He was of knightly rank, alderman of the Merchant Guild and the At Cambridge it was exceptionally important, for the nascent munici earliest of the town's elected mayors. 56 He may have been outstanding, pality had to face two major challenges - the first and greatest being the but he was not exceptional: his close neighbours, the B1ancgernons, appearance of the university of scholars in its midst and the other the were other representatives of this class of landed burgess. They were creation of what was eventually to prove a dangerous competitor in patrons of the church of All Saints by the Castle and owners of much the borough of King's Lynn. The University rapidly became an organ Cambridge property; at least one member of the family had an official ized body after a migration of scholars from Oxford in 12°9, just at the position under the sheriff. Or there were the Absaloms, also rich in time that the burgesses were themselves developing their own self
town houses and field acres and patrons of three town churches. 57 governing institutions. The Crown's attitude to the developments was The founding of churches was, indeed, a common practice among the undoubtedly influenced by its experience in dealing with Oxford, as wealthy Cambridge burgesses, though it was not on the same scale well as by political exigencies. 61 Other towns, where there were im as at Norwich. Out of fourteen parish churches and three chapels, portant cathedrals or abbeys or both, had the problem of living with thirteen seem to have had townsmen as their first patrons, and religious communities, often with large numbers of lay dependents, among the town's early customs was one that said that a person who were outside their jurisdiction, but in these two English towns might freely leave his church to a relative. But besides the landed only was the size of the community of clerks so large and so undisci burgesses there were other wealth~- men whose riches seem to plined, and in these two only - the 'nurseries' of learning and of learned
have depended entirely on trade - on tanning, weaving, and so on. 58 men to fill the manifold offices of church and state - was the clerical
The piety and riches of men such as these made it certain that when community ofsuch paramount importance to the Crown. 62 the diocese of Ely was formed early in the century the archdeacon would From 123 I there were recurring and bitter conflicts at Cambridge: take his title not from Ely but from Cambridge. These were the men from the burgesses' point of view the main issues were, first, the control who belonged, one must suppose, to the Anglo-Saxon thegns' guild of the market - the right to charge an economic rent for lodgings and or the later merchant guild, contributed to the taxes which put Cam to sell goods which were in short supply at as high a price as they could bridge high on the list of twelfth-century tax-paying boroughs and get; secondly, the preservation of their judicial privileges - their right who produced much of the money to buy various royal privileges to enforce law and order so that their life as tradesmen and merchants and charters. 59 In I 185 they obtained a temporary farm of their Borough was not disrupted; their right to recover debts by the processes of - an important advance as it freed them from the sheriff's financial their customary law and so on; and above all the right of all burgesses control - and then in 1207 the perpetual farm and the right to appoint to be tried in their own courts for civil offences. On its side the Univer their own reeves. The latter privileges meant the control of the Borough sity was bound to protect its members from high or exorbitant prices, court and this, it may be noted here, involved the whole field area of from the medieval traders' propensity for cheating by adulteration of Cambridge and its dependent vilis. The grant was soon followed in food, by selling stale, bad or underweight food, and the general use of accordance with the prevailing fashion by the election of a new Borough false weights and measures, and from being subject to burghal courts, officer, the mayor. 60 Thus, the town was now well on the way to secur where the die would be heavily weighted against them. How far the ing sufficient administrative independence to live its life as merchants town's growth was checked by the arrival of the scholars has yet to be and craftsmen under rules ofits own making, and free of the obligations worked out in detail. That the presence of the University created an ofmanorialism. enlarged demand for goods cannot be denied, but the essence of urban life was the interchange of goods and the clerks were consumers only; its presence also created exceptional problems relating to the preserva THE THIRTEENTH-CENTURY TOWN AND THE UNIVERSITY tion of law and order, as in 126 I when the townsmen became involved For English towns in general, the thirteenth century was one of prime in a conflict between North and South-country scholars and sixteen importance. Not only was it a period of expansion in numbers, trade, of them were subsequently executed. It has been said that spiritually and wealth, but it saw the firm establishment of municipal independence. the University'S presence 'meant an example of organization and a stimulating battle for right',63 and yet the conflict of interest between the two communities was a distraction to both and involved an ever
56 Rot. Hund. ii, 36o; the form of the name certainly indicates a pre-Conquest origin. increasing expenditure of energy and money. It led to the annual public For 12th- and 13th-century deeds about the family see J. 11. Gray, School oj humiliation of the town's corporate body, to the constant feeling that Pythagoras, 41 sqq. 'Dunning's quay' (possibly on the Cambridge water-course) 'simple men' must inevitably be outwitted by the learned and so to a was rented to the King for the Castle building operations in 1286: Palmer, CAS xxvi, 83. For the house (Merton Hall) see map 4. consequent restriction ofthe energy and initiative ofthe townsmen.
57 Gray, op. cit. p. 44, nos 20, 23. For the family and its decline in the mid-13th century Constitutional development had been rapid under the Angevin kings see E. Miller, The Eagle liii (1943), no. 234, p. 73; ~Iaitland, 163, 168, 176. For and the burgesses obtained further privileges under Henry III, Edward I the Absaloms see ibid. 174-7. Ivo fitz Absalom was among the richest contribu and his son. The charter of 125 6 notabl~- advanced the town's status and tors to a tallage in 1214: Pipe R. 1214 (PRS N.S. xxxv), 75-8. For lists of the wealthiest burgesses in 1211 and 1219 see Maitland, 167-71. responsibilities as well as increasing its revenues, but their freedom of 58 For churches, chapels and patrons see Cam, 123-32; ClIria Regis R. V,39. All action was soon to be severely restricted by the community of clerks Saints by the Hospital once apparently belonged to St Albans, but Sturmi, a in their midst. Already in 123 I on the King's orders the Mayor had had burgess, later gave it to St Radegund's: Jesus ColI. Bursary, charter D II. 59 CBC 6; C. Stephenson, Borough and Town, 202. Cambridge came 13th in a list of 29 towns placed according to the amount of Danegeld paid under Henry I and 12th out of 3 5 towns placed according to the average aid paid under Henry II: ibid. 225. In 1185 the town's farm was £62, more than double what it had been when 61 Cj. Oxford's constitutional development: H. E. Salter, Medie1!aIOxjord(1936), 40 the Earl's third was fixed at £ 10: Cam, 4,35. sqq.; and "-1. D. Lobel, 'Some Aspects of the Cro\\'n's Influence on the Develop eo Pipe R. 1185 (PRS xxxiv), 6o; CBC 6-8. Before the town acquired its chartered ment of the Borough of Oxford up to 1307' in Pestscbnftfiir I Iektor Ammann rights the King's reeve and on occasions the Earl's reeve, as at Leicester, controlled (1965, W'iesbaden), ed. H. Aubin et al. the borough courts. In Stephen's reign, for instance, the town was in the hands of 62 Eg. Hereford, Reading, Bury St Edmunds: Hi.rtorlc TOJl'l1s, i, (Lobel, C. F. Slade, the Earl of Huntingdon and the fee-farm was paid to him. The various courts of passim); 1':. ~I. Trenholme, EI1Rlish Afonastic BoroIlRbs(Columbia, 1927); M. D. the chartered borough are listed in an exempliflcation of Ed\\'. VI - a weekly Lobel, Bury Sf Edmllnd's (1935). Tuesday court, a court of Guild ~Ierchant, a Pie Powder court for strange mer 63 For most able studies of the problems connected with the origin of the University chants, a five-time-a-year court for pleas of lands and tenements and a leet court: and its relations with the town sec J. P. C. Roach, 150 sqq. and Cam, 76 sqq; C i, CBC82-4· 48 ; Maitland, 43.
7 CAMBRIDGE
to agree with the University to appoint 'taxors' who would jointly Similar economIc growth was experienced by other towns in this fix the rents ofall hostels used by scholars; in 1268 the Mayor and bailiffs century and owed its impetus primarily to the agricultural boom and were obliged to arrange with the University for the joint supervision general trade expansion. This was undoubtedly so at Cambridge too, of the assize of bread and ale; in 1270 worse followed: accused of being for its varied hinterland was becoming ever more productive and its not only negligent but incompetent in the suppression of the 'in river trade had not yet suffered much from the challenge of Lynn: it solencies of malefactors' and other things harmful to the masters and was not until 1236 that the first major conflict occurred when the rising scholars of the University, ten burgesses were to be sworn each year to port vindicated its right to exemption from toll and stallage at Cam keep the 'peace and tranquillity of the University'. The oath, be it bridge. 68 But the latter had advantages of a more individual nature noted, was not to keep the Borough peace or the King's peace, but the as well. It profited from its scholars and from being the only town of peace of the University. Thus, the clerks oft repeated threat to secede any substance in the shire, a striking contrast with the wealthier Oxford, and the actual departure of many in search of peace at Korthampton, which had many competitors; also by being used to a moderate extent had proved a powerful weapon and their ascendancy was now firmly as a royal agent for purchases in the market or other matters; and by established. The subordination of the burgesses was underlined even the increasing legal business in a rich shire. It has been reckoned that more firmly in 1305 and 13 I 7 when the l'niversit~, obtained the right to the E~-re of 1260 brought well over 1,500 outsiders into the town, cite them and other laymen before the Chancellor in all personal actions and at these times no market might be held within ten miles. 69 With where a scholar was involved. Also, b,- the charter of 1317, the ;'[ayor the fuller dc)Cumentary evidence of the thirteenth century, the town's and bailiffs were obliged on taking office to s\vear to maintain the role as a regional centre begins to stand out more clearly. Rural popu privileges of the Universit~-. So wounding to their pride \vas this lation is believed to have expanded by about one-third between ro86 annual ceremony that the Alrz2,na COIZ2,re.2,acio, in C niversit,- parlance, and 1279 and the great rise in corn prices was bringing wealth to the came to be known to the townsmen as the Black Assembh'.64 This count,' as well as to the owners of strips in the town's arable fields, arrangement, unsatisfacton- from the point of view of the town's officers, and so to the local market. 70 ;\lread,' b~' the end of the twelfth century was not reached without many ,-iolent outbreaks and royal inquiries there are signs that surplus corn was being brought to Cambridge. into the excesses committed. 65 Certainly the sheriff \\:as sending it, on the r"':'ing's orders, from Cam Although the evidence is fragmentan- there is sufficient to show that, bridge to Lmn for Ireland and J'\:orway, while out of sixty men fined despite the violence and the difficulties arising from the l'niyersin"s in 1177 for illegalh' carn'ing it by water, sixteen seem to have been share in the control of prices, the town's economy was still expanding. Cambridge burgesses. In the next centun- waggons of grain were Indeed, the vigour of the Borough's opposition to control is in itself heing sent b~' road while along the Cam and its tributaries came barges an indication of this. One of the clearest signs ()f rising prosperity is the l()aded with goods of which some were destined for London. 71 evident increase in population: a comparis()n ()f the ligures given in Increased rural wealth and population naturalh' encouraged an increase Domesday Book and in the Ilundred R()lls, incomplete and ditlicult in the number and variet\' of the town's craftsmen. to interpret though the\' are, presents a stri king pictu re ()f growth. Thus, Camhridge's ec()nom\' was h\' nm\! firmh- based on its capacity In 1279, five hundred and thirn'-four freehold h()uses arc enumerated, to distribute the natural products ()f the region and of its own fields, forty-nine vacant places (i.e. house plots), sevent\'-live sh()ps and hooths streams, river, and fishponds to London or to other markets, at home compared with the total of about four hundred plots recorded in 1086. and ahroad, but also to a growing extent on the exchange of its crafts The highest numbers are found in the parishes ()f St Bene't, St "'fan' men's goods for the products of the countr~'side. 72 Occasionally there in the Market and St Clement and from the names of the inhabitants is a glimpse of what was done \\!ith these products: Cambridge men it is clear that immigrants from the countryside and e\-en from towns were accused of bm'ing malt with one measure and selling with another, had come to seek their fortunes. 66 From the tallage return of 1312, it and of taking toll of beasts whether sold or not, while its drapers and appears that the richest wards coincided with the thickl~' populated vintners were fined for selling cloth and wine against the assize. Its areas: first came Trumpington \'\/ard and the ;'[arket \~'ard, then the flax was made up into linen cloth and sold in the market; its reeds and Ward this side of the Bridge (i.e. the south side), followed b,' Milne sedge were used for building and fuel; its hides, meat and fish were Street Ward which included the hythes on the river. The great pre clearly in great demand. Hugh the fisherman and Cailly the tanner were ponderance of wealth in the south bank wards as a whole is striking; among the richer burgesses early in the centur~-. Later Caillys, inciden the Ward Beyond the Bridge was now even more a suburb of Cambridge tall~', with their manor at Trumpington, were one of the many examples than it had been in the twelfth century.67 True, the Castle end of the of the close relationship which had long existed between the town town remained the militarv and administrati,'e centre of the shire and trader and the producer of raw materials. 73 Others like them were the to some extent an aristocratic quarter, but the centre of municipal Toylets, the Semans and their connexions the Ems, all of whom amassed government, of trading activity, and of the nascent l'niversity with its many student hostels and lodgings was across the river.
68Ci,6I.
69 J. F. \'\illard in Historical Essays in HOllollroj James Tait(1933), ed. J. G. Edwards et al., 430-3 (taxation boroughs); Rot. Litt. Clalls. i, 606b, 62 I b; Cal. Lib. vi, no.
64 For royal charters, etc, see CBC 6-22; Royal Letters (RS), 398-9 (Henry III forbids 1532 (bailiffs to make purchases of fish for the king); Assizes 1260, ii.
in 1231 the Cniversity to\\'ns to exact exorbitant rents from scholars); C i, 41 (he 70 C. T. Smith in Cambrid/?f Re 8 CAMBRIDGE town property as well as field acres and had a clear interest in the river THE TOPOGR;\PHY OFYHE THIRTEENYH-CENTURYTOWN traffic. Such men were the successors of the Norman Dunnings and By the end of the century the town had probably reached the limits of their like, and the forerunners of those fourteenth-century mayors and its pre-nineteenth-century expansion and was perhaps more thickly bailiffs who invested in land ~ men such as Roger Harleston, who had populated than at any time before the early seventeenth-century. It an estate at Cottenham, was a burgess and four times :M.P. for the was now organized in seven wards, and had seventeen parishes, three county.74 But there were other substantial upper-class burgesses ~ on the left and fourteen on the right bank. Yhe town 'Liberty' included merchants, mercers, drapers, or goldsmiths with more purely trading populous suburbs outside the Trumpington and Barnwell gates, and interests; their activities outside the local market is evidenced by the the hamlets of Barnwell, Newnham, and Howes, which were all legally charter of 1256 which granted freedom from arrest for another's debts ~ dependent, as well as about five square miles of field land. 79 Some a protection only needed by those trading in towns other than their towns ~ those where industry or commerce by sea was early developed, own. There were also the poor whose contribution to the town's or those where feudal or ecclesiastical interests were strong ~ lost prosperity, whether as craftsmen or as labourers in the open fields, control at an early date of their common fields, but at Cambridge was fully recognized by the Crown when it intervened in 1235 with agriculture continued to be an important part of the town's economy orders to appease all controversies in such a \vay that the poor should until the nineteenth-century enclosures. ;,\1any townsmen, indeed, not be too much aggrieved nor the rich too much spared. 75 owned land not only in their own fields but outside in the county Yet another sign of the town's regional importance is the amount of while the tenant labourers formed a substantial part of the population investment in its houses and fields made b\-. the count\-. families and for centuries. The open common fields were divided by the river into the religious houses, though this was almost certainly a continuing the West Field and the East Field, knO\vn in the fourteenth century process and not a new development. 76 OYer a dozen religious houses as Cambridge and Barnwell Fields. With the water-meadows along had a stake in the town or its fields. j\ few like Eh·, Ramsey and St the west bank of the river and the commons they closely encircled Edmundsburv had more than an interest in the collection of yaluable the thirteenth-century town and, except for the meadows taken over rents. They had a definite interest, probably from before the Conquest, by colleges, were to remain along with the water-mills and windmills in the river trade and the facilities of the market: they had granges an essential part of the urban scene for the next five centuries.80 for storage in parishes bordering the river and the hythes; both Ely A traveller approaching Cambridge from the south by way of Royston and Ramsey had property 'in Hulmo' in St Clement's parish, and in or Saffron Walden would enter the town by the Yrumpington Gate St Michael's, and Bury had tenants on either side of the Great Bridge.77 after traversing the rich parish and suburb of St Peter's. On his right Finally, there is the Jewish community to be considered. At the latest as he went towards the Great Bridge lay the main Market-place and by I I 50 there was business enough from the town and county to attract the heart of the trading town. St Mary's church, a royal foundation a small number. In the early days the town probably benefited in the and a comparatively new one, dating it seems from the late twelfth main by Jewish loans to landowners, whether burgesses or not, to century, served as the religious and social centre of the merchant assist in the development of their agricultural land, but some of the fraternity whose guild of St Mary was attached to it, and it was also leading townsmen who borrowed from them in the years before their used by the University.81 Although shops were scattered throughout expulsion in 1275, seem to have been merchants only. Barnwell Priory, every parish it was in this area that the main concentration lay, as well by now a considerable owner of rents and field acres, largely given to as substantial merchant houses. In the Market-place, too, were the first it by burghal families, was another borrower and the transactions of municipal buildings and the home of a small community of Franciscans, the neighbouring feudal landowners are brought into prominency very probably the second to settle in England, the Oxford group being by the baronial raid of 1266 on the Jewry and the Jewish chest (area) the first. 82 In 1224 the burgesses leased from the King the stone house with the intent ofdestroying all the evidence ofdebts owed. 78 79 See below maps 3 and 4. The medieval parish boundaries were probably stabilized by now. They cannot at present be accurately defined everywhere, but there are a number of natural lines (rivers, highways, ditches), which seem certain. In the '4 Rot. Hund. ii, 367, 387, 388 and see index Sl/b Toylet; the latter's granary near the 12th century the Old Cam formed the boundary of the parishes of All Saints, river and his grange at Dame Nicoleshythe (Lib. l\fem. 285) suggest an interest in St illichael's, St Edward and St Botolph: see map 4, A. W. Goodman, A Little the corn trade. For Seman property in the parishes of St Giles, St Peter by the History ofSt Botolpb; A. Gray, DlialOrigin. Approximate boundaries can be elicited Castle, and St Clement where Robert lived see ibid. 367; cj. Nicholas ~lorice: ibid. from the Hundred Rolls, charters, and other documentary evidence. Small Bridges 375,376. See also]. M. Gray, Biograpbical ""-ales on Ibe Mayors ofCambricZf!,e (1921), and most of Newnham hamlet was in St Peter's; also Old Newnham mill 3,5,7,8,12. (Goodman, op. cit.). New Newnham was in All Saints by the Castle. It is possible '5 CBC 14; C i, 43. that St Radegund and Holy Sepulchre were taken out of All Saints and possibly '6 E.g. Rot. Hund. ii, 389, 391, 392; Rot. Litt. Claus. i, 247b, 5 79b (Ralph de Trubel out of St Alichael's too (St Radegllnd, 22-3; Downing Call. Libr., MS. Bowtell 5, ville held 3 knights fees in Cambridge, etc. He was the successor of Nicola de f. 101 I), for it was common for town parishes to include dwellers both inside and Hemmingford, and the two provide one more instance of the close relationship outside the walls or town bounds. The detached portions of St Bene't point to its between county magnates and the town). having had later parishes carved out ofit and to the influence oflandownership on 77 E.g. Rot. Hund. i, 49, 50, 54, 55; ibid. ii, 360 (Bury's houses of 'ancient perquisite') parish boundaries. For wards see Gild Recs. 151-7, and for the hamlets in the and see CVL mm i.' 35, p. 436; Feudal Docs. ed. Douglas, 145 ; Ramsey Cart. i, 49 I suburbs see Rot. Hllnd. ii, 363, 371, 376 and passim; Lib. ],[em. 90-2. (Ramsey's tenants); Ely had inter alia a grange and mill ad capllt de HOJ1'es(Sacrist 80 Pedes Finillm, CAS Publ. xxvi, passim. For the fields see map 3; Lib. Mem. 98 Rolls ofEly, ed. R. R. Chapman (1967), i, 120) and property in St Andrew's parish (Barnwell Field), xxxiii and map facing p. 336; Clark names 4 fields in the 13 th (ex inj. .';lrs F. Jones); Rot. Hund. ii, 385 i 387; Gild Recs. p. 130, no. 4 (Anglesey's century (organized in a 3-fieJd system); cf. ~[aitland, 55 sqq. and map. Some of the barn, shops in St Alichael's and booths in the Butchery); for other houses see Rot. names in the \X'est field recall the days of the Saxon town: Portfeld, Portwei, Port Hund. ii, 360, 380, 381, 383, 384, 385-6, 389, 391, etc.; St John's Col. Libr. drw. 18, bridge, and it is possible that Aldermannes Hill, Gri!b Haire or Gre! TJOJI'f marked nos 13, 17. The taxation of 1291 recorded that 20 religious houses \,'ere assessed the site of the open-air meetings of the bllrb's portmoot, once held near the on their property in the to\n1: C i, 63 (most of them do not appear in the Hundred '\laidenburg': St John's Libr. drw. 24, nos 43, 100; dr\\,. 32, no. 2; Cal. Close, Rolls and St Radegund is not taxed). 126 3-72 ,262. 78 H. P. Stokes, Studies in Anl!,lo-Jeu'isb I Iistory (19 I 3), 105-282 passim, and note 81 For churches see Cam, 129. The guild of St \lary, possibly to be identified with especially 124-32 (12th century), 139-199 (13th century); 144-6 and app. iv (list of the\krchant Guild, first occurs C.1232-5: Gild Recs, xii sqq., 1-25 sqq. 41 Cambridge debtors); Pipe R. I I 58-9 (PRS i), 53; P. Elman, Ec.HR 1st ser. 82 Maitland, 143 sqq. (analysis of the 1279 survey). For the Franciscans see l\Jonu vii (1936), 147, 148-9; G. Richardson, hl,glisb jell'ry (196o), 9-10, 67 for a Herts. menta Francisconrl (RS), i, 17-18; Little, Stlldies ill Ellp,lisb Franciscan His!., 236 landowner borrowing before 116o; Rot. ] lllnd. ii, 357 (Barnwell); cj. Cam, 95-6. (Cambridge was the head of the E. Anglian Custody); and sec below, n. 99. 9 CAMBRIDGE of Benjamin the Jew for use as a gaol, and the Franciscans were allowed, closest to it - St Giles and St Peter - were well populated with fifty-five on their arrival, to share it until 1238 when the King granted them the houses.87 All Saints by the Castle on the other hand had only seventeen, whole of it and gave the town licence to build another gaol. Before a paucity that is probably partly explained by the Castle precinct the end of the century the townsmen had a guildhall or tolbooth and being outside the town's jurisdiction, and partly by the fact that gaol in the Market-place, but whether in one or two buildings is not substantial burgesses, such as the Blancgernons, had their houses clear.83 The names have survived of various Rows hereabouts where and granges here, while there had also been a shift of emphasis craftsmen were concentrated, but they cannot all be located exactly. to the Market-place with its municipal buildings and to the hythes There was Cutlers Row, Smith Row 'in St Mary parish where the on the right bank.88 The river-trade that once flowed along the Cambridge smiths dwell', Lorimers Row, Goldsmiths Row, Potters Row, Apothe Water-course was temporarily halted around 1260 when it was presented caries Row, Butchers Row, and the Drapery. There is no doubt that at the Eyre that ships that used to pass along this 'arm of the river in these rows were permanent structures and not just temporary booths the castle ward' no longer did, as William Ie Breton had built a bridge set up on market-day. One of the larger houses here was a 'great mes blocking their passage. Afterwards, it seems that the channel gradually suage' in Goldsmiths Row in St Mary's parish, belonging to the sister fell out of use and that the Bin Brook was artificially turned into what of Ernisius the Merchant. It had a 'great grange' with a solar on one was now the main channel of the Cam (i.e. the modern course). Some side and gates (with a solar above) on the King's highway, which were depopulation here may be indicated by the decision of the Pied Friars large enough for loaded carts to enter by. So great was the demand (Fratres Beatae Mariae) to build in the parish.89 for shop or housing-space around the Market-place that the church To return to the right bank. Between the crowded High Street and yard of St Mary's was fast being encroached on and houses were built the river, the sloping land, which had been too marshy for occupation right up against the church itself.84 in the early days of settlement, was intersected by lanes leading to a To the north lay the parish of St Michael, much favoured by the 'common ditch' (also called the King's Ditch or King's Stream, since well-to-do, whether of the town or the University: several families of it was navigable) bounding Garret Hostel Green on the east side, and the burghal patriciate had property there; the Findsilvers lived in it to the Cam itself, where there were numerous hythes - Blancwynes and gave their name to a lane, while towards the end of the century hythe, Cholleshythe, Dame-Nicholleshythe, Flaxhythe, and Keverelles the Archdeacon of the diocese had a residence between the Rectory hythe in Henney.9o The ground between them was largely taken up and Borden's hostel.85 Further north still were the parish churches of with gardens, barns for storing corn, and the houses of monastic All Saints by the Hospital and of Holy Sepulchre, with Jew's Lane, owners or of rich men and their dependents. Just above the Great the centre of the Jewry, running between them. Both churches are Bridge and the Great Hythe there was the Hospital of St John, a sub often described as lying 'in the Jewry', and one would expect to find stantial building of stone. It was now succouring 'a great confluence here the Jews' synagogue, but neither its site nor that of their burial of poor and sick' and being supported by numerous bequests of town ground are known. A few years after their expulsion from Cambridge houses and land.91 To the south the Priories of Anglesey and St Edmund the survey of 1279 recorded only eighteen dwelling houses in the had much property, including a stone house, and there were large parishes of Holy Sepulchre and All Saints. Much of the land here messuages which in the next century were to be sold for college sites was subject to flooding and so may have formed a natural 'green belt', by the Walsingham, Croyland, Trumpington, and Buttetourte families. but the small numbers may also be explained by the fact that Jewish When Robert de Croyland sold his house to the King in 1336 for King's property here had escheated to the Queen Mother.86 Further north still, Hall it was clearly a very fine establishment and was presumably built in St Clement's parish, which included the immediate approach to the in the preceding century, as the Buttetourte's very large house certainly Great Bridge and the Great Hythe, houses were comparatively crowded was. Roger Buttetourte, son of Guido, l10bilis l!ir, described his property - there were thirty-four with five shops. Across the Bridge the parishes as 'my messuage with buildings, garden, quay, and rents', and in 1306 he enlarged it by enclosing a continuation of St Michael's Lane, i.e. the lane to Flaxhythe on the river. 92 From these lanes Milne Street ran at right angles southwards to Small Bridges, midway between the river and 83 For the first gaol see Rot. Fin. ii, 62 1,647; it is uncertain if the licence of 1232 was the High Street, with side lanes branching off to Salthythe and Cholles ever acted on: Cal. Lib. 1226-40, 33 8; Cal. Close, 1237-42, 61. The earliest known mention ofthe tolbooth is in 1332 (Cal. Pat. 1321-4, 17 3). It is possible that it is hythe. Here was the parish of St John Zachary and many hostels, identical with the Jew's house which the Crown had re-leased to the town. including Le Glomery Hall where the Grammar masters lived.93 South 84 PN 49-50; St Radegund, no. 2 I 6; Potters Row had a shop at the corner: ibid. no. of Cholles Lane a number of townsmens' houses had been sold into 2I9a; BM Add. MS 58 I 3, If. 169-70, 171, 193; Gild Rees. 131; CAS xiii, 23 6; if. Clark in Lib. Mem. xviii-xxvii for a description of the 13th-century town. 85 Stokes in CAS xlix Publ., 2, 9 and CAS xxii, 14; Rot. Hund, ii, 388, 389 (the Prior ofEly's granary was approximately where Green St now runs) and see maps 4, 5,6. The exact position ofFindsilver and Puppelote (also apparently in this parish) 87 ~Iaitland, 143-4. Lanes are uncertain. For the latter, named after Thomas Puppelote(ft. 1219) see 88 For the Castle precinct and the Blancgernons see above n. 57. BMAdd. MS 5813, If. 144,147; Maitland, 168 and belowpp. II-12. 89 Assizes 1260,43; there were also alleged encroachments on the Great Bank near 86 St Radegund, no. 88 (Jews St runs from the highway to the cemetery of All Saints). the Great Bridge so that where ships used to be steered willows were planted and For other Jewish houses in the parishes of Holy Sepulchre and St Clement see Rot. no ship or boat could sail; VCH ii, 287. Hund. ii, 367, 392, 393, etc; st Radegundnos 83, 87, 94, 96; Stokes, Studies, 190-1, 90 See below map 4. Dame Nichola (n. 76) was the heiress ofa County landholder: 197; St John's Libr. drw. 19, nos 10, 12 (house ofJoceus of Briggestrete, later Maitland, 162. For Blancwynes, Keverelles (both unlocated) and other hythes see chirographer ofthe Jewish chest), and other royal escheats in Bridge St and a stone St Radegund, 203b, 23 Ib, 238 and index; Rot. Hllnd. ii, index; W & C ii, 390-2. house in Holy Sepulchre. Stokes and others believed that the Jewry was originally The King's Ditch (Common or Town Ditch) here has no connexion with the in the Guildhall area, but this centuries-old belief appears to stem solely from the town's defensive Ditch. statement by Thomas de Eccleston that the house ofBen jamin the Jew was a 91 Hist. Mss. Com. Report, i, 74; Gray, Sehl oj Pythag. p. 42, no. I I; for a summary synagogue (Mon. Franciseana (RS), 17-18). It has been regarded as confirmed by the of the Hospital's history see VCH ii, 303. discovery in 1782 ofa stray Jewish gravestone (which might have come from 9. W & C i, 159-60, ii, 395,431-2,456 (ground plan). elsewhere) on the site ofthe new Guildhall. But the Jews might hold property in 93 Cholleshythe was evidently named after the Cholle family: see CUL Ely Liber R., payment for debts anywhere in the town and royal records never refer to f. 561 for charter of Laurence son of Absolon Cholle of Cambridge granting to Ely Benjamin's house as a synagogue. When the Jews first came to Cambridge in Abbey land with buildings next the lane leading to Cholleshythe; if. ibid. f. 563 Stephen's reign the area ofthe Great Hythe and the Bridge were more likely to be (ripa de Absolon Cholle) and Lib. Mem. 219 for a reference to Mill Lane in 1258. the centre ofmercantile activity than the Market-place, where there were as yet no For hostels see map 5; W & C i. 78 for two messuages acquired from the Vicar municipal buildings; ef Cam, 95; B M Add. MS 58ro, If. 234-7, 252-75, etc. of St John's in e. 1270 and probably already used as hostels. 10 CAMBRIDGE Mortmain when the Carmelites moved soon after I290 from their On the north-east, to\vn settlement was also encouraged by the Newnham site (see below), because Small Bridges Street was impassable religious houses, although some dwellings (JJJansiones) may have been in winter and they were consequently prevented from getting to the pulled down by the Franciscans when they moved to the eastern edge market for victuals. The Carmelites built their new church in :Milne of the town. In I 279 some ten years after the move, their site which Street at about the same time as the Austin Friars were establishing straddled the Ditch covered six acres. The Nunnery of St Radegund, themselves on the eastern side ofthe town.94 though never very rich, was expanding too. In the mid-twelfth century But Cambridge had long spread outside the Ditch. There was a it had acquired ten acres for its buildings and by at least the mid Saxon suburb outside the Trumpington Gate and possibly outside thirteenth century a separate parish of St Radegund was made for the Barnwell Gate, and there was certainly considerable post-Conquest surrounding population. The nunnery was well endowed with strips growth.95 In this century the parish of St Peter seems to have been the in the common fields which it leased to tenants and it also derived a wealthier of the two. Much of its land was in the hands of non-resident small profit from its fair - Garlick Fair.99 Round Barnwell Priory growth landlords - the Priory of Anglesey and the ancient religious houses of was on quite a different scale. About one hundred messuages, a very Cambridge, but the rich families of St Edmund and Ie Rus were resi large number even for a Cambridgeshire village, are recorded in the dent. Here they had their private chapels of St Edmund and St Lucy, parish in I 279. C ndoubtedh- many of the Priory's tenants were peasants and here in the second half of the centun- were clustered the houses working on the land, but many too must have been craftsmen, supply of several religious orders. The Carmelites occupied about three acres ing their lord's and the villagers' day-to-day needs and very probably at Newnham, and the Friars of the Sack obtained a site in I 258 when selling their products in the Cambridge market and at Sturbridge Fair, the Mayor, John Ie Rus, who had fallen in debt to the Jews, was obliged held in one of the nearby open fields. For them was built early in the to sell them his stone house \vith its court\-ard and chape1.96 B\- I 279 century the church of St Andrew the Less along the Bury road. 1 In their property included a row of messuages fronting the highwa\- with this century the number of canons rose to thirty and active building strips of pasture behind them, which had belonged to a variety of work took place, so that by I 28 5 the whole complex of buildings traders and others - a brewer of Little Shelford, a tanner, a cooper, covered ten acres. Even before, it had been a favoured residence for a shepherd, a carter, and the Rector or Warden of the Chapel of St royal guests. Henry III and his brother lodged at the Priory several Edmund. By I29I the latter had become the chapel of St Edmund's times and the royal justice who held an inquiry into the insurrection Priory, a college for the Gilbertine canons of Sempringham who had of I267 stayed, to the Prior's indignation, for a whole year, not only hitherto been using 'the castle at Cambridge' as a place of study. Their with his entourage but with his wife and twenty-two of her women move is likely to have been prompted by the Bishop of Ely's decision attendants. 2 to put his own scholars in two of his houses, 'hardby St Peter's church', The Hundred Rolls give a vivid picture of the burgess community and already let as hostels for students. Soon after this move the Hall of inheriting, buying, and selling messuages, shops, and acres in the fields. Peterhouse, the University's first college, was built for them in 1286 The transfer of houses and rents is often very rapid, the amount accumu on land to the south of the church.97 lated by one person considerable and the legal complications intricate. Little is known of the suburb outside Barnwell Gate, beyond the A father and son, for example, between them bought up eleven shops, fact that the influential burghal family of Absalom had land here and four messuages, two vacant places in the parishes of St Mary and St possibly founded the church of St Andrew the Great. Land in its parish Michael, and seven acres in the fields, while another burgess collected was given to the Dominicans, who began to build their first chapel nine messuages in St Peter's and eleven acres. 3 here in 1238, and two years later closed a lane to the south of St Andrews' The majority of the better houses were timber-framed with an infilling so that they might enlarge their cemetery. Many dwellings, once paying of clay and reeds, while cottages of one storey had mud-built walls. geld to the town, were said to have been included and despite the com Both were thatched with straw and reeds and so fire was a chronic plaints the site of eight acres was again enlarged in I285 and 1293. hazard. Fire among the houses crowded round St Mary's church badly Their great church, later to be used with the conventual buildings damaged it and another damaged the church of St Bene't and destroyed for the only Parliament ever to sit in Cambridge, was consecrated in many dwellings.4In view of the absence of stone in the region there was 1286. At this time the establishment numbered sixty or more Friars a remarkable number of known stone houses - a witness to the wealth and their buildings were considered suitable for the King's lodgings. of individual families and possibly to extensive robbing of the Roman That the Friary's presence encouraged suburban growth is evidenced town. Across the river there was Dunningstede, now called Merton Hall by the building of dwelling houses opposite it by Barnwell Prion-.98 since Merton College in the sister University had purchased it, and on the right bank many other stone houses are recorded.5 Tenements were of all sizes, doubtless the result of frequent buying and selling, 94 For Carmelites and Austin Friars see Cal. Pat. 1281-92, 368; VCH ii, 282, 287 ofdivision and amalgamation. In a row ofhouses fronting on Trumping sqq.; Stokes and Cranage in CAS xxii, 53 sqq. J. ~1itchell notes that the Augustinian site was on the very edge of the marshy land that marked the depres ton Street, one was described as 22 ft wide with a croft behind, the next sion in the gravels along an old pre-glacial course of the Cam: Cambridge Region 172. was 44 ft wide, and a third had a house measuring 2 I ft X 56ft with Alienations in Mortmain whether to religious houses or to colleges caused constant appurtenant buildings and lands. Along the riverbank, there were many trouble with the parish priests who lost their dues and sometimes with the religious crofts growing hay crops and large granges like the one at Henney houses themselves, when they in turn lost property to colleges; e.g. Lib. Afem. 209-11 (Dispute between Barnwell Priory and the Carmelites who had destroyed houses in the parish of St John, 1291-4). 99 J. R. H. ;'loorman, The Grey Friars in Cambridge (1952),4° sqq.; Rot Hund. ii, 360. 95 For full accounts see Stokes in CAS Publ. xliv and CAS Publ. xlvii. For the 1'.;unnery see St Radef!,lInd(a full account and transcripts or abstracts of C.4 00 96 For the Ie Rus and St Edmund families see also Rot. Hund. ii, 397, 398, 399; Luke charters). The demesnes reached to the King's Ditch. The fair was almost certainly of St Edmund was holding in 1279 by inheritance from his ancestors his house and so named after Roger Garlek, who was a witness with other influential townsmen chapel, a horse-mill in the market and 70 a. in the fields. For the friars see Lib. to a charter of Prioress Letitia (1215 -(.1225) : ibid. 88. Mem. 218-19; VCH ii, 286-7, 290; Cal. Pat. 1266-72,236. For tenements of the 1 :\Iaic1and, 147; RCHAf i, xlii. Friars of the Sack in All Saints' and St Clement's see B ~l Cole :\lS. 41, f. 129. 2 Lib. ;Hem. 69, 71-2, 106, 122, 124, 222-3, 227-8; Cal. Lib. 1245-51, 7I. 97 Cal. Pat. 1281-92, 363; ibid. 1292-1301,25 (a grant of a house and 60 a. of the St 3 Rot. Hllnd. ii, 356 sqq., passim. Edmund property in Cambridge); VCH ii, 254; \X. & C i, 2-8; CAS Publ. XLIV. , Symeon of Durham, IIisf. Regllm (RS)ii, 216,268; Lib. Afem. 230, 159, 220 for 98 VCHii, 269, 271, 272; Cal. Pat. 1292-1301, 52; Rot. Hund. ii, 360; the entry is other fires. Sites in the town are often said to be vacant because of fire: e.g. Rot. ambiguous, but it appears to mean that houses on the Dominican and Franciscan Hund. ii, 357. sites were actually destroyed: Lib. Mem. 286. 5 Lib. Afem. 97,182,223,283,285, etc. 11 CAMBRIDGE next Puppelotelane (59 ft X 56 ft).6 The ephemeral nature of houses writes of ditches being dug all round the town with such speed that in this period is brought vividly home by the dispute between Master the workmen were not allowed to rest even on Saints' days; of the Ralph and Barnwell Priory over one of their houses which was being King's intention to make a stone wall, and of how he had to leave used as a students' hostel. Master Ralph refuted the charge of disseisin suddenly on the news that London was threatened.ll What exactly was saying that he was using it as an hospicium only; that the Prior could done is far from clear, but it seems either that a new ditch with a circuit if he wished prostrate the house and build others at his will and this he inside it was made round part of the town, or that the old King's Ditch did when it pleased him. Another court case reveals how a neighbour's was re-dug and a circuit cleared. It was complained in 12.79 that both sewer discharging against a house rotted its groundsills and posts ditch and circuit were still lying vacant and no one was profiting from so that it fell to the ground. 7 them to the great loss of those who had their 'courts' (curiae) adjoining. As wealth and population grew the need for a proper water supply Some, in fact, had planted trees, another had made a bridge across the and efficient cleansing of the town streets became more imperative, Ditch to take his beasts to their pasture on Green Croft, and so on,12 but the orders issued on the occasion of the King's visit in 1267 reveal These complaints seem to apply only to the Ditch on the right bank, how little was normally done: the town was to be cleansed of dirt and but there is no doubt that there was also a King's Ditch on the left filth; the watercourses were to be opened and kept open as of old so that bank in this century. It is frequently mentioned in connexion with filth might run off; all obstacles which prevented this were to be moved property in the parishes of All Saints and St Peter and may have been and the Great Ditch was often to be cleansed; two burgesses were to the boundary of the Castle precinct, or possibly the ditch of the ancient be appointed in each street to see that the Ditch and other streams and Roman enelosure.1 3 gutters were kept clean. Some of the trouble was caused by encroach How futile the defensive efforts were may be seen in the account of ments. It was reported, for instance, in 1260 that a quay had been made the Barnwell chronicler that, on the approach of the insurgent barons, on the Henney stream (riparia) so that water which used to run through all the burgesses fled, that the gates were burnt down, and the houses the open gutters of the town was obstructed and, later, that a man had in which the King had lodged were burnt down also. The Ditch, appropriated a certain common ditch (60 ft long by 5 ft) to the harm however, was still being maintained for defensive purposes in King ofthe whole town.S Edward's time, for in 12.92. the Austin canons were allowed to enclose The century also saw improvements in the town's defences. Work a piece of land (2.00 ft x 30 ft) adjoining it, provided they made two was ordered at the castle by Henry III in the 1260s, but it was Edward I gates through which the townsmen might pass when necessary for who initiated major works in 1284 which were intended to make it the town's defence. The Carmelites had already been licenced to enclose one of the strongest in the country. Stone was brought from Peter with walls land recently bought from the King, which lay between borough and Barnack, and in 1295 an average of one hundred men a their house and the Granta, provided they made two gates so that week was employed. A new great hall of three storeys was constructed, when there was need to defend the town the King's men could have a gatehouse with barbican and four new towers in the curtain wall. 9 The access. 14 extent of the precinct is recorded by a local jury who perambulated the bounds: they state that they started at a place called ArJJleswerch, THE LATE MIDDLE AGES: THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL followed the Castle ditch to Aswykston, i.e. Ashwyke Cross, and then BACKGROUND descended to the river through the middle of the court of 1ferton Hall per vetus jossatum,1o On the East bank, the King's Ditch had The period of relative prosperity and expansion was halted for a time apparently been put in a defensive state by King John: it was in the fourteenth century. No figures relating to population exist before probably deepened and widened in 1215, when 'the cost of enclosing the the Poll Tax of 1377, when 1,902. persons of fourteen and over were town' was allowed to the bailiffs. Then in 1267, when the barons, returned. How many escaped the tax collector or what proportion of entrenched in the Isle of Ely, were raiding the county Henry III came the population was under fourteen can only be guessed at, but three to Cambridge in person to supervise the town's defence. Once again, thousand inhabitants is likely to be a low estimate. 15 There are many it seems, the Ditch 'on the south and east side' was put in a state of indications that the town had earlier suffered a severe loss of population defensive efficiency, timber being bought for 'the emendment and and many consequent setbacks. Signs of trouble were evident even enclosure of the town', and houses that had been built up against the before the Black Death of 1349: the violent attack on the colleges and Ditch in time of peace were pulled down. The Barnwell chronicler hostels of 132.2., which led to the trial of the Borough's officers and 11 Rot. Litt. Claus. i, 2 34b: phrases such as this were common form and do not 6 CAS xliv, 2 I, 27; cf a messuage measuring 140 ft (a length commonly found) X necessarily imply the first enclosure ofa town. Cal. Lib. v, 267, 269; vi, nos 267 24 ft: Cal. Pat. 1292-1301,51; and one 60 ft X 23 ft with a house built on it (an allowance was made for houses pulled down next to the Ditch), 580, 1533 ; extending from the churchyard ofHoly Sepulchre to the King's Ditch: St John's Lib. Afem. 122-3. Libr. drw. 19, no. 22. For amalgamation see Rot. Hund. ii, 357 (Thomas Plot's 12 Rot. Hltnd. ii, 392. There was an 8 ft-wide walk along the ditch or parts ofit. messuage near Segrimmes Lane, composed of 3 separate parcels bought of dinrs 13 See St John's Coil. ~rs Cartulary ofSt John, ff. 5b, 6, 15b, 16 (near StNeot's men). \\'ay); B~[ Add. 1\[S 5813, f. 25 I, records a certain 'Hulmllm' (i.e. an island or 7 Lib. Mem. 183-4. The case makes it clear that the term domus was used to include land irrigated by water) in the circuit of the King's Ditch lying beyond the Great several buildings apparently erected round a court; for this arrangement see early Bridge in the parish of St Peter by the Castle. It may be that the 30 ft-Iong wall maps ofCambridge in Old Plans; CBD 10. built by Henry ofthe Castle on the King's Ditch was on the left bank rather than sCi, 51; Rot. Pari. v, 426. AssiZes 1260, 43; Rot. Hund. i, 55. The scholars of ~rerton the right: Assizes 1260,43. Cf Rot. Httnd. ii, 359: a messuage outside the Ditch of had also enclosed a ditch where there had been common fishing. Cambridge next St Neot's Way; RCHM ii, 307. 9 Rot. Lilt. Claus. i, I 5a; ii, 5 for expenditure on the hall and chamber 1212-16; 14 Lib. A[em. 122-3: the King was said to have lodged in the town, but this could King's Works, ed. Colvin, ii, 583-8; Palmer, 'Cambridge Castle Building Accts.' mean in the Castle precinct in contrast to his brother who lodged in the Priory. In (CAS xxvi, 66 sqq.) and Cambridge Castle (1928), 10; RCHM ii, 304-6. The survey 1293 Edward I lodged in the Castle, ibid. 227-8. For Austin Canons see Cal. Pat. of 1327 mentions 5 towers, of which 2 were incomplete. See map 4. 1281-92,482. Cf ibid. 474 for the royal interest in access to the river: the Carme 10 Lib. Mem. 167-9. The meaning ofper vetusfossatum has been variously interpreted, lites were licensed to enclose with two walls land between their house and the but there seems little doubt that Gray's identification of it with the 'Cambridge Granta bought previously from the town by the King. They were to make two Watercourse' is correct(CAS ix, 61-77). Clark has summarized the information gates so that when need be the King's men could have egress and ingress for the about the castle boundaries in Lib. Mem. xix-xxi. A terrier describes Ashuyke stone defence of the town. as by the High Cross at Castle End, a quoit's throw (i.e. c. I 9 yards) S\V'. of the 15 W. G. Hoskins, Local History in England (I 971), 238; E. Powell, Rising in East stone cross. See map 4. Anglia (1896), 5!. 12