All Souls College, Oxford … a reminder of the ‘Faithful Departed’ on 2 November (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)
Patrick Comerford
All Souls’ Day is observed in many parts of the Western Church today [2 November]. It is particularly associated with the Roman Catholic Church, and while it does not feature in the calendar of the Church of Ireland, it is marked in the calendar of the Church of England which has restored its place in Common Worship as the “Commemoration of the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day)” (Common Worship, p 15).
All Souls’ Day follows the commemoration of All Saints’ Day on 1 November, and I find it interesting that one of the leading evangelical churches in London is All Souls’ Church, Langham Place, at least since the Revd John Stott was there, first as curate (1945-1950) and then as Rector (1950-1975). All Souls is the only surviving church built by the Regency architect John Nash – although the history of the church on the parish website gives no explanation of the choice of name.
I was reminded of the importance of commemorating All Souls’ Day in the calendar of the pre-Reformation Church of England when I found myself at All Souls College while I was visiting in Oxford this week.
The full, official name of All Souls College is: The Warden and the College of the Souls of All Faithful People deceased in the University of Oxford.
All Souls College ... unique in more ways than one (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)
But All Souls is unique in two ways: all its members automatically become fellows or full members of the college’s governing body; and it has no undergraduate members. In addition, All Souls is the third wealthiest college in Oxford, with a financial endowment said to be worth £245 million last year.
The college stands on the north side of the High Street, next to Saint Mary’s University Church, and also adjoins Radcliffe Square, the Queen’s College and Hertford College.
All Souls College was founded in 1438 by Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury and a Fellow of New College, with King Henry VI as its formal co-founder.
Archbishop Chichele had already founded Saint Bernard’s and was planning a second Oxford foundation as early as 1436. However, the foundation stone was not laid until 1438. Chichele’s college cost him £9,500 – or £5 million at today’s prices. Over £5,000 was spent endowing the college with estates and property in Kent, Middlesex, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Shropshire and Wales.
The Statutes provided for the Warden and 40 fellows. All were to take holy orders: 24 were to study arts, philosophy and theology, and 16 were to study civil or canon law.
All Souls once had undergraduate students in the early 17th century, when they were introduced by Robert Hovenden (Warden 1571-1614), and they earned their keep and tuition fees by acting as servants to the fellows. The college decided to get along without them again, although four Bible Clerks remained on the foundation until 1924.
The chapel, built between 1438 and 1442, remained largely unchanged until the Cromwellian era. Oxford was a Royalist stronghold and the chapel suffered the wrath of the Puritans. The 42 misericords in the chapel date from the time it was built.
The architecture of All Souls College symbolises all we think of when we speak of the ‘Dreaming Spires’ of Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)
The Codrington Library in the college was built with the bequest of Christopher Codrington (1668-1710), a former Governor of the Leeward Islands who made his fortune in plantation slavery. He left his books worth £6,000, and £10,000 in cash to All Souls.
The Welsh priest-poet RS Thomas mused in some of his poems about having a church without parishioners, but All Souls is unique in being an Oxford college without undergraduates.
Most of the fellows are engaged in teaching and research, including those who are professors, lecturers or readers within the University of Oxford. Others are fellows because they hold particular offices in the college, such as the chaplain, the estates bursar and the domestic bursar. Others have careers in law, government, or other areas of public life.
This makes All Souls primarily an academic research institution with strong ties to public life.
At a recent count, All Souls had 75 fellows, 18 visiting fellows, six honorary fellows, and 27 emeritus fellows, whose continuing research is actively supported by the college. Of those current fellows, 35 are academics entirely funded by All Souls, 19 are academics with Oxford University positions attached to All Souls, and the rest include academics in other universities, as well as non-academics, such as barristers or former fellows who are distinguished in public life, and the college chaplain and bursars.
Post-doctoral research fellows are researchers early in their careers, who are elected to a five-year fellowship on the basis of research achievements and a proposal for future work. Usually, three or four post-doctoral fellows are elected every other year.
Senior research fellows are elected to a seven-year renewable fellowship on the strength of distinguished past research and proposed for future work. The appointment is comparable to a research professorship in the university.
The college also elects a number of visiting fellows each year for one, two, or three terms so that the college can attract distinguished scholars from outside Oxford. However, they are not members of the governing body.
Each autumn, the college holds an examination that can be sat by recent Oxford graduates and by students pursuing Oxford graduate degrees, and the successful candidates are elected fellows for seven years.
According to writers in The Guardian, the Daily Telegraph and the New Statesman in recent years, this has a reputation for being “the hardest exam in the world.” For almost a century, just a handful of the brightest young Oxford graduates have been picked to sit it each year and often only one is successful. The historian Lord Dacre and the author Hilaire Belloc were not up to the challenge, unlike the philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin and the judge Richard Wilberforce.
Meanwhile, All Souls’ Day is being marked in the Chapel of Pusey House, Oxford, this morning with Fauré’s Requiem.
In Lichfield Cathedral, the Solemn Eucharist of Requiem is being celebrated at 12.30 in the Lady Chapel with the Chamber Choir. The President and Preacher is the Precentor, Canon Wealands Bell, and the setting is Duarte Lôbo’s Missa pro defunctis à 8. The Cathedral Choir resumes residence this evening after its half-term holiday, with the Solemn Evensong of the Dead at 5.30 p.m. The settings is by the Welsh Composer Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656).
All Souls’ Day is being marked in the Chapel of Pusey House, Oxford, this morning with Fauré’s Requiem (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)
Collect (Common Worship):
Eternal God, our maker and redeemer,
grant us, with all the faithful departed,
the sure benefits of your Son’s saving passion
and glorious resurrection
that, in the last day,
when you gather up all things in Christ,
we may with them enjoy the fullness of your promises;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Readings:
Lamentations 3: 17-26, 31-33 or Wisdom 3: 1-9; Psalm 23 or 27: 1-6, 16, 17; Romans 5: 5-11 or 1 Peter 1: 3-9; John 5: 19-25 or John 6: 37-40.
Post Communion Prayer:
God of love,
may the death and resurrection of Christ,
which we have celebrated in this Eucharist,
bring us, with all the faithful departed,
into the peace of your eternal home.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ,
our rock and our salvation,
to whom be glory for time and for eternity.
02 November 2013
The rain turns autumn into winter in
a Lichfield waiting for Christmas lights
Late autumn grapes clinging in bunches to the vines at the Hedgehog on the northern edge of Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)
Patrick Comerford
Although there are still large bunches of grapes dangling from the branches of the vines in the small courtyard at the Hedgehog on the corner of Stafford Road and Cross in Hand Lane, autumn turned to winter late this morning as the cold rains descended on Lichfield in a downpour that lasted for the rest of the day.
Shortly after breakfast, I had a meeting in the Hedgehog with Paul Oakley, editor of the Lichfield Gazette, and it is good to be invited to write occasion guest features for a local magazine over 40 years after I first started as a freelance journalist with occasional contributions to the Lichfield Mercury.
Afterwards, I had a walk through the rain and the wet grass in front of the Hedgehog, enjoying the vista south towards Lichfield Cathedral from a small precipice that looks down on Cross in Hand Lane.
Ron Brazier, the landlord of the Hedgehog – once known as Lyncroft House – is confident that one of the trees in the grounds is over 300 years old and that it may well be the oldest tree in Lichfield.
Later in the morning, I strolled down Beacon Street. At the end of the street, the old Angel Croft Hotel continues to deteriorate and decay. Despite many campaigns on the internet and on social media by concerned local residents, it appears that this once elegant Georgian house may be lost as part of Lichfield’s architectural heritage.
The former Angel Croft continued to deteriorate and decay (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)
I was in Lichfield Cathedral for mid-day prayers, and tool some photographs of monuments and windows before taking part in the Eucharist, celebrated for All Saints’ Day at the High Altar.
Afterwards in the cathedral, I bought my first Christmas Cards this year and revisited the exhibition with the Lichfield Angel and some of the finds from the Staffordshire Hoard in the Chapter House before visiting the Cathedral Bookshop at No 9 The Close. The shop not only has good sections on theology, liturgy and local books, but also has a book second hand section.
I came away with two new books this afternoon: Paul Avis, The Anglican Understanding of the Church (2nd ed, London: SPCK, 2013); and Paul Gooder and Michael Perham, Echoing the Word, The Bible in the Eucharist (London: 2013).
I browsed a little longer rummaging through the second-hand section at the back of the shop, in a room looking out onto the gardens at the back of Erasmus Darwin House. There I came across an out-of-print gem: a translation of Simone Weil’s The Need for Roots, first published in English in 1952 with a preface by TS Eliot, who reluctantly concedes that her “soul was incomparably superior to her genius” and recommends this book “to be studied by the young before their leisure has been lost and their capacity for thought destroyed in the life of the hustings and the legislative assembly ...”
I stopped briefly in the Market and once more in Saint Mary’s Church, where the Dyott Chapel and the sanctuary area remain intact but the rest of the building gave way many years ago to a café and heritage centre, with exhibitions telling the history of Lichfield.
Lunch with an old friend in the Spark on Tamworth Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)
The rain continued to pour to down and I decided to have a late lunch in the Spark on Tamworth Street. My only companion as I enjoyed a warm goat’s cheese salad and a glass of wine was an old friend – the Lichfield Mercury.
I thought of taking a stroll around Stowe Pool, but the rain was so heavy that wisdom overcame instinct.
Autumn turns to winter ... but already the Christmas Tree is up in the Three Spires Shopping Centre, long before Advent (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)
The rain may a true sign that autumn has given way to winter in Lichfield. And yet, although Advent is another four weeks away, the Christmas Tree is already up in Baker’s Lane in the Three Spires Shopping Centre, waiting for the lights to be switched on.
Evening lights in the chapel in Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)
On these quiet days and personal retreats in Lichfield, it is important for me to visit the chapel at Saint John’s Hospital in John Street. I notice now, with interest, that Lichfield District Tourism now lists Saint John’s Hospital and Chapel among the 10 “must-sees” and favourite attractions and landmarks.
The ten are:
1, Lichfield Cathedral.
2, The Staffordshire Hoard.
3, The National Memorial Arboretum near Alrewas.
4, The Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum.
5, Erasmus Darwin House.
6, Lichfield Historic Parks, including Beacon Park, the Garden of Remembrance and Minster Pool.
7, Saint John’s Hospital and Chapel.
8, Drayton Manor Theme Park.
9, Staffordshire Regiment Museum.
10, Lichfield Heritage Centre in Saint Mary’s Church.
After time for personal prayer and reflection in Saint John’s, there was little point in walking any further in the driving rain. A hoped for meeting with some friends never materialised in this winter downpour, and I caught the next train to Birmingham New Street, and then on to Birmingham International Airport to catch the last flight back to Dublin tonight.
Rain falls on the Cathedral Close in Lichfield this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)
.
Patrick Comerford
Although there are still large bunches of grapes dangling from the branches of the vines in the small courtyard at the Hedgehog on the corner of Stafford Road and Cross in Hand Lane, autumn turned to winter late this morning as the cold rains descended on Lichfield in a downpour that lasted for the rest of the day.
Shortly after breakfast, I had a meeting in the Hedgehog with Paul Oakley, editor of the Lichfield Gazette, and it is good to be invited to write occasion guest features for a local magazine over 40 years after I first started as a freelance journalist with occasional contributions to the Lichfield Mercury.
Afterwards, I had a walk through the rain and the wet grass in front of the Hedgehog, enjoying the vista south towards Lichfield Cathedral from a small precipice that looks down on Cross in Hand Lane.
Ron Brazier, the landlord of the Hedgehog – once known as Lyncroft House – is confident that one of the trees in the grounds is over 300 years old and that it may well be the oldest tree in Lichfield.
Later in the morning, I strolled down Beacon Street. At the end of the street, the old Angel Croft Hotel continues to deteriorate and decay. Despite many campaigns on the internet and on social media by concerned local residents, it appears that this once elegant Georgian house may be lost as part of Lichfield’s architectural heritage.
The former Angel Croft continued to deteriorate and decay (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)
I was in Lichfield Cathedral for mid-day prayers, and tool some photographs of monuments and windows before taking part in the Eucharist, celebrated for All Saints’ Day at the High Altar.
Afterwards in the cathedral, I bought my first Christmas Cards this year and revisited the exhibition with the Lichfield Angel and some of the finds from the Staffordshire Hoard in the Chapter House before visiting the Cathedral Bookshop at No 9 The Close. The shop not only has good sections on theology, liturgy and local books, but also has a book second hand section.
I came away with two new books this afternoon: Paul Avis, The Anglican Understanding of the Church (2nd ed, London: SPCK, 2013); and Paul Gooder and Michael Perham, Echoing the Word, The Bible in the Eucharist (London: 2013).
I browsed a little longer rummaging through the second-hand section at the back of the shop, in a room looking out onto the gardens at the back of Erasmus Darwin House. There I came across an out-of-print gem: a translation of Simone Weil’s The Need for Roots, first published in English in 1952 with a preface by TS Eliot, who reluctantly concedes that her “soul was incomparably superior to her genius” and recommends this book “to be studied by the young before their leisure has been lost and their capacity for thought destroyed in the life of the hustings and the legislative assembly ...”
I stopped briefly in the Market and once more in Saint Mary’s Church, where the Dyott Chapel and the sanctuary area remain intact but the rest of the building gave way many years ago to a café and heritage centre, with exhibitions telling the history of Lichfield.
Lunch with an old friend in the Spark on Tamworth Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)
The rain continued to pour to down and I decided to have a late lunch in the Spark on Tamworth Street. My only companion as I enjoyed a warm goat’s cheese salad and a glass of wine was an old friend – the Lichfield Mercury.
I thought of taking a stroll around Stowe Pool, but the rain was so heavy that wisdom overcame instinct.
Autumn turns to winter ... but already the Christmas Tree is up in the Three Spires Shopping Centre, long before Advent (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)
The rain may a true sign that autumn has given way to winter in Lichfield. And yet, although Advent is another four weeks away, the Christmas Tree is already up in Baker’s Lane in the Three Spires Shopping Centre, waiting for the lights to be switched on.
Evening lights in the chapel in Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)
On these quiet days and personal retreats in Lichfield, it is important for me to visit the chapel at Saint John’s Hospital in John Street. I notice now, with interest, that Lichfield District Tourism now lists Saint John’s Hospital and Chapel among the 10 “must-sees” and favourite attractions and landmarks.
The ten are:
1, Lichfield Cathedral.
2, The Staffordshire Hoard.
3, The National Memorial Arboretum near Alrewas.
4, The Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum.
5, Erasmus Darwin House.
6, Lichfield Historic Parks, including Beacon Park, the Garden of Remembrance and Minster Pool.
7, Saint John’s Hospital and Chapel.
8, Drayton Manor Theme Park.
9, Staffordshire Regiment Museum.
10, Lichfield Heritage Centre in Saint Mary’s Church.
After time for personal prayer and reflection in Saint John’s, there was little point in walking any further in the driving rain. A hoped for meeting with some friends never materialised in this winter downpour, and I caught the next train to Birmingham New Street, and then on to Birmingham International Airport to catch the last flight back to Dublin tonight.
Rain falls on the Cathedral Close in Lichfield this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)
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