18. Whewell died in 1866, and was succeeded as master by Thompson, and he in 1886 by Butler. With their masterships we come to the affairs of to-day. The 1882 statutes opened a new chapter in our history; restrictions on the marriage of fellows were removed, and successful teachers thus encouraged to remain in residence; incidentally, this created a new social atmosphere. In this and other ways the conditions of academic life were considerably changed. We need not, however, shun a comparison with older times: if you want to see how freely Trinity during the late Victorian period spent itself in the public service look down any list of judges, bishops, statesmen, colonial governors, and civil servants of the time, and in all you will find many Trinity men conspicuous. Confining ourselves strictly to academic work in Cambridge and to those who have now [1906] passed away, I may mention the names of Clerk Maxwell in physics, of Cayley in mathematics, of Munro and Jebb in classics, of Thompson in Greek [176] ]philosophy, of Sidgwick in ethics, and of Westcott, Lightfoot, and Hort in theology: all of these were fellows of the College, and professors in the University.
19. This is a bare summary of a complex story. Of the spirit that actuates the College, of all that makes it a living Society, I have said little. In truth, these are incapable of analysis. The charm that the place perennially exercises on those who, generation after generation, make it their home, the affection it inspires, are intangible: they exist, there are but few members of the House who have not felt them, and perhaps that is all I need say on this aspect of our history.
[29] A paper read to a party of north-country students visiting the College in 1906.
[30] On some of the items in Whitgift’s tutorial ledgers, see above, chapter ii, pp. 36–39: the bills are printed at length in volumes 32 and 33 of the British Magazine, 1847, 1848. Other information on the daily life of students of the time is given in the statutes of 1560. An interesting list of the outfit and furniture in the rooms of a fellow-commoner in 1577 was printed by C. H. Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, vol. II, pp. 352–356.
[177]
]PART II.
Concerning the University.
[179]
]CHAPTER XI.
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY.
The problems connected with the beginnings of the University of Cambridge and the conditions of life in its early days have always interested me. Much is uncertain and open to various readings[31], but the following is a summary of the story, as it appears to me.
First, as to the site of the University. About the end of the eleventh century, Cambridge was little more than a village concentrated round St Peter’s church, having separate hamlets in its vicinity, one near St Benet’s church and the other at Newnham: at that time there was nothing to suggest the likelihood of its being chosen by students as a place where they might live and work in security. During the next century, however, it became of considerable importance. This was due to several causes. The chief of these were the castle erected in it by William the Conqueror to overawe the fen-men; its geographical location which gave it command of the [180] ]river passage by which most of the traffic between the midlands and the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk went; its position as a port of entry for small sea-going vessels coming from Lynn, of which a relic still survives in a bonded warehouse on the banks of the Cam; its vicinity to Sturbridge common on which came to be held one of the chief annual fairs in the kingdom; and lastly the establishment here of the large monastic Houses of the Augustin Canons, of the Brethren of St John’s Hospital, and of the Nuns of St Rhadegund: it would seem also that it became[32], maybe under the authority of the secular canons of St Giles, the seat of a grammar-school or schools. By 1200 the town had spread from castle-end to where Christ’s, Peterhouse, and Queens’ now stand, and along the east side of the river there were numerous small wharves, locally known as hythes. The writs of Henry I and Henry II and the charter of John bear witness to its importance in their reigns, but later this tended to diminish relatively to other towns.
The Universities of Cambridge and Oxford were initiated near the end of the twelfth century, both arising in towns free from disorder and where accommodation for students was obtainable. It was a time when men of scholarly tastes, especially [181] ]those resident in religious houses, were conscious of their ignorance of recent developments in theology as set out by Peter Lombard and in canon law, and were keen to study these subjects and scholastic logic. Schools to meet these needs arose in Cambridge and Oxford and became permanent. Like centres of instruction were established in other places, but for one reason or another did not survive long as degree-granting corporations.
It is not known whether the University of Cambridge began with a few teachers taking up their residence in the town, giving instruction, and attracting students and other teachers, or whether it started ready-made by a migration of a body of discontented teachers and students from some existing school. I believe the former view to be correct. If so, we may reasonably assume that a considerable proportion of the earliest adult students were previously living in monastic houses here or in the neighbouring fenland monasteries at Ely, Peterborough, or Croyland. It has been suggested that at first the lectures were given in the local grammar-schools: this is probable, and would fit in with the secular organization of the University and the fact that boys learning Latin grammar (glomerels) were reckoned among its students. Probably the movement was started with the sanction and direct encouragement of the bishop of Ely, [182] ]certainly it was not directly monastic, and more likely the teachers were secular clerks and not monks. I conjecture that at first the lecturers were strangers to the locality, but this in no way implies that a fragment of another university, students as well as teachers, migrated here as an organized body.