Commemoration sermon PREACHED IN 2rf)e arat{)ctrral arijxurij of (Eijtist \\\ ©xfortr SUNDAY AFTER ST. FEIDESWIDE'S DAY, 1880 BEING THE SEVEN HUNDREDTH YEAR AFTER THE OPENING OF THE PRESENT CHURCH H. G. LIDDELL DEAN OF CHRIST CHURCH [Not for publication.] / have been asked to print this Sermon^ that some who heard it * 7nay be able to keep a permanent memorial of the occasiojt.^ I only wish it were more worthy to serve the required purpose. Perhaps however it may awaken some slumberifig interest, or may induce one or two to tmroll the ancient history of the place. A summary of this history has been recently drawn up and is now placed in different parts of the Church. H. G. L. Ch. Ch. Nov. I, 1880. A COMMEMORATION SERMON. I Chron. xxii. 9. Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest : . . , for his name shall be Solomon (i.e. Peaceable), and I will give peace and quietness tinto Israel in his days. The hopes and anticipations with which a child receives his name are often doomed to disappoint- ment. The Son of David indeed was rightly named Solomon, the Peaceable, and the city in which he held royal state was in his days justly styled Salem, Jerusalem, — Peace, they shall see Peace. But his- tory is full of examples to the contrary. Princes who were born amid rejoicings, and were styled the Desired, the Well-beloved, and the like, lived to see themselves dishonoured and execrated by their sub- jects. A like contrast is suggested by the name of her whose memory I desire to recall this day — the name of St. Frideswide, the first founder of this Church, who in creating her small conventual community, unconsciously laid the foundation-stones of this ancient City and this famous University. At her birth she received the name of Frides-wide (Fri'Ses-wi'Se), or the Bond of Peace. The happy word of Peace was pronounced over her cradle as over the cradle of the wise King of Israel. But her destiny was not like that of the Peaceable 4 King; instead of days of peace and quietness, she was (if tradition can be trusted) doomed to a life of continual trouble and unrest. It is just 700 years since the remains of St. Frideswide were transferred from their first resting- place to the shrine prepared to receive them in this very church in which we meet. A contemporary record, written by the Prior, and still preserved in the Bodleian Library \ tells us how in the year 1 1 80 — just 700 years ago — in the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, as the deputy of King Henry ^, the Papal Legate to Scotland, four bishops, and a great assembly of notable persons from all parts of the kingdom, the translation took place. About a century later 'a new and more precious shrine was erected near the place where the old one stood/ and into this the old shrine was removed. The shrines have been destroyed ; but we know the place of the second, at least ; and this has lately been marked with affectionate interest by one of our present Canons. The choir of the church, in its general aspect, remains the same as it was when the first translation took place. In England we love to preserve the records of old times, and to associate our present thoughts with the memories of the past. It happened that the day set apart by ancient custom to be conse- crated to the remembrance of St. Frideswide, Oct. ^ Prior Philip, De Miraculis See Frideswide, Digby MSS, 177, referred to by A. Wood, Atinah, a. 1180. 2 Wood says, '■The king, bishops, and nobles being present,' But, though Prior Philip says that the King had convened the Notables {con'voca'verat), he afterwards uses words that make the King's presence improbable : ' Praedicto . . . invictissimo rege votis favente, suumque benignissime praebente consensum,^ ^ Wood, Annals, a. 1289. - UIUC . "'•cripi'' 1 9th, nearly coincided with the time at which our restored Chapter-house was ready for use, and we thought fit on that day to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the existence of our ancient church, and to honour the name of its patron Saint in conjunction with it. Felix faustunique sit ! May we in these our days enjoy more of rest and quiet- ness than was vouchsafed to her who was named the Bond of Peace ! The fabric of our church thus carries- us back 700 years ; but the name of St. Frideswide belongs to a period of far more remote antiquity. It is between iioo and 1200 years (if we may believe tradition) since she was born^. Her father is said to have been a Mercian of rank. But whether he belonged to what we now call Oxfordshire is un- certain. For the limits of Mercia and Wessex were at that time unsettled ; though by the time that Frideswide had reached womanhood, the Thames had become or was becoming the northern boundary of Wessex, and Oxfordshire, if not Mercian, was at least subject to the authority of the Mercian kings. This was a remarkable time. During the pre- ceding century, Northumberland, which then com- prehended all the country from the Forth to the H umber, had been the paramount power in the island. About one hundred 3^ears before the birth of Frideswide, Edwin, the great prince who has left his name in the capital city of Scotland, and the memorial of his conversion to Christianity in the Church which, in the course of seven or eight ' Probably between 720 and 730 a.d. hundred years, grew into the magnificent Minster of York, received the rite of baptism at the hands of a Bishop from Kent. York became the centre not only of political power, but of learning and civilisation. The greater part of the Anglian literature then produced perished amid the Danish ravages in the ensuing centuries. But some of the works written under the shelter of the Abbeys of the Northern kingdom still survive : such as the poems of Csedmon^ who from the distant heights that overhang the town now called Whitby ^, struck the first notes of the Anglian lyre, and gave presage, though in rude and uncertain tone, of the glory which was hereafter to be thrown over our English tongue by Chaucer, and Shakespeare, and Milton ; such as the Church History of Venerable Bede, who on the banks of the Tyne wrote those annals which to the present day retain an almost classical authority, and show how much we have lost in not having a like honest chronicler of the following centuries. This proud claim to be the first foster-mother of English literature, supported by the fact that England and the English tongue took their name from the An- glians of the North, not from the Saxons of Wessex ^, was retained by Northumberland after the fall of her political power ; nearly a century later Alcuin of York became the Secretary and ' intellectual Prime ^ Assuming, that is, that the Poems now remaining are rightly attri- buted to the elder Caedmon. "^ Whit-by (in Old Norse H'vtta-byr = White-tonvn), being the later Danish name for the more ancient Streones-halc, which is interpreted by Bede, Sinus Fart, the Lighthouse Bay, Hist. Eccl. iii. 25. Others write it Streones-heal or -hal, the Lighthouse Hall. St. Hilda, who founded the Abbey there, preceded Frideswide by more than a century, ^ See Earle, Philology of the English Tongue, §§ 23-25. Minister ^ ' of the great Emperor of France and Germany. But before the birth of St. Frideswide, the sceptre had departed from the North, and had been seized by the monarch of her native Mercia. Even in the time of Edwin, Penda, the fierce heathen King of Mercia, — that is, as I have said, of nearly all the Midland district of England from the H umber southward — disputed the supremacy of the North- ern monarch ; he became king in the year before Edwin's baptism (626), and seven years later Edwin fell in battle, fighting against the Mercian. But Edwin was followed by worthy successors, who for more than fifty years maintained the supremacy of Northumberland. Penda fell fighting, in his turn ; and with his fall Anglo-Saxon heathenism received its death-blow, A few years later, and Sussex, the last among the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, became Christian. Before the year 700, all Saxon England had adopted the faith of Christ. The readiness with which our ancestors received the new Faith is extraordinary. It was but thirty years after Augustine set foot on the shores of Kent, that the successful mission to the North took place, and Northumberland declared itself Christian ; it was but thirty years more, and the Mercians also embraced Christianity. This rapid spread of Christ's religion was not due to violence or constraint, such as was afterwards used without scruple by Charle- magne in converting the Saxons of North Germany. Christianity, it has been observed, won its way among our fathers without having recourse to those rude methods. Ethelbert of Kent, when he ^ The phrase is that of Guizot, cited by Dean Milman, History of Latin Christianity, ii. p. 306. bowed his head to be washed with the purifying water, declared that he left his subjects free to follow him or to retain their ancient faiths In a like spirit, as it appears, Edwin of Northumberland received the Faith of Christ. After his death, con- fusion had prevailed for a time in the Northern kingdom, and the progress of Christianity was arrested, till King Oswald sent for aid to the Scot- tish Christians, who had some time previously passed over from Ireland, and made their famous settlement in lona. His request was complied with, and Aidan became Bishop of Lindisfarne, an island which, under his saintly rule, promised to become to the Eastern coast what lona had long been to the Western. But these fair prospects were interrupted by the fact that dissensions arose between the Northumbrian ecclesiastics who looked to the Roman Pontiff as their chief, and the Scottish Missionaries who derived their Christianity, inde- pendently of Rome, from the Churches of the East. The points on which they were at variance are well- known : at that time they were deemed of high importance ; at the present day they might be re- garded as insignificant, had we not sad experience that the peace of the Church in our own times has been disturbed by matters relatively of still less importance. Happily for the peace of the North- umbrian Church, the chief of the Scottish mis- sionaries, St. Aidan, was a man of true Christian charity and genuine apostolic spirit. Bede himself, though a strong advocate of the Roman Church, bears warm testimony to the pure and Christian ' Bede, i. 26, quoted by Mr. Freeman, History of the Norman Conquesty i. p. 28, second edit. character of the Scottish bishop, — testimony honour- able alike to him who gave and to him who re- ceived it ^ When the mild authority of Aidan was removed by his death, the zeal of both parties forced on the burning questions of the day, and it was impossible any longer to avoid an attempt at solu- tion. A Council was called at Whitby, under the presidency of the Northumbrian King Oswy, and the leaders on both sides appeared to urge their claims. The arguments do not appear to have been of the most convincing kind. But the result was that the Roman views prevailed, and were, for the most part, peaceably accepted ^ This spirit of Chris- tian patience and good sense, this disposition not to insist upon preconceived opinions in indifferent matters against the declared judgement of the Council, showed itself in active life. The Chris- tianity of our fathers, as our most recent historian remarks, did not indeed prevent war among the different powers among which England was still divided ; but it ' distinctly humanised the way in which war was carried on ^' About the time, then, of St. Frideswide's birth, Mercia was the paramount power in England, and Christianity of a very genuine character was spread- ing itself from the north southward. ' Hist. Eccl. iii. 17. The words are worth quoting: 'Scripsi autem haec de persona et operibus viri praefati, nequaquam in eo laudans . . . hoc, quod de observatione Paschae minus perfecte sapiebat ; immo hoc multum detestans, . . . sed quasi verax historicus, simpliciter ea quae . . . laude sunt digna in ejus actibus laudans atque ad utilitatem legentium memoriae commendans, — studium videlicet pacis et caritatis, continentiae et humilitatis, . . . industriam faciendi simul et docendi mandata caelestia, solertiam lectionis et vigiliarum, auctoritatem sacerdote dignam redar- guendi superbos et potentes pariter et infirmos consolandi, ac pauperes recreandi vel defendendi clementiam.' "^ Bede, Hist. Eccl. iii. 25. ^ Freeman, id supra, p. 32. lO But, as in the original growth of Christ's reHgion, it was confined chiefly to the people of the towns, while the country people — the pagani — retained their heathen beliefs, so no doubt it was with the old Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The rude people of the country still lived the life they had brought with them from the shores of the Baltic ; they were scat- tered thinly through the regions now so thickly peopled ; and it would be long, in the common course of things, before the influence of the new teachers could reach people living, as at this day the new settlers in the Western States of America, widely separated from each other. To meet this difficulty, zealous persons went forth from such towns as then existed, and founded religious houses in remote and unvisited districts, so as to extend the softer influ- ences of civilisation and the humanising power of Christianity to places and people that were lying in solitude and darkness. The foundation of a number of our ancient Abbeys can be traced to the early Saxon times ; among them not the least famous is the time-honoured Church in which we are now assembled. What changes have passed over this place since Frideswide planted her humble community here ! The ground surrounding the nunnery at Godstowe, after making due allowance, may convey some notion of what Oxford was at that time. Meadows unbroken by human habitations or human cultivation, a river wandering through them as it listed, un- barred by locks, or weirs, or mills, the hills down to their margin clothed in primeval forest. The bank of gravel which still slopes down to what we call Christ Church Meadow, offered a dry and pleasant II site ; the river supplied fish for the inmates of the new convent ; the Trill-mill stream bears testimony by its name to the fact that its water was in early times, perhaps the earliest, used to turn the wheel which ground their corn ; the neighbouring forests supplied abundant wood for fuel, as well as game for food, and acorns for the swine ; the rich meadows of the valley furnished pasture to the flocks and herds. In those days, no doubt, the existence of such a peaceful community exercised a humanising and softening influence over the rude thanes and their clansmen and serfs, who had as yet perhaps hardly heard the name of Christ. We know little of our first Foundress, except that she was our Foundress. Legends, half romantic, half grotesque, gathered round her name, some doubtless based on truth, others due to the im- agination of her votaries. The most striking inci- dents of this legendary life have been embodied in the series of pictures which adorn the great win- dow at the east end of what is now called the Latin Chapel, — one of the first essays of a great artist in the art of glass-painting. We there see how she devoted herself and all her worldly goods to the service of Christ and her poor brethren ; how she refused all the ofl"ers made by the Prince of Mercia to share his future state ; how he pur- sued and persecuted her in the hope of bending her will to his own ; how she eluded all his attempts, and finally died in the odour of sanctity, blessed by the poor and ignorant people to whom she had devoted her troubled life. Her original foundation was not destined to last long. It was superseded by a community of secular 12 Canons, and took its final shape as an Augustinian Priory about the year 1122 ^ But the Church re- tained the name of Frideswide ; and her shrine be- came a centre of devotion to all the midland district of England. As in all medieval religion, here also there was a strange mixture of superstitious practice with true religious life. On the one hand, divers miracles were attributed to the reliques of the simple-minded woman who 'spent herself in works of charity and piety, and never dreamed of arro- gating to herself anything like supernatural influence. On the other hand, the Priory seems to have be- come a nursing-mother of the University. One monument, with an accompanying window, still marks the burial-place of a youth of the great Courtenay family^, as we in our days endeavour to perpetuate the memory of those young men who are torn untimely from the midst of us. The Chancellor and Scholars of the University used to resort twice a year in solemn procession to St. Frideswide's shrine, — a custom which, I suppose, is continued in the custom of having the University sermons preached in this Church on certain great days. 1 Under Guimond, a reputed Chaplain of Henry I. The tomb under one of the arches that separate the Latin Chapel from the Church was, till recently, supposed to mark his resting-place. It belongs to a later time, and is perhaps the resting-place of Alexander de Sutton, who was Prior from 1294 to 13 16. 2 A small brass on a grave-stone in the Chapel adjoining the North Choir aisle represents the figure of the youth, with this inscription beneath it : Hie jacet Ed'vardus Courtenay, films Hugonis Courtenay, filii Comitis De'voniae, cujus animae propicietur Deus. Above the figure are the arms of the Courtenays, and in a neighbouring window the same arms are repeated. The window belongs to the fourteenth century. In that century were four Hugh de Courtenays. But the description of the youth's father will apply only to Hugh, who became second Earl of Devon, or to his son Hugh surnamed le Fit%, one of the heroes of Cre<;y, who never succeeded to the title. But at the Reformation the zeal of the Reformers could not tolerate the superstition which had gath- ered round the shrine. It was ruthlessly destroyed \ The reliques of the saint which had, in the usual fashion of the times, been made a source of supersti- tious gain, would also have been destroyed, had they not been secreted by her votaries. Catherine Cathie, the wife of Peter Martyr, who had been appointed Canon of this Church and Professor of Theology, was buried, probably, near the spot where the shrine had stood. Sermons were preached contrasting the pious zeal of the German Protestant with the super- stitious practices that had tarnished the simplicity of the Saxon lady. When the Roman Church, under Mary Tudor, recovered a brief authority, Catherine's body was cast out, and the reliques of St. Frideswide restored to their former resting- place. The quarrel was at length settled by the order of Elizabeth, that the remains of Catherine Cathie should be buried in the same grave with the reliques of St. Frideswide ^. It is needless to dwell on the wild and scandalous scenes which our Church then witnessed. It is humiliating to compare these scenes with the calmer spirit that pervaded the councils of the Church in the old Northumbrian days. And now, as we are approaching the close of the nineteenth century, we strive to repair the injustice done by our fathers of the Reformation to her who must be regarded as the foundress, not only of Christ Church, but of Oxford. We hope and be- ^ A few fragments came to light during the recent restoration of the church. They are preserved in the gallery of the south transept, and are enough to show that the shrine must have been a piece of exquisite workmanship. ■" See the story, given in much detail, in Wood's /Innals, a. 556. 14 lieve that in these our days we can cling to what is good and beautiful in the ancient Church without necessarily adopting the superstitious practices that were engrafted on the original tree. We have just accepted gratefully the beautiful Reredos, which we owe to the pious generosity of two members of the House, without fearing on the one hand any renewal of idolatrous worship, or on the other any fresh outbreak of iconoclastic fury. We have dismissed the superstitions that obscured the pure simplicity of St. Frideswide's name ; we look back with love and reverence to the virtues and charities of the saintly lady. Her history, legendary if it be, has been commemorated (as I have noticed) in a special window. When the late censors of the House pre- sented our beautiful Lectern to the Church, they selected the figure of St. Frideswide to adorn one of its three niches. When the friends of the late Archdeacon Clerke agreed to preserve his memory by means of a stained-glass window, they chose St. Frideswide's form to represent his connexion with our Church. When, a few days since, we handselled our restored Chapter-house, we took St. Frideswide's day as a fitting day for the ceremony, proud to acknowledge that our House, legally founded by the will of the imperious Cardinal and his yet more imperious master, traces its first origin to a far more ancient source, — to the charitable efforts of an obscure Saxon lady. I have already said that we English are proud of connecting ourselves with the remote past ; it is our pride and glory to do so. Like Tyre, we rejoice in the antiquity of ancient clays'^. God grant that our rejoicing may have firmer ground to rest on than ^ Isaiah xxiii. 7. 15 that of Tyre ! But surely this is a just and legitimate ground for rejoicing and for pride, if only we en- deavour ourselves to maintain the glory we inherit. Family pride that is based on mere length of pedigree is a contemptible, nay, an odious thing. But if one who bears a great historic name feels that this fact lays on him a higher responsibility, and is conscious that his noble lineage is, as it were, a bond given to his country that he should live a life worthy of his name, feeling that he moves continually under the eyes of his great ancestors ; then that which, by reason of its abuse we call family pride, becomes what we should rather call a sense of family honour, — a noble and beneficent principle of action. As it is with families, so it is with nations ; as with nations, so with our ancient colleges. Englishmen have a great past to look back on, a proud reputation to maintain. Our own House has an antiquity that may well be called an antiquity of ancient days. It traces its first origin back to the days of the Heptarchy. And our present Foundation has a glory peculiarly its own. It is the only existing college that has been honoured by having a place in the verse of Shakespeare. In his play of Henry VIII. the Poet praises the great Cardinal for his new Foundation, and declares that it is ' Though unfinished, yet so famous, So excellent in art, and yet so rising. That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.' Lofty words these. We may well feel humbled as we repeat them, and ask ourselves whether we deserve this proud commemoration. Every one of us ought to feel that we have this glory of ancient days to maintain, — from those who claim the melancholy privilege of being the oldest resident x6 members of the House to the young men who joined our ranks but a week ago. To you, young men, I need not speak at length. You were ad- monished of your duties last Sunday in words that I cannot improve ; recall them to mind, and re- member that on you chiefly it depends to sustain the glory of our ancient House. You now possess the divine gifts of youth and health and active vigour ; do not waste these good gifts in sloth and idleness, still less in sensual enjoyments and vicious indulgence, which are indeed Dead Sea fruits, wither- ing as soon as they are plucked. Do your duty as men and as Christians, remembering always the glorious inheritance that has come to you, the great and noble name which each one of us should strive to make yet greater and more noble. Thus, whatever changes may be at hand, and the signs of the times portend many changes, not only in our own University, but in the kingdom at large, in Europe, in Asia, we shall feel that, amid all outward turmoil, we may deserve, even if we be not allowed to enjoy, that peace of mind which is symbolised by the name of Frideswide ; thus may we, in the words of the Epistle for last Sunday, ' have our feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace ;' thus may we in a clear con- science pray to God in the words of the Collect for that same Sunday, — one of the most beautiful among the many beautiful prayers which we have' inherited from the ancient Church : — ' Grant, we beseech Thee, merciful Lord, to Thy faithful people pardon and peace, that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve Thee with a quiet mind ; through Jesus Christ our Lord.'