretch of city wall which survives in the middle of New College.

This is one of the less well known surviving pieces of medieval Oxford, but also one of the more remarkable. Its survival is due to an agreement made between the founder of the college, William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester and the townsmen that his college would maintain the walls in good repair where they bordered its site.

In recent decades the traditional inspection of the walls by the City Council has been revived, and triennielly a delegation of Councillors, in full robes, march off to check that this part of the city defences are still in good order.

The city wall within the grounds of New College

Image: carolynhack on Flickr

In the north-east section in the grounds of New College and St Edmund Hall Oxford has some of the best preserved walls of any English city, and elsewhere they survive for much of the circuit, which is easy to follow. There is an excellent survey with illustrations here.

Today they are largely hidden from view. When Ralph Agas drew his ariel map of the city in 1578 the walls still stood out clearly marking the city off from its environs - a bit like Avila in Spain still appears today. Over the next century the expansion of the city population meant that housing encroached along the northern and eastern faces of the walls, hiding them from view. The ditch in front gradually silted up, reducing the elevation and impact. In the Civil War the effective defences of the city were the earthen embankments and ditches created by the Royalists so as to include the suburbs, not the city walls.

John Speed's map of Oxford 1610, a simplified version of Ralph Agas' map of 1578. The south is at the top.

The town walls are clearly marked. Those around New College are in the bottom left hand corner of the circuit.

The question remains as to why the walls were constructed. The tenth century fortified burh is easily explained in the expansion of the control of the Wessex based monarchy over the southern part of Mercia, but, apart from border towns , after the Norman Conquest did not really need defensive walls. Sieges of towns were unknown in medieval England given the strength of central government and the nature of the conflicts that arose. Apart from Exeter and Norwich in 1549 the only urban centre that really did face the risk was the capital. London did face attack and occupation, or the threat of it, in 1381, 1414, 1450, 1461, 1497 and 1554. It had a circuit of walls but the seat of government at Westminster was not walled.

Walls in London and Oxford, as elsewhere, look to have been an inheritance from the past which towns maintained because they were there, and signified the identity and prestige of the community. In a sense building ambitious town walls and, even more so, gateways - which sometimes were the only features, the town otherwise relying on a ditch and acommon boundary line of houses - was to the fourteenth and fifteenth century urban patriarchate what the grand Town Hall was to nineteenth century civic fathers, or the Conference Centre is today. Town walls helped Oxford and other towns define themselves against outsiders.

Ironically in the case of Oxford there was far more likely to be problems within the city in the form of Town-Gown conflicts. Here tensions between two communities living cheek by jowl could easily spill over mto violence. The last of these riots occurred in the mid-ninetenth century. Most famous of these in Oxford was the 1355 St Scholastica's day riot, the anniversary of which fell this week. The result of that was the University, which could always then rely on the backing of the Crown and government, being given even greater control over the administration of Oxford. As a result until the 1820s each year the Mayor and Corporation had to attend a penitential service in St Mary's on the anniversary. Maybe scrapping that was the beginning of the decline of the University...

St Nicholas Owen

Had today not been a Sunday it would have been, in this archdiocese, the feast day of St Nicholas Owen. 

St Nicholas was the Jesuit laybrother who used his remarkable skills as a carpenter and stonemason to construct numerous ingenious priest holes to safeguard mission priests in the late sixteenth century. Born in Oxford  c.1550 in a house on the junction of what is now Queen Street and St Ebbe's Street he died as a result of torture in the Tower of London on March 2nd 1606, having been apprehended in the follow-up to the Gunpowder Plot.

There are biographies of St Nicholas, who was canonized in 1970, here, and here, and here.

St Giles Fair

Today is the second and last day of St Giles Fair here in Oxford. A popular saint in twelfth century England St Giles is the patron of the parish that developed at that time around the northern end of the wide road towards Woodstock and Banbury outside the north gate of the Anglo-Saxon city. As his feast day falls on September 1st it was in past centuries a good time at which to hold a fair to buy and sell as the autumn set in. Many towns held fairs at this season - most famously Winchester - but not many survive. In Oxford it still does.

Here St Giles' Fair is very much part of the life of the city, but not especially of the University, which is not up at this time of year. Oxford, happily, has not, like my home town of Pontefract did in the interwar years, exiled such a fair to waste ground away from the centre but gives up the whole of St Giles Street - still the main route into the city centre from the north - over to the Fair on the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday following September 1st.

Picking one's way through a wide rage of ever more spectacular, noisy, flashing, and not infrequently, frankly terrifying, rides and sideshows, not to mention the pervasive smell of the cooking of burgers and hot dogs, gives a new quality to walking to and from Mass on these days. What St Giles - a hermit and then an abbot - would make of it is open for speculation, but it is, nevertheless, and even if the people attending never give him a thought, a celebration of him.

To my mind, what is also good about it, firstly, is that it is a living tradition - loud and
vulgar it may be, but it reasserts a popular way of letting off steam and enjoying oneself. Last nights drizzle and rain did not appear to be damping that.

Secondly, it is really heartening to see so many families there - fathers and mothers taking their children to the fair, rather as I was fifty years ago. The fair may be garish and dressed up in the latest modern fashion, but at heart it is as it was fifty or a hundred years ago. In a simple and unsophisticated way it reasserts popular family values, and long may it do so.

Overheard in Oxford

On Saturday evening at about 10pm as I walked along Broad street in Oxford I am sure I heard the following. One of the younger, and more persistent, sellers of The Big Issue was leaving a group of other sellers and 'street people'. As he did so he invited them to come round to see him (implying he has a permanent base) and see a video game (implying he has a video player and television on which to play it) which he had bought for £40 the previous day (more than implying the availability of cash for, let's face it, an inessential).

I do not deny that there is a homelessness problem in Oxford. I have seen people sleeping and living rough in the city centre - not least people living in tents in the churchyard at St Thomas' a few years ago. However hearing such comments as his makes one very wary indeed of giving to beggars. The doubtful or fraudulent beggars' saddest victims are, of course, the genuinely homeless we don't help for fear - and a not unreasonable one - of being conned. That has happened to me in the past I have realised subsequently, and it made me very angry.

Oxford in July

Now as someone who makes part of their living by showing people around Oxford I am not one to complain at the presence of visitors in the city,but, and it is a big BUT, each summer the city seems to be swamped by tourists, and each year seems worse than previous ones. That would be all right if they were really interested in the history and architecture, the culture and the ambience of Oxford. To be honest, many of those who come are not. So far, so bad.

This year seems to have more than any previous one I can recall a superabundance of European language students. Now I get the impression that individually these are probably perfectly pleasant teenagers ( Is that an oxymoron? Never mind) of the French, Italian or Spanish variety.

Collectively the effect is rather different. Frankly, it is frightful. It is like making one's way through an interactive film - something like "Oxford - Invasion of the Eurobrats"

Those of you who have experienced Oxford this year will appreciate the point, and those who have not will get it, if I compare the effect to the film "Gremlins"... (provided you have seen that film.)

Eurobraticus Oxoniensis

Meanwhile change goes on in the city, and being change it is usually problematical, and often not for the better. Thus the former Border's bookshop, as well as another shop in the central area is being turned into Tesco supermarkets. Useful I agree, but is that how we want to see the future of central Oxford, dominated on its main streets by supermarkets?

As a further sign of change and decay in all I see (and I manage to see a lot of it) Gills, the ironmongers off the High, are closing at the end of August. This is a consequence of failing to negotiate a satisfactory new lease. Not only is it the loss of a traditional business, but the firm claims to have been here since 1530 - so it is older than many colleges, and indeed institutions such as the Bodleian (1602) and the Ashmolean (1683).