Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely

by John William Edward Conybeare

At any rate it is certain that, in 1209, when the schools of Oxford were for a while closed by the Government, as the outcome of a more than usually outrageous "rag," large numbers of the students migrated to Cambridge; which seems to point to the place having already some educational repute. From henceforward, at all events, it attained European reputation in this respect, for, in 1229, we find another batch of expelled students, this time from Paris, settling themselves here, and yet another swarm of Oxonians twenty years later.

The University had now become an organic body, with its Chancellor, its masters, and its scholars or "clerks," so called because, being not wholly illiterate, the Law considered them as potential members of the clerical profession, and gave them special immunities accordingly. They were not amenable to lay jurisdiction, but only to the milder "Courts Christian," in which the death-penalty was never inflicted. It seems not infrequently to have been deserved; for the earliest undergraduates were, at first, an utterly lawless lot, and made themselves most unpleasant neighbours to the "burgesses" of the Town.

When first they made their appearance the inhabitants of Cambridge had just bought the right to call themselves by this dignified name. This bargain was the upshot of a Royal visit in 1207 from King John, who, in consideration of a payment of 250 marks, (equivalent to £5,000 at the present value of money,) granted Cambridge a Charter of Incorporation, with the right to be governed by a Provost and bailiffs of their own (instead of by the King's Sheriff), and to regulate their own markets. Twenty years later, (by a further contribution to the royal purse,) the Provost acquired the higher title of Mayor.

But almost simultaneously, his prerogatives began to be curtailed by the rising power of the University, to whose "Taxers" was given, in 1231, the sole right of fixing the rents which might be demanded for lodgings from the inrushing swarm of students; while the regulation of the market weights and measures became vested in the Proctors. The authority of the Taxers died out when the Collegiate system became universal, but has been revived in recent days by the "Lodging-house Syndicate": that of the Proctors over the Market has become obsolete; not so long, however, but that, to this day, there may be seen, in the possession of the Senior Proctor for each year, an iron cylinder, a yard long and an inch in diameter, which was, not so many decades ago, the standard test for the dimensions of every roll of butter sold in Cambridge. For butter in Cambridge was retailed by the inch; a custom which still lingers on sporadically amongst our vendors.

The student population speedily became far more numerous than the townsfolk, and their accommodation must have been no small problem. At first the need was met wholly by private enterprise: University lodgers thronged the private houses and the annexes, or "hostels," as they are named, run up for their sole use by speculative landlords. These hostels gradually attained to more or less of official recognition by the University, and paved the way for the setting up of Colleges.

St. Michael's and All Angels.

The first actual College was Peterhouse, founded by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely, in 1284, and was of the nature of an experiment, the success of which it took a whole generation to establish. Once proved, a host of imitators appeared; and the following generation saw no fewer than seven similar foundations, Michaelhouse and King's Hall (the germs of Trinity College), Clare, Pembroke, Gonville, Trinity Hall, and Corpus Christi College. Then came a break of a century, followed by another outburst of zeal, which in the next hundred years produced yet another seven: King's, Queens', St. Catharine's, Jesus, Christ's, St. John's, and Magdalene. The last four of these were earlier religious and scholastic foundations remodelled; and a like process during the half century succeeding the Reformation has given us the Colleges of Trinity, Caius, Emmanuel, and Sidney. Not till the nineteenth century was the list added to by the appearance of Downing.

The original idea in all these foundations was to provide, not so much for the students as for the masters who taught them. To these it was an immense advantage to be able to dwell together in small groups and in quiet quarters, where they could engage in research and prepare their lectures, shut away from the turmoil of the seething crowd of Town and Gown in the streets. And it speedily appeared that if the seclusion of a College was helpful to the teacher it was even more helpful to the taught. For the test applied to students by the University before conferring upon them a Degree was by public disputations in the schools, each candidate having to support or oppose some literary or scientific thesis.