Oxford Wednesday - Christ Church Tour and Continued Reading

 

I started my day once again with readings at the Bodleian, but instead of starting with more pictures of manuscripts I'll begin with pictures from AFTER my morning reading.  I went to the library café to get a bit of sustenance to keep me going.  The picture above is of the view from the café seating in the lobby of the Bodleian's Weston Library.  What a view!  In it you can see the Clarendon Building on the left, the Old Bodleian in the center, and the Sheldonian Theatre on the right.  The picture below is of the sustenance du jour.

For a break I decided to walk to Christ Church College and take a tour.  I'd been inside Christ Church College before but had only seen the Tom Quad and the cathedral.  As I walked I saw announcements for upcoming events and took a picture in case time opened up.  There are so many amazing (often free) events going on that are world class.  I didn't end up getting time to go to any of these; thankfully I did have opportunity to hear Instruments of Time and Truth (left) as part of the Magdalen College evensong service the Saturday I got into town.  Their music was absolutely exquisite!

Also as I walked, I got to see some cricket practice.  I'd never seen cricket before except in movies, so I pause a while to watch.  Coming across things like this is one of the many reasons that I walk pretty much everywhere instead of using public transportation.

A 10-second-long video of the joy of cricket:

After watching a bit of cricket I continued my short journey to Christ Church for a tour.  One of the first stops on the tour was the hall.  Both the hall and its entrance were used in the Harry Potter films, so if you've seen those the next few pictures might look familiar.

Can you imagine walking up these steps for your meals each day?  (If this is what I was doing, I might make time for three full meals a day!!)

Again, thinking of Harry Potter readers and viewers, from the paintings at Christ Church Hall, more than anywhere else, I can see where J. K. Rowling got her idea for characters in paintings to come to life and talk.  These paintings seemed unique to any others I had seen and seemed like the people in them might start moving around and talking to me at any point!

From hall I went out into Tom Quad - largest of any of the Oxford College quads - 

- and from there into Christ Church Cathedral.  It's a long and convoluted story as to why Christ Church College has a cathedral while the other Oxford colleges have chapels.  Rather than adding information on that here, I'll leave it to the reader to look into it if interested.

I wanted a picture of the pulpit - wasn't specifically trying to capture the person standing in it.  Just after I took the picture he asked for silence in the cathedral as he offered a short prayer.  I believe this happens every hour; at least I know they used to do this at Westminster Abbey.  It's good to know that prayers are going up regularly for God's work in our world and for peace.  And I loved it that though many tourists flock through here that the cathedral continues functioning as a working cathedral to the fullest, which is as it should be, I think.  Long may it continue!

The high altar -

The history here goes back quite a way!

Pictured below is the "cathedra," the seat of the bishop, hence the reason this is a "cathedral."

I made my way out through the beautiful cloisters.

Here are a few more pictures of Christ Church as I'm exiting and heading back over to read - not a bad study break, I must say!

I'll include a few pictures from my reading today, which included going back to much of what I read yesterday and taking a closer look and also reading more Richard Napier papers and the manuscript from the Synod of Dordrecht.

Pictured above is Dee's work on calendar reform (Ashmole 1789 I).  The next two pictures are Richard Napier documents (Ashmole 1457-1458 f. 61-86), and the remaining pictures are from the Dordrecht document (Ashmole 826 f. 233-235).

The Richard Napier documents here comprise directions for a nourishing drink, medical receipts, medical recipes, and notes for alchemical experiments, among other things.  Richard Napier is a cousin to mathematician John Napier.  When I get a chance I need to establish the exact relationship - whether it be first cousins, first cousins once removed, second cousins  .  .  .  just am running down too much information right now, but sometimes when I research I come across something I wasn't expecting, and I have to get what I can when I can and then connect the dots later, which typically works very well.  

Notes from the Synod of Dordrecht November 3, 1618 through November 6, 1618:

As I mentioned in an earlier post, when I saw "Synod of Dordrecht" in the Summary Catalog, I was REALLY hoping it would be a list of names of delegates.  I wanted to find the name of my 15x great grandfather, Homerus Wigboldus, there, but it was still pretty cool consulting the notes taken at this synod of which he was a part and that has such a prominent place in the history of the denomination of which I am a part.  This is a very long family history in the same faith tradition!  Speaking of faith traditions, when I finished my afternoon reading I headed back toward Magdalen College to participate in a slightly different tradition - Anglican, which I am loving!  I arrived early, so I spent some time on and below Magdalen Bridge enjoying the colorful boats available to be rented or hired for trips on the River Cherwell.

The path to the right is Addison's Walk of Magdalen College, where Lewis, Tolkien, and Dyson once walked.  I'm assuming the colorful punts across the river, moored by Addison's Walk, are for students of Magdalen, as I think they are only accessible from the Magdalen grounds.  The other boats of various kinds on the left are at the base of Magdalen Bridge and are accessible to the public (for a fee).

And then it was time again to worship.  "I was glad when they said until me, 'Let us go to the house of the LORD.'" Psalm 122:1.

Worship was amazing despite my timing being a bit bad in terms of the organ.  The pipes were removed in April of this year, and a new organ will be installed in August.  You can see the space in the picture below where you would normally see the organ pipes.  I must say, however, that the electronic organ they are using until this project is completed is a very nice instrument - to the point where it took me a couple of services before I even noticed, and that is saying something!

I worshiped in about a dozen different places during my time away, and in each place where I worshiped there was a notice in the bulletin to please sit for the organ voluntary or to exit quietly.  Some even had a bit more text than is pictured below, expressing that the organ voluntary concluding the service was part of worship.  I really appreciated this ongoing time of reverence and quiet and beauty to end the service and to be able to continue reflecting on what I had heard and experienced.

POST SCRIPT - I had wanted to end on that quiet note, but I have put together a video of my daily walk from my hotel to the reading room.  I would have put this earlier in the post, but it is almost 9 minutes long, which even I think is a bit excessive.  It's also very bumpy since I don't have a gimbal for my camera.  But this is certainly something I want to come back to for my own memories, and if you are interested and have the patience for a 9-minute-long video, here it is: