Corpus Christi College, Oxford

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Colleges and halls of the University of Oxford
Corpus Christi College

College name

Corpus Christi College

Named after

Corpus Christi, Body of Christ

Established

1517

Sister college

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

President

Sir Tim Lankester

JCR president

James McDaid

Undergraduates

239

MCR president

Lauren Schwartzman

Graduates

126

Location of Corpus Christi College within central OxfordCoordinates: 51°45′03″N 1°15′13″W / 51.750909, -1.253702

Homepage

Boat Club

Corpus Christi College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. As of 2006, Corpus had an estimated financial endowment of £58m. ^[1]

The college tends to perform well academically, and as a small college does surprisingly well in sporting activities within the University (e.g., Women's Rugby and Gentlemen's Cricket)^{[citation needed]}. It had won the annual sporting challenge against its larger sister college, Corpus Christi Cambridge, for six consecutive years until its defeat in 2006; it regained the title in 2007. On 9 May 2005 a team representing Corpus won University Challenge.

The humanistic ideas of the founder are still important to the college today, with a continued emphasis on the teaching of Latin, Ancient Greek, and ancient history^{[citation needed]}.

The college attempts to select the brightest students regardless of their social background^{[citation needed]}. Corpus Christi has around 350 students (of whom roughly 220 are undergraduates). This makes it one of the smallest colleges in Oxford.

The Visitor of the College is ex officio the Bishop of Winchester, currently Michael Scott-Joynt.

1 History
- 1.1 Founding
2 Religious ferment
3 Nineteenth century
4 Notable former students and fellows
5 Academics/teachers
6 External links

The college was founded in 1517 by Richard Foxe, the Bishop of Winchester. Although intended as a traditional training college for secular clergy, under the influence of Hugh Oldham it became the foremost humanist enterprise in Oxford, the model for many subsequent foundations. Foxe was a humanist and interested in classical literature. He founded a library which was very progressive for the time. The library included books in Latin, Greek and even Hebrew – and was praised by Erasmus on a visit to Oxford as a "biblioteca trilinguis". The important Spanish humanist Juan Luis Vives taught at Corpus while tutor to Mary Tudor, later Queen Mary I.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the college was again involved in religious ferment. Reginald Pole, a fellow of the college in the 1520s, was Archbishop of Canterbury during the reign of Queen Mary, and a candidate for the papacy. John Rainolds, another fellow, and Corpus's seventh President, was involved in the inception and translation of the King James Version of the Bible, published in 1611.

John Keble, a leader of the Oxford Movement, was an undergraduate at Corpus at the start of the nineteenth century, and went on to a fellowship at Oriel and to have a college named after him (Keble College, Oxford).