The Oxford Don

This is a detail of buildings just outside my centuries-old dorm-room door on the Trinity College quad at Oxford University in England. (Don Dale photo, 1999)

They took to calling me the Oxford Don almost immediately.

The play on words was too hard to resist. We were a small group who had signed up for a course on Medieval cathedrals through the University of Virginia's continuing education program. It met for a week in April 1999 at Trinity College at Oxford University in England.

During the day we studied and traveled. Classes focused on Medieval history, church history and the Norman and Gothic architectural styles. Oxford professors -- called "dons" -- taught the classes alongside UVa professors. With no note-taking or tests required, it was a relaxed and enjoyable learning experience. One of the Oxford dons spent a morning unlocking the secrets of how the massive cathedrals were built in the Middle Ages, a time when the only source of energy was the human being and his rudimentary mechanical devices -- chisels, hammers, ropes, pulleys and levers.

The course was fascinating, but so was the experience of living, eating and studying at Trinity College, founded in 1555 by Thomas Pope, who rose to prominence under Henry VIII and served as privy counsellor to Mary Tudor, Henry's elder daughter, when she became queen. Trinity is one of the most beautiful colleges in Oxford. It was especially lovely in April with dogwoods and the first spring flowers in bloom. We were each assigned to single rooms in a 350-year-old student dorm, complete with gas fireplaces, which we needed to ward off April's chill nights.

We had a classic Medieval church at hand for a study aid. A short walk from our classroom was Oxford's Christ Church Cathedral, which once held the distinction of being the smallest in England, although that is no longer true. The Late-Norman cathedral stands on the site of an 8th-century Saxon church. The present church was constructed in the 12th century.

Some of our days were spent in classes taught on a tour bus, as we traveled to study famed English cathedrals and abbeys built in the Middle Ages -- Gloucester, St. Albans, Salisbury, Winchester, Tewkesbury and Romsey, to name but a few.

I also arrived at Trinity a day early and left a day late so that I could make two side-trips on my own. I re-visited London's Westminster Abbey, England's coronation church since 1066, which traces its origins to the mid 900s and is the final resting place of 17 monarchs. I also journeyed to St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, which was founded in the 14th century. St George's is where King Henry VIII, King George III, King George VI, Princess Margaret and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother are interred. Like so many other European churches, St. George's was purported to house a fragment of the True Cross.

Our evenings in Oxford were spent in pub-crawling in the ancient city. The highlight was a night spent in the centuries-old student beer cellar in a vaulted basement at Trinity College.

My interest in Medieval cathedrals preceded the course I took at Oxford by three decades. But at the end of our intensive studies, I understood so much more about the glories of what I was looking at.

My friend Walter and I are both blogging about cathedrals. You can read about his adventures at http://asacynicseesit.blogspot.com.