Christ Church Oxford Cathedral is the cathedral of the Diocese of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is also the church of Christ Church College, one of the largest largest and most famous colleges of the University of Oxford. For a long time it was considered the smallest cathedral in England, but in recent times it is no longer is, as several small parish churches have been granted cathedral status.
The site was originally the church of the Convent of the Virgin Mary, founded by St Fridesvida. Frideswida is considered to be the patron saint of Oxford Oxford, and her cancer is now kept in the cathedral. In the 12th century, Augustinian monks founded the Abbey of St Frideswida and built a church named in her honour. In 1525, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey dissolved the abbey and founded the Cardinal College on its lands. In 1532, the college was renamed King Henry VIII College. King Henry VIII College, and in 1546 it was renamed Christ Church College.
The cathedral tower is one of the oldest in England, its lower part dating from the 12th century and the upper part dates from the 13th century. The ceiling of the church, with its fan ceilings, rivals in with a similar ceiling in the School of Theology in the Bodleian Library. They are considered the most beautiful examples of fan slabs.
You can also see beautiful stained glass windows in the cathedral. Behind the reliquary of St Fridesvida there is a window by the famous Edward Burns-Jones depicting scenes from the saint's saint's life (1858). To the left of the entrance to the cathedral is the Jonah window, where the figure of Jonah is made in stained glass, the rest is a glass painting depicting in great detail the city of Nineveh. The oldest stained glass is Thomas Becket's window, where one of the few surviving portraits of the archbishop can be seen.
