Balliol Flashcards
Balliol - oldest college
- said to be oldest college.
- Now guys,
there is no subject that gets us more excited at Oxford, than who is the oldest College at Oxford! - We’ve been debating this for about 800 years, and we will later get on this.
-But it certainly is one of the oldest, dating its heritage all the way back to 1263 [say it slowly to really underline its age]. It’s incredibly rare even
in England to find an institution from the 13th Century.
Balliol - John de Balliol
-Established by John de Balliol, as penance for insulting the Bishop of Durham
during a territorial dispute.
You do not want to insult a Bishop in the 13th Century
in England, as you quickly become very poor.
So, to make up for this he endows a group of Augustinian monks - and the institution would then very slowly develop
into what we have today.
John de Balliol would certainly not recognise the institution we have today, and nor would we recognise John de Balliol -
in the hall of all the Colleges there is usually a portrait of the founder - and true to form,
Balliol does have a portrait of John de Balliol - but it is of a man in a full set of armour, with the visor down.
We trust he is inside this, but we have no idea; and
the reality is that the College is not entirely sure what he looked like!
Balliol - Sports
As you can imagine, sports are taken extremely seriously at Oxford.
I think it is true to say, no event is more competitive than the Oxford University [said in a slow serious tone] Tortoise Race.
This takes place each June at Corpus Christi. Usually at the colleges you have various pets - and we will talk about some of these later.
A cat is common, if you’re lucky a dog; but a tortoise works well. It is a hardy creature, which is long living and requires minimal maintenance - so lots of Colleges have them.
And Balliol also takes pride in its college tortoises. The original tortoise, who resided at the College for at least 43 years, was known as Rosa, named after the notable German Marxist Rosa Luxemburg. Balliol’s own Rosa competed and won many times - it is true to say, she was a renowned athlete.
However, Rosa disappeared in the Spring of 2004, and numerous conspiracy theories instantly spread around Oxford.
Baliol - vs Trinity
The first suspect, for a lot of students, was their arch rival - Trinity College (point where this is).
Now if you see where the tree comes out at the side, this marks the point of Trinity College. I’m sure where you are from, if you have another school right next to another school - you get a lot of rivalry, especially in sports.
Well, these two colleges have been on each other’s doorstep for close to 500 years - so that rivalry has grown every century.
As soon as Rosa disappears, some students jump over the dividing wall, and start digging up the lawn of Trinity College; Trinity is known to have the most immaculate lawns of any College at Oxford.
They also put washing-up liquid into
the College pond, which erupts into a bubble volcano. And finally, it is said they released three sheep into the groups of Trinity - putting a number on each of them.
On the first they put the number 1, on
he second the number 2, and on the third, number 4; so they spent an hour looking for number 3. A particular cruel part of this whole affair!
Baliol - rosa not found
Unfortunately, Rosa was never found, and out of honour for her ultimate sacrifice, for a while Balliol no longer submitted a tortoise into the University Tortoise race - instead they submitted a human tortoise in the race.
Out of the fresh intake of students each year, one student would be named “Comrade Tortoise”. It was then
the job of this student to dress up as a large tortoise, waddle over to Corpus,
which is no easy feat in itself - whereupon they would be presented with a bucket of lettuce.
It would then be the job of the student to eat this entire bucket of lettuce, and when they did this would mark Balliol’s place in the race. One year a student managed to come third - which is a fairly impressive effort I’m sure we can agree!
Balliol - dispel common misconsption
Before we get going, to dispel one common misconception – if you are at one college, it does not mean everyone at that college studies the same subject. For example, if you are studying at Balliol you could be studying one of twenty different options.
However, if a college produces a lot of famous graduates in a specific field, this leads to the external misunderstanding that all students at that college study the same subject - but this is not true, there is no single subject College, and we will cover this in more detail later.
If you were to confuse Balliol with just one subject, it would be Politics. Balliol has produced three very good British Prime Ministers: H. H. Asquith, Harold
Macmillan, Edward Heath. It has also produced Boris Johnson.
Balliol - verbatum
As you are no doubt aware, this is a free tour - this model runs throughout the world and we think it is THE best thing in the world!
It means that we come down and work as hard as we can for two hours showing you the best Oxford has to
offer.
At the end of the experience, you get to decide what it’s worth. And before you spend 2 hrs worrying about a cash point - WE NOW HAVE CARD READERS!
