Orating honours

This is a bit of a niche one but – here in Cambridge we have a number of quaint / historic / weird / cool (take your pick) traditions. One that I think is at the quite cool end is that, when we award honorary degrees, the University Orator writes and delivers an oration introducing the honorand and explaining why they’re getting the degree. In Latin. And, occasionally, also with fragments in Greek and Sindarin.¹ And when I say “delivers”, I really mean “performs” based on what I saw when in the audience for the honorary degree ceremony this year for the first time.

Happily, as we’re not totally behind the times, English translations are also provided, in the Reporter naturally. And I decided to take a look back through some as I thought some of the ones I saw this year were pretty good. And as it was a slow Sunday afternoon, I went back as far as the online Reporter allowed. And here are the results – a list of links to all of the oration texts that are online, with some honorands called out where I thought they were particularly cool or interesting or moving,² or I’d heard of the recipient.³

Enjoy?

…and there, sadly, the Reporter online record ends.