Patrick Comerford
The large shopping centres throughout Britain represent the consumer-driven urban environment that thrived with Thatcherism. The new religion became consumerism and massive malls became its cathedrals, where people are found like sheep with a shepherd, shopping around for salvation.
As Brian Appleyard pointed out in the Independent back in 1993, we have turned many run-of-the-mill towns into cities by building cathedrals called malls: ‘The religious parallel is precise and detailed: these malls have naves, aisles, triforia, clerestories, cruciform plans and holy water features. Here, through shopping, we seek out ‘value’, apply the moral code of consumerism and aspire to a better life.’
Westgate Oxford, previously known as the Westgate Centre and built as Westgate Shopping Centre, is the main shopping centre in the centre of Oxford. It was first built in 1970-1972 to designs by Douglas Murray and it was extensively remodelled and extended in 2016-2017.
When the centre was first built in the 1970s, part of the work destroyed archaeological remains of part of mediaeval Oxford. During the redevelopment in 2015-2017, Oxford Archaeology carried out architectural investigations into the extensive remains of the mediaeval Greyfriars friary (1244-1538), and the discoveries included stone foundations, wooden and other artefacts, and part of a mediaeval tiled floor.
I had a brief view of the modern Greyfriars buildings in Oxford recently, including the Church of Saint Edmund and Saint Frideswide or Greyfriars on Iffley Road in East Oxford. So, when we were back in Oxford a few days ago, one of the ecclesiastical sites I went in search of was the original Greyfriars or Franciscan friary, founded by Saint Agnellus of Pisa in 1224.
After visiting two neighbouring churches, Holy Rood Church on Abingdon Road and Saint Matthew’s Church on Marlborough Road, last week, I crossed back over the River Thames at the Gasworks Pipe Bridge to the site of the former gasworks and Friars Wharf to begin a search for the once extensive site of the medieval friary that had been an influential establishment in Oxford for over 300 years.
A new interactive archaeological and history trail has been developed at Westgate, showcasing artefacts uncovered during the excavation of the site, the largest exposure of medieval buildings yet seen in the city. The trail has been created in partnership with Oxford Archaeology and involves several marker in and around Westgate.
Each marker includes information and items of significance uncovered in archaeological excavations, including:
• the vanished suburb of St Ebbe’s
• original pavement from the Franciscan Friary
• art inspired by the Franciscan theologian and philosopher Roger Bacon
Visitors and local people are invited to interact with the trail and to find out more about the dig by scanning the QR codes on the totems in the centre, or by visiting the Westgate Oxford website with their smartphones. Printed maps are also available.
The trail signposts other locations in Oxford, including the Weston Library, the Bates Collection at Saint Aldate’s Church, the Pitt Rivers Museum and Oxford Castle Quarter. The trail was the culmination of many years work alongside Oxford Archaeology.
The Franciscans were founded by Saint Francis of Assisi in 1210. He sent nine friars to England in 1224 under Saint Agnellus of Pisa, who founded the Franciscan or Greyfriars Friary in Oxford between Saint Ebbe’s Church and the city wall.
The friary started in a single house between Saint Ebbe’s Church and the mediaeval city wall. The popularity of the Franciscan friars as teachers in the University of Oxford meant they soon outgrew their original site. In 1244, Henry III granted the Greyfriars land and water south of the city wall and they received royal permission to demolish part of the wall to build their new church. The Franciscans were given permission to make a ‘little gate’ in the city wall to give them access to the city, and this is reserved in the name of Littlegate Street.
The T-shaped plan of the friary church provided the largest possible preaching area. Pieces of stained and painted glass, decorated floor tiles and a small statue, probably of a saint, were among the archaeological finds and give a glimpse of what the church might have looked like. Burials were found under the floor of the church, but the body of Saint Agnellus was not identified. Other burials were excavated from the graveyard.
The cloisters were to the south of the church and a complex of other buildings south of that probably included the monks’ sleeping quarters or dormitory, their washhouse or reredorter, the chapter house, the sacristy, and possibly a watermill.
More friars minor moved to Oxford when the University of Paris was dispersed in 1229-1230. The Franciscan friars of Oxford quickly earned their international academic and intellectual reputations, they had the ear of kings and popes, and they put Oxford more prominently on the map. They were politically influential and that in turn helped to give the university greater status, attracting more top teachers and students.
The friary became one of the greatest mediaeval teaching institutions in Oxford and it had a pivotal importance in the history of Oxford University. Along with the Dominicans of Oxford, the Franciscans were a major force in transforming the university, focusing on intellectually rigorous and challenging subjects.
Oxford University claims to have been founded in 1096, and it grew rapidly from 1167, when Henry II prohibited English students from attending the University of Paris. Before the Franciscans arrived in Oxford, it was already specialised in teaching practical vocationally oriented courses like letter writing, Latin grammar, classical speech-making, basic maths and practical law.
However, the Franciscans and their Dominican contemporaries and rivals introduced a new emphasis on theology in the curriculum that in turn led to teaching advanced philosophy, physics, natural history, geology and even optics. At that stage, theology was regarded as the cutting-edge intellectual discipline, and was known as the ‘Queen of the Sciences’.
The friars used theology and the Bible as ways to approach all other intellectual disciplines, and these mediaeval friars made Oxford the international centre of scholarship it remains to this day.
Among the eminent mediaeval scholars who taught at Greyfriars were:
• Robert Grosseteste, one of mediaeval Europe’s first great mathematicians and physicists was also Bishop of Lincoln and the first Chancellor of the University of Oxford;
• Roger Bacon, a philosopher, linguist and pioneer of empirical science whose work included research into light, lenses and gunpowder;
• Haymo of Faversham, a diplomat who taught in Paris, Tours, Bologna and Padua, as well as Oxford;
• John of Peckham, who became Archbishop of Canterbury;
• John Duns Scotus, considered among the most important philosopher-theologians in Western Christendom during the late medieval period, alongside Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure and William of Ockham;
• Alexander of Hales, a theologian and philosopher instrumental to the development of scholasticism;
• William of Ockham, a philosopher and radical political theorist who gives his name to the problem-solving principle known as ‘Ockham’s Razor’;
• the Italian friar Peter Phillarges, who was born in Neapoli in Crete and was later widely recognised as Pope Alexander V during the schism in the early 14th century, although he is now generally listed as an antipope.
Four of these great intellectual friars had interesting Latin monikers: Alexander of Hales, Doctor Irrefragabilis; Roger Bacon, Doctor Mirabilis; John Duns Scotus, Doctor Subtilis, and William of Ockham, Doctor Invincibilis.
The Franciscan order divided into two branches in 1517: the friars who had been living in city-convents and teaching in universities became known as Conventuals, while the friars who lived a more eremitical life became known as Observants; the Capuchins developed in 1528.
Greyfriars continued as an educational and religious centre until it was dissolved at the Tudor Reformations in 1538. After the dissolution of the monastic houses, the Greyfriars buildings were pulled down and many of the foundations were removed to provide building materials. The Capuchins did not return to Oxford until 1905.
The site of the Greyfriars gardens, known as Paradise, was turned into famous market gardens. By the end of the 19th century, the whole site of the Greyfriars had been was built over with streets of terraced housing, known as ‘The Friars’.
The footprint of the mediaeval friary at the south-west corner of the city walls was extensive, running between the present-day Paradise Street and the Westgate Oxford Shopping Centre.
The archaeological investigations are uncovering what life in Oxford was like during that crucial transition. The archaeological investigations are also important because the Franciscan Friary or Greyfriars was home to some of the most important scholars in mediaeval Oxford and in wider European academic life.
The first archaeological excavations of the Greyfriars were carried out in 1967-1972, before Westgate Shopping Centre was built. These uncovered the T-shaped plan of the friary church and the different phases of its construction over almost 300 years, from the 1240s until the Reformation.
Only a small part of these buildings were identified in the 1970s, but much more was discovered with further excavations in 2015-2016, revealing many more stone buildings south of the friary church. Combined, these excavations constitute some of the most extensive plans of any mediaeval urban friary in England.
Paradise Garden (2017) is a sculpture by William Cobbing that consists of seven quarried stone boulder forms inlaid with glazed ceramic tiles. They reference the archaeology, history and flora of the place, and the constellation of sculptures complements the landscaping design of Greyfriars Place, inviting the viewer to reflect on the history of the site.
Many of the street names and placenames in the area recall the presence of the Franciscan friars and the Dominicans in the area until the 16th century, including Old Greyfriars Street, Blackfriars Road, Friars Wharf, Preachers Lane, Trinity Street.
Roger Bacon gives his name to Roger Bacon Lane, where Saint Ebbe’s Church has its offices. The names of Paradise Square and Paradise Street are reminders of the ‘Paradise’ orchard at Greyfriars.
