Christ Church College, referred to its members as The House, began in 1522 as Cardinal College, founded by Cardinal Wolsey, then Chancellor of England under Henry VIII. Wolsey had elaborate plans for the buildings of the college, but he fell from power in 1528 and was replaced as Henry's Chancellor by Thomas More before he could complete construction. Henry finished the project on a somewhat less grandiose scale and renamed the college Christ Church in 1546. The Cardinal's original plan called for the destruction of the St. Frideswide priory church, which is now the Cathedral, and a new chapel to be built on the northern side of the quadrangle, called Tom Quad and the largest in Oxford. In the pictures of this quad, you can see the foundation that was laid for a covering which was never built, and the bell tower (which houses the bell called Tom) which was only partially completed by Wolsey and was ultimately finished by Christopher Wren in the 1680's.

The Cathedral itself dates from the 12th century and is the smallest certified cathedral in England. In St. Lucy's chapel exists one of the finest pieces of medieval stained glass to survive mostly intact. It depicts the martyrdom of Thomas Becket in Canterbury in 1170 as seen in the uppermost red and blue colored diamond form in the image below. Becket tried to wrestle away too much power from the monarch Henry II who vaguely instructed his knights to take care of the situation. This piece of stained glass was erected in 1340 and only survives partially intact due to the fact that King Henry VIII had Becket's head taken out of the scene - an act of vengeance that in efffect makes the murder of the archbishop of the English Church seem all the more gruesome.