commonly called, to protect the gold and jewels which hung about the earlier shrine.
Under the Prior Guimond there was certainly a school connected with the convent. Whatever the origin of the University may have been—and there are those who maintain that it sprang from the 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, the first educational institution of Oxford, just as when you stand in the Lady Chapel of the Cathedral you are on the site of the old priory, the mother church of the University and town.
Another faint echo of the priory days may be traced in the annual Cakestall in S. Olds, which is a survival of the Fair of S. Frideswide 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 in favour of the Pie-Powder Court,[2] held by the steward of the priory for the redress of all disorders committed during the fair.
The entrance to the Cathedral is through the two arches in the cloisters, directly opposite to you as you pass into Tom Quad beneath Tom Tower. This curious entrance reminds you at once of the peculiar position of the Cathedral as three parts College chapel. Tom Quad is the largest quadrangle in Oxford (264 by 261 feet), and was begun by Wolsey on a scale which is sufficient evidence of the extreme magnificence of his plans for “Cardinal’s College.” It was begun, but has never been finished. The shafts and marks of the arches, from which the vaults of the intended cloister 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 superb kitchen, and the still more magnificent hall, with its valuable collection of portraits. The vaulted chamber, which contains the staircase by which this hall is approached, is one of the most beautiful things in Oxford. The lovely fan-tracery of the vault and the central pillar were the work of “one Smith, an artificer from London,” and were built as late as 1640, in the reign of Charles II. It affords a striking instance of the fact in architectural history, that good Gothic persisted in Oxford long after the influence of Italian work had destroyed it elsewhere.
To make room for this magnificent quadrangle of his the Cardinal also destroyed the three western bays of the Church of S. Frideswide. He had intended to build a new chapel 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 have been traced, and they show that the west end ran in a line with the octagonal turrets in S. Aldate’s Street, and the walls reached nearly to Fell’s passage into Peckwater.
For its massive walls Wolsey used some of the stones from the demolished Osney Abbey. The building at the time of his fall had risen some feet above the ground. Dean Fell, it is supposed, 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 chippings from his own work to lay on it. The chippings were white, so the walk got the name of White. This was corrupted at the end of the eighteenth century to Wide Walk, and hence to Broad