Blackfriars: An Oxford University Hall

Blackfriars Hall is one of the Permanent Private Halls of the University of Oxford.

Run by the English Dominicans, the Hall brings the characteristic Dominican love of truth into the context of a world-class and globally-influential University.

Through the Hall the friars learn from the University’s rich life of teaching and research and contribute to it from our own Catholic and Dominican philosophical and theological traditions.

Students and Researchers

Blackfriars Hall welcomes to the University both Catholics and others who value our ethos, as students and researchers.

We currently host 54 students drawn from different backgrounds and a variety of nationalities. Students can study for a number of postgraduate qualifications in the University, and the Hall provides special programmes for Registered Visiting Students from abroad. The academic staff of the Hall is comprised of Fellows and other members of the Senior Common Room.

Benefits

Hall students have the advantage of Blackfriars’s specialist library in philosophy and theology, located in our city-centre priory, and enjoy access to the work of our two research institutes, the Aquinas Institute and the Las Casas Institute for Social Justice.

Students share resources with their counterparts in Blackfriars Studium, including a range of lectures and classes in philosophy and theology.

Staff and students from other parts of the University worship in our priory church and attend public talks and other events at Blackfriars.

An Historic Institution

Blackfriars is a living reminder of the University’s origins and heritage.

The Dominicans first arrived in Oxford in 1221 and were soon teaching and learning in the University with their own college. Blackfriars was suppressed at the Reformation, but the friars returned to Oxford in 1921 and began to train Dominican students for the priesthood in the Studium at their new priory in 1929.

The friars became more and more involved in the life of the University, and Blackfriars was established as a Permanent Private Hall in 1994.

Governance

Blackfriars Hall is governed day to day by the Moderators. These are the Regent (Head of House), the Vice-Regent and the Secretary of Studies. Overall responsibility for the government of the Hall lies with the Provincial Council of the English Dominicans.

More about our History