Cambridge and Its Colleges
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
SDQCATIOH LIBR V? •%: ^S a; §"? MM \^ :S^1^ o (J V p^s^ijJ?^ t^ ^«o^^ — c4 cO'f PAULINE FORE MOFFITT LIBRARY UNIVBEISITY OF CALIFORNIA GENERAL LIBRARY, BERKELEY CAMBRIDGE AND ITS COLLEGES of Honour Caius Coll: CAMBRIDGE AND ITS COLLEGES By A • HAMILTON • THOMPSON • b.a. St Johns College Illustrated by H EDMVND • • NEW Ground where the grass had yielded to the steps Of generations of illustrious men." BOSTON L. C. PAGE & COMPANY LONDON METHVEN & CO MDCCCXCIX Education Add'l GIFT -r37 EDUG. iQOfQ TO MY MOTHER 540 PREFACE CO much has been written about Cambridge ^ that it is difficult to say anything new ; and this little book is therefore merely an attempt to put together recorded facts in an orderly way. I have followed throughout the arrangement adopted by Mr Wells in his book on " Oxford and its Colleges," and have also borrowed his method of marking the portraits of college worthies with an asterisk. Every writer on Cambridge must be under a great obligation to Willis and Clark's Architectural History of the University ; and Mr Atkinson's lately published book gives a singular completeness to the authorities for the architectural side of the question. Building at Cambridge, however, is a complex problem,—the history of Clare and the University Church are cases in point—and to follow out carefully every date and mark every alteration would be beyond these limits. My endeavour has been, therefore, to indicate the general date of every building rather than to assign a date to every particular part of its construction. For the historical part of the book, the authorities, grave and anecdotal, are too numerous to mention. Among modern xi I PREFACE works on the subject, I owe a great deal to " Mr J. W. Clark's Cambridge : Historical and Picturesque Notes" (Seeley, 1890). I am sure, too, that whatever interest my own part in this book may lack, Mr New's drawings will more than supply. Wisbech, April 23, 1898. XU CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Cambridge . I II. The University Church . i8 III. Peterhouse . 29 IV. Clare College 42 V. Pembroke College 53 VI. GONVILLE AND CaiUS ColLEGE 65 VII. Trinity Hall 76 VIII. Corpus Christi College . 85 IX. King's College 93 X. Queens' College 120 XI. St Catharine's College . • 135 XII. Jesus College 144 XIII. Christ's College 160 . XIV. St John's College . 174 XV. Magdalene College . 201 XUl CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XVI. Trinity College 211 XVII. Emmanuel College . 244 XVIII. Sidney Sussex College . 254 XIX. Downing College . 263 XX. Selwyn College, etc. 266 XXI. GiRTON AND NeWNHAM . 272 XXII. University Buildings The • 277 XXIII. The Churches of Cambridge . 294 XIV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Gate of Honour, Caius College Frontispiece St Mary the Great 19 St Peter's College . 31 Clare College 43 Clare Bridge . 47 Pembroke College ss King's College 95 King's College Chapel 99 Queens' College 121 The Bridge, Queens' College . 125 St Catharine's College . 137 Jesus College . H5 Christ's College . 161 St John's College . '75 XV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS St John's College . 179 Bridges of St John's '83 Magdalene College . 203 Trinity College 213 The Fountain, Trinity College 219 Sidney Sussex College 255 Newnham College 275 The Senate House . 279 The Round Church 299 NOTE The drawings have been made from photographs mostly taken by Messrs Stearn of Cambridge and Messrs Valentine. XVI I CAMBRIDGE P\R CAIUS' ingenious contention that Cam- bridge was founded in 3538 b.c. by Cantaber, a Spanish prince, has never received the support which its audacity deserves. The town cannot pretend to so great an antiquity, nor is its Roman origin even certain. It stood in the middle of a country intersected by Roman lines of road ; in no part of England are Roman and British remains more plentiful and more interesting. The Via Devana, the great high- road from Colchester to Chester, was the road which runs through the modern town from the station to Magdalene Bridge, and continues in a straight line to Godmanchester and Hunting- don. The Via Iceniana, or Icknield Way, which ran straight across England from the Eastern Counties, parts company with the Cam- bridge road on Newmarket Heath, and pursues an undulating course south-westward to Royston and Hitchin. Ermine Street, the Old North Road, ran through Caxton, ten miles west of Cambridge, and met the Via Devana at Hunt- ingdon. At Gogmagog Hills, five miles out of the town, we can trace the remains of Vandlebury A I ; CAMBRIDGE AND ITS COLLEGES Camp, which commanded the course of the Roman roads, and looked over the southern Fens and the Essex border. The familiar name of Grantchester is certainly of Roman origin. Instances might be multiplied to show how important this country was to Roman strategy. But there is no direct evidence to prove that Cambridge of to-day represents the ancient Camboritum. The Castle Hill, that odd mound from which so good a view of the town is obtained, is supposed to be in its origin Saxon ; it formed an important outpost against the Danes, who have left so many traces of their occupation in Norfolk and Suffolk. And the municipal history of Cambridge certainly begins with Saxon times, and it was the seat of one of the earliest Gilds. Mr Atkinson, who has so admirably traced the municipal constitution of the town, gives us some details of the purpose and form of the Cambridge Gild of Thanes. It was what we should call to-day a friendly society its members afforded each other mutual help. Such Gilds became common in Cambridge as in every town during the Middle Ages ; they were the great aids to municipal life, and we shall find that some of them grew rich and powerful enough to found a College on their own account. Our business is, however, with the University. One cannot fix a deliberate date of foundation. Universities, like every other great design, have small beginnings, and the origin of schools at Cambridge was probably insignificant. Cam- bridge is on the border of the Fenland, and the CAMBRIDGE Fenland contained the richest abbeys in England. Besides the great house of Ely, where the bishop was by virtue of his office abbot, there were, within easy reach of Cambridge, the four Bene- dictine abbeys of Peterborough, Ramsey, Thorney and Crowland, all of them in the very first rank of English houses. Life in the Fens was hard and dismal, and even Peterborough, the Medehamp- stead or Goldenburgh of Saxon times, must have been largely under water for a great part of the year. The towns on the borders, Cam- bridge or Stamford, formed an excellent asylum for those brethren who were too weak to endure the unhealthy mists of the Nene and Welland Wash. During the middle ages, Cambridge bristled with small religious houses, cells depend- ing on the greater abbeys ; and in these the young monks of Crowland and the other houses received their education. This was the begin- ning of the University. The academic life was the life of the cloister. The teaching consisted of the ordinary medieval sciences, Aristotle and the scholastic logic. In after years, Erasmus deprecated the attachment of Cambridge pedants to Aristotle and their unreadiness to accept the new learning. Cambridge never was quite so famous a nursery of schoolmen as Oxford ; her history is somewhat more peaceful. Nor, when the medieval theology fell into discredit, did she produce a teacher with the European fame of Wyclif. Her history, however, has a chrono- logy almost parallel with that of Oxford. Out of the monastic system was evolved the freer life CAMBRIDGE AND ITS COLLEGES of colleges. Oxford led the way with Uni- versity and Merton ; Cambridge followed with Peterhouse. The college, as distinct from the monastery, was a place of retreat whose aim was learning ; the aim of the monastery was self- discipline. It is needless to say that these colleges were established upon a clerical basis ; each was a society consisting of a master and a certain number of fellows. Their constitution was that of a public School ; the modern undergraduate system was a much later development. The early founders had no idea of a college in the modern sense ; a society principally composed of laymen, and a large body of undergraduates who to all intents and purposes are the College. The one Hnk which connects our colleges of to-day with the original foundations is the existence of a college chapel, uniting the various members of the institution for the prime object of the learned society, the glory of God. Medieval Cambridge lay, as our Cambridge still lies, east of the river, which flowed in a course more or less corresponding to its present direction. It was enclosed by the King's Ditch, a stream at a tangent to the main river. This started from the Mill Pool at the bottom of Silver Street, and was crossed by Trumpington Street at the Trumpington Gate, close to Pem- broke. In fact, it followed the present Mill Lane and Downing Street pretty closely, keeping to the left, until it reached Barnwell Gate at the bottom of Petty Cury. From Barnwell Gate it followed the present Hobson Street, ran CAMBRIDGE across Sidney Gardens and down Park Street, skirted Midsummer Common and rejoined the Cam about a hundred and fifty yards below Magdalene Bridge. Within this elliptic space the old town was contained. If you stood at the Round Church, you would see the two familiar main thoroughfares separate as they do to-day.