St Frideswide's Priory facts for kids
St Frideswide's Priory was established as a priory of Augustinian canons regular, in 1122. The priory was established by Gwymund, chaplain to Henry I of England. Among its most illustrious priors were the writers Robert of Cricklade and Philip of Oxford. The original nunnery founded by Frideswide was destroyed in 1002. After that there was a monastery of secular canons.
In 1524, Cardinal Wolsey dissolved the Priory, using funds from the dissolution of Wallingford Priory and other minor priories. He then used its premises, together with those of other adjacent religious houses, to found a new college to be called Cardinal College on the land where the Priory once stood.
After Wolsey fell from power in 1530, King Henry VIII took over the nascent foundation, which he renamed Christ Church ("Aedes Christi"). The Church's five western bays of the nave made during the time of the Augustinian canons were demolished to make space to build the main quadrangle of the new college (now called Tom Quad). The intention was to demolish the remainder of the Church and replace it with a chapel on the north side of the quadrangle. That never happened, and the surviving portion of the Church, including the five remaining bays of the nave, became both the chapel for the new college, Christ Church and the cathedral for the new Diocese of Oxford which Henry VIII had separated from the Diocese of Lincoln.
Burials
- Frithuswith
- Lady Elizabeth Montacute
- William Orchard (architect)
