(in full: '''The Warden and College of the Souls of all Faithful People deceased in the University of Oxfordhttp://www.all-souls.ox.ac.uk/about/history11.php''') is one of the
Constituent Colleges of the
University Of Oxford in
England .
All Souls is an oddity among Oxford colleges in that all its members automatically become Fellows, i.e., full members of the College's governing body. It has no undergraduate members.
Every year, the top finalists of the University in the humanities are invited to sit the examination for fellowship of the Collegehttp://www.all-souls.ox.ac.uk/elections/prize.php. About two are elected to fellowship each year. Fellowship of All Souls is thus regarded as one of the highest academic honours in the United Kingdom. These Fellows are known as Prize Fellows, their term of office is seven years and roughly a dozen are at the college at any one time. Other categories of fellowship include Senior Research Fellows, Post-Doctoral Research Fellows, Fifty-Pound Fellows (open only to former Fellows no longer holding posts in Oxford) and Distinguished Fellows. There are also many Professorial Fellows who hold their fellowships by reason of their University post.
It is one of the wealthiest colleges with a
Financial Endowment of £218m (2007) but because the College's only source of revenue is its endowment, it ranks nineteenth among Oxford colleges with respect to total income. http://www.all-souls.ox.ac.uk/about/finance.php
The college is located on the north side of the
High Street and also adjoins
Radcliffe Square to the west. To the east is
Queen's College and to the north is
Hertford College .
The College was founded by
Henry VI Of England and
Henry Chichele (fellow of
New College and
Archbishop Of Canterbury ), in 1438. The Statutes provided for the Warden and forty fellows — all to take Holy Orders; twenty-four to study arts, philosophy and theology; and sixteen to study civil or canon law. The College's Codrington Library was built with the bequest of
Christopher Codrington , sometime governor of the
Leeward Islands . Today the College is primarily an academic research institution.
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Every hundred years there is a commemorative feast after which the fellows parade around the College with flaming torches, singing the ''
Mallard Song '' and led by a "Lord Mallard" who is carried in a chair, in search of a legendary mallard that supposedly flew out of the foundations of the college when it was being built. The last mallard ceremony was in 2001 and the next will be held in 2101.
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