It was this old monastery, which Wolsey,
with his reforming zeal, chose as the site of his great Cardinal
College, and the chapel of the old foundation was to serve for his
new one, until such time as a great new chapel, rivalling in
splendour that of King's College at Cambridge, had been built on the
north side of Tom Quad. This new chapel never got beyond the stage of
foundations; and hence the old building has continued to serve the
college till this day, having been made also the cathedral of the new
diocese of Oxford, which was founded by King Henry VIII. Wolsey may,
perhaps, be credited with the fine fan tracery of the choir roof, but
he certainly swept away three bays of the nave in order to carry out
his ambitious building plans, and only one of these three bays has
been restored in the nineteenth century.
Wolsey's action at Christ Church was significant. Men felt that the
days of monasteries were past, and the Church was ready to welcome
and to extend the New Learning. But his changes were a dangerous
precedent; as Fuller says with his usual quaintness: "All the forest
of religious foundations in England did shake, justly fearing the
King would finish to fell the oaks, seeing the Cardinal began to cut
the underwood.
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