The Founding Moment: Church, Society, and the Construction of Trinity College

199 Pages·2002·9.099 MB·English

by  William Westfall

This book has been published in conjunction with the
I5Oth anniversary of the founding of the University
of Trinity College.
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T HE F O U N D I NG M O M E NT
Church, Society, and the
Construction of Trinity College
William Westfall
McGill-Queen's University Press
Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca
© McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002.
ISBN 0-7735-2447-9
Legal deposit second quarter 2002
Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-
consumer recycled), processed chlorine free, and printed with vegetable-based, low
voc inks.
McGill-Queen's University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council
for the Arts for its publishing program. It also acknowledges the
financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing
Industry Development Program (BPIDP).
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Westfall, William, 1945-
The founding moment : church, society, and the construction of Trinity College
(McGill-Queen's studies in the history of religion)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7735-2447-9
I. Trinity College (Toronto, Ont.) - History. I. Title. II. Series
LE3.T72W47 2002 378.713541 C2002-900614-7
This book was designed by David LeBlanc and typeset in 10.2/14 Sabon
Contents
Illustrations between pages 32-3, 69-70, and 98-9
Preface and Acknowledgments / ix
1 The Grand Procession / 3
2 A University Worthy of the Name /33
3 The Great Christian Household / 70
Epilogue: Refounding Trinity College / 99
Notes to pages / 111
Illustration credits / 153
Index /155
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Preface and Acknowledgments
This book, which grew out of the Larkin-Stuart lectures I deliv-
ered in November 2001, celebrates the sesquicentenary of Trinity
College. Its title refers to one of the most remarkable aspects of
the college's history: the founder, Bishop Strachan, argued that
there was a precise moment when the college began. Unlike King's
College, whose beginnings were mired in postponements and
delays, Trinity was created with enormous energy and haste in
response to a single event that the bishop believed threatened to
alter the proper course of history irrevocably. The book begins,
then, where the founder began, and it asks a simple question:
What created this founding moment?
In trying to answer this question, I soon discovered that it was
necessary to analyse critically the answer that the founder himself
had given to the same question. Strachan placed the founding of
Trinity in what historians might now call a discourse of secular-