[1] Cornhill Magazine.
[2] Pie-Powder Court—a Summary Court of Justice held at fairs, when the suitors were usually country clowns with dusty feet—(pied poudré).
[3] The earliest mention of Oxford occurs in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 912. It is there spelt Oxnaforda and Oxanforda, and in Domesday Book it is spelt Oxeneford. Coins from Eadward’s day onwards show that Ox at least was regarded as an essential element in the word, and it is most easy to assume that the place was called after the Ford of the Oxen in the river here. But the easiest explanation is seldom the best. And a rival theory explains the name as a corruption of Ouse-ford, or Ousen-ford, i.e., the Ford over the River. For the evidence is strongly in favour of the probability that the name Ouse was at one time applied to the Thames, which indeed has one of the dialectic forms of the word Ouse retained in it, viz. Tam-ese, though the theory that the junction of the Isis or Ouse and Thame made Tamisis = Thames, is fanciful. The other form of the word is retained in the Oseneye of Osney Abbey, and a tributary stream retains the hardened form Ock. Therefore Ousen-ford or Oxen-ford may mean the River-ford. There is no certainty in these matters, but the latter derivation commends itself most. [See Parker’s “Early Oxford” (O.H.S.), to which I have been frequently indebted in the first part of this chapter.]
[4] The manor took its name from a well that lay to the north side of the Church of S. Cross. The manor-house, itself (near the racquet courts) was recently used as a public-house, called the Cock-pit, because there was a pit where the citizens of Oxford fought their mains. It was afterwards converted into a Penitentiary, a home for fallen women. Traces of the Holy Well have recently been discovered beneath the new chapel.
[5] The wall is clearly traceable between 57 and 58 High Street. The passage by No. 57 is a piece of the old Royal Way under the walls. This way can be traced in King’s Street from its western edge to the gardens of the small houses facing the New Examination Schools. It occurs again in Ship Street, from Jesus College stables to the rear of the houses facing them, and again between the Divinity School and the west front of the Theatre. (See Hurst, “Topography.”)
[6] The crypt, which had been beneath the apse of the chapel, was afterwards replaced approximately in its position, north-east of the tower. The capitals of the four dwarf pillars which support the groining are interesting, and should be compared and contrasted with those in S. Peter’s in the East.
[7] The original crypt is preserved and a Norman arcade, east of the north aisle.
[8] Aldrich was a man of remarkable and versatile talents. The author of admirable hand-books on logic, heraldry and architecture, he was equally skilled in chemistry and theology. In music he earned both popularity and the admiration of musicians by his catches, services and anthems; and as an architect he has left his mark on Oxford, in Peckwater Quadrangle (Ch. Ch.) and All Saint’s Church. As a man of sense he loved his pipe, and wrote an amusing catch to tobacco; as a wit he gave five good reasons for not abstaining from wine:
“A friend, good wine, because you’re dry
Because you may be, by and bye;—
Or any other reason why.”
It was under Aldrich that the Battle of the Books arose, the great literary controversy, which began with the immature work of a Christ Church student and ended with the masterpieces of Swift and Bentley.