Guarding the Pimm's

Here, a musician in the robes of M.Mus. from London is guarding (or at least supporting) a tent that will provide Draft Pimm's at the Vice-Chancellor's Garden Party. This Garden Party marks the end of our Academic Year, and is held in the afternoon of "Encaenia" (see below), the ceremony at which honorary degrees are conferred on distinguished people. The event is always spectacularly colourful since guests wear the "full dress" robes of their degrees from a very wide range of universities.

The food and drink today were most generous. Pimm's on draft was a nice novelty, and the sandwiches, cakes, strawberries and cream, and so on were of a very high standard, fitting for an event such as this in the fine gardens of St. Catherine's College on a perfect summer's afternoon.

I hope that our collection of photographs from the party gives some impression of the spectacle and magnificence of the occasion.

Here follows a little more explanation of the day...

Encaenia

Encaenia is the ceremony at which the University of Oxford awards honorary degrees to distinguished men and women and commemorates its benefactors. It is held annually on the Wednesday of ninth week during Trinity Term.

Those honoured this year included sculptor Sir Anish Kapoor, Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church in America and 16 other countries, the Most Reverend Dr Katharine Jefferts Schori, The New York Review of Books’ editor Robert Silvers, Nobel Prize winner Professor Jean-Marie Lehn, and composer Sir Harrison Birtwistle, climate change expert Prof Wallace Broecker.

The ceremony which dates back to the 17th century, sees university dignitaries and the honorands assemble, in full academic dress, in one of the colleges where they enjoy peaches, strawberries and champagne. They then walk in procession to the Sheldonian Theatre on Broad Street.

Encaenia is a Greek word for a festival of renewal; in St John's gospel it is traditionally translated as 'festival of dedication'. The word corresponds to the term 'Commencement', from the Latin, used in many North American universities for the chief ceremony of the academic year.

The Oxford Encaenia is the surviving part of a more extensive ceremony called 'The Act'. This used to include ambitious musical works, often composed for the occasion, and traditional features such as a satirical speech, often scurrilous and sometimes scandalous, by an anonymous speaker known as Terrae Filius, 'Son of the Earth'. The Act was originally held in St Mary's Church, a setting many people thought unsuitable. Such feeling prompted its move in 1670 to the Sheldonian Theatre.

By 1760 the ceremony had assumed a form much like today. It was largely reshaped by the will of Nathaniel, Lord Crewe (1633-1721), successively Rector of Lincoln College, Bishop of Oxford and Bishop of Durham, who left money to the University for this and other purposes.