CAMBRIDGE IN THE NORMAN TIME
"At this time the fountain of learning in Cambridge was but little,
and that very troubled.... Mars then frighted away the Muses, when
the Mount of Parnassus was turned into a fort, and Helicon derived
into a trench. And at this present, King William the Conqueror,
going to subdue the monks of Ely that resisted him, made
Cambridgeshire the seat of war."--FULLER.
William I. at Cambridge Castle--Cambridge at the Domesday
Survey--Roger Picot the Sheriff--Pythagoras School--Castle and
Borough--S. Benet's Church and its Parish--The King's Ditch--The
Great and the Small Bridges--The King's and the Bishop's Mills--The
River Hithes--S. Peter by the Castle and S. Giles Church--The early
Streets of the City--The Augustinian Priory of Barnwell--The Round
Church of the Holy Sepulchre--The Cambridge Jewry--Debt of early
Scholars to the Philosophers of the Synagogue--Benjamin's
House--Municipal Freedom of the Borough.
On the site of the ancient Roman station of which we have spoken in the
preceding chapter, as guarding the river ford and the pass between
forest and fen into East Anglia, William the Conqueror, returning from
the conquest of York in the year 1068, founded Cambridge Castle, that
"it might be"--to quote Fuller's words--"a check-bit to curb this
country, which otherwise was so hard-mouthed to be ruled." Here, in the
following year, he took up his abode, making the castle the centre of
his operations against the rebel English who had rallied to the
leadership of Hereward the Wake, in his camp of refuge at Ely. But the
castle at Cambridge never became a military centre of importance. No
important deed of arms is recorded in connection with it. It was a mere
outpost, useful only as a base of operations. It was so used by William
the Conqueror. It was so used by Henry III. in his futile contest with
the English baronage. It was so used by the Duke of Northumberland in
his unsuccessful attempt to crush the loyalist rising of East Anglia
against his plot to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne. It was so used
by Oliver Cromwell when he was organising the Eastern Counties
Association, and forming "his lovely company" of Ironsides. But beyond
these episodes Cambridge Castle has no history. In the early part of the
fourteenth century it was used as a prison for common criminals. Edward
III. built his College of King's Hall with some of its materials, and
from that time onwards it appears to have been used as a quarry by the
royal founders of more than one college. Its last remaining outwork, the
Gate House, was demolished in 1842. Now there is nothing left but the
grass-grown mound, still known as Castle Hill, the resort of occasional
American tourists who are wise enough to know how fine a view of the
town may be obtained from that position, and, so it is said, a less
frequent place of pilgrimage also to certain university freshmen who are
foolish enough to accept the assurance of their fellows that "at the
witching hour of night" they may best observe from Castle Hill those
solemn portents which, on the doubtful authority of the University
Calendar, are said to happen when "the Cambridge term divides at
midnight."
But if the Castle at Cambridge, as a "place of arms," had practically no
history, much less had the town over which nominally it stood guard. The
old streets of Cambridge show no sign of ever having been packed closely
within walls in the usual mediæval fashion. In the early days the town
seems to have been limited to a little knot of houses round the castle
and along the street leading down to the river ford at the foot of the
Castle Hill. From the Domesday Survey we learn that in the time of
Edward the Confessor the town had consisted of 400 dwelling-houses, and
was divided into ten wards, each governed by its own lawman ("lageman")
or magistrate, a name which appears to suggest that the original
organisation of the town was of Danish origin. By the year 1086 two of
these wards had been thrown into one, owing to the destruction of
twenty-seven houses--"pro castro"--on account of the building of the
Castle, and in the remaining wards no fewer than fifty-three other
dwellings are entered as "waste." Altogether, in Norman times the
population of Cambridge can hardly have exceeded at the most a couple of
thousand. The customs of the town were assessed at £7, the land tax at
£7. 2s. 2d. Both of these seem to have been new impositions, payable to
the royal treasury. How this came about one cannot say, but from this
time onward, all through the middle ages, the farm of Cambridge appears
frequently to have been given as a dower to the Queen.
[Illustration: Courtyard of the Falcon Inn]
The earldom of Cambridge and Huntingdon has been almost invariably held
by a member of the Royal Family. The first steps, indeed, towards
municipal independence on the part of the borough were taken when the
burgesses demanded the privilege of making their customary payments
direct to the King, and ridding themselves of this part, at any rate, of
the authority of the sheriff. Certainly, there was much complaint made
to the Domesday Commissioners concerning the first Norman sheriff of
Cambridgeshire, one Roger Picot, because of his hard treatment of the
burgesses. Among other things, it was said that he had "required the
loan of their ploughs nine times in the year, whereas in the reign of
the Confessor they lent their ploughs only thrice in the year and found
neither cattle nor carts," and also that he had built himself three
mills upon the river to the destruction of many dwelling-houses and the
confiscation of much common pasture. Reading of these things one is
almost tempted to wonder, whether the old stone Norman house still
standing, styled, by a tradition now lost, "the School of Pythagoras,"
in close proximity as it is to the river, the ford, and the castle, may
not have been the residence of this sheriff or of one of his immediate
successors. The house cannot, certainly, be of a later date than the
latter part of the twelfth century. Originally, it appears to have
consisted of a single range of building of two storeys, the lower one
formerly vaulted, the upper one serving as a hall. How it came by its
present name of "Pythagoras School" we do not know, and certainly there
is no reason to suppose that it was at any time a school. The Norman
occupier, however, of this stone house, with his servants and retainers,
could hardly have been other than a leading personage in the community,
and must have contributed in no slight degree to its importance.
Possibly it may have been owing to the destruction of houses caused by
the clearing of the sites for both this mansion and for the Castle, that
the dispossessed population sought habitation for themselves on the low
lying ground across the ford, on the east bank of the river. Whether
this was the cause or not, certainly the town on the west bank--"the
borough," as the castle end of Cambridge was still called in the memory
of persons still living[7]--overflowed at an early period to the other
side of the river, and gradually extending itself along the line of the
Via Devana, eventually coalesced with what had before been a distinct
village clustering round the ancient pre-Norman church of S. Benedict.
This church, or rather its tower, is the oldest building in Cambridge
and one of the most interesting. It is thus described by Mr.
Atkinson.[8]
[Illustration: The School of Pythagoras.]
"The tower presents those features which are usually taken to
indicate a Saxon origin. It is divided into three well-marked
stages, each one of which is rather narrower than the one below it.
The quoins are of the well-known long-and-short work (a sign of
late date), and the lowest quoin is let into a sinking prepared for
it in the plinth. The belfry windows are of two sorts; the central
window on each face is of two heights, divided by a mid-wall
balister shaft, supporting a through-stone of the usual character.
On each side of this window there is a plain lancet at a somewhat
higher level, and with rubble jambs. Above these latter there are
small round holes--they can hardly be called windows. Over each of
the central windows there is a small pilaster, stopped by a corbel
which rests on the window head; these pilasters are cut off
abruptly at the top of the tower, which has probably been altered
since it was first built; most likely it was originally terminated
by a low spire or by gables. The rough edges of the quoins are
worked with a rebate to receive the plaster which originally
covered the tower. The arch between the tower and the nave springs
from bold imposts, above which are rude pieces of sculpture,
forming stops to the hood mould. The quoins remaining at each angle
of the present nave show that it is of the same length and width as
the nave of the original church, and they seem to show also that
the original church had neither aisles nor transepts. The chancel
is also the same size as that of the early church, for though the
east and north walls have been rebuilt, they are in the positions
of the Saxon walls. The south wall of the chancel has been altered
at many different periods, but has probably never been rebuilt. The
bases of the chancel arch remain below the floor. The early church
was probably lighted by small lancets about three inches wide,
placed high in the wall, and without glass."
The present nave is of the thirteenth century. The chancel was built as
late as 1872. The building which still abuts against the south chancel
wall belongs, however, to the fifteenth century, and was a connecting
hall or gallery with "the old court" of Corpus Christi College, which
not only took its early name of S. Benet from the ancient church, but
for some century and more possessed no other College chapel. The bells
of S. Benet, we read in the old College records, were long used to call
the students "to ye schooles, att such times as neede did require--as to
acts, clearums, congregations, lecturs, disses, and such like." But this
belongs to its story in a later age. The Pre-Conquest Church of S.
Benet, as we have said, probably served a township separate and distinct
from the Castle-end "borough" on the west bank of the river. After the
two villages became united, the Norman Grantebrigge, and indeed the
mediæval Cambridge of later days, seemed to have formed a straggling and
incompact town, stretching for the most part along the Roman road which
crossed the river by the bridge at the foot of Castle hill, and so
eastward past S. Benet's, and onward to the open country, eventually
reached Colchester across the forest uplands. This Roman Way, following
the line of the modern Bridge Street, Sidney Street, S. Andrew Street,
Regent Street, ran close to the eastern limit of the town, marked
roughly at a later time by the King's Ditch. This was an artificial
stream constructed as a defence of the town by King John in the year
1215. It was strengthened later by King Henry III., who had also
intended to protect the town on this side by a wall. The wall, however,
was never built, and the Ditch itself could never have been much of a
defence, except, perhaps, against casual marauders, though for centuries
it was a cause of insanitary trouble to the town. Branching out of the
river at the King's and Bishop's Mills, just above Queen's College, it
joined the river again, after encircling the town, just below the Great
Bridge and above the Common now called Jesus Green. The Ditch was
crossed by bridges on the lines of the principal roads. One of these,
built of stone, still remains under the road now called Jesus Lane.
There appears to have been a drawbridge also at the end of Sussex
Street. The river itself, which formed the western boundary of the town,
was spanned by two bridges, the Great Bridge at Castle End and the Small
Bridge or Bridges at Newnham by the Mill pond. Between the two bridges
were the principal wharfs or river hithes--corn hithe, flax hithe,
garlic hithe, salt hithe, Dame Nichol's hithe. These have all now given
place to the sloping lawns and gardens of the colleges, the far-famed
"Cambridge Backs." The common hithe, however, below the Great Bridge
still continues in use. It is with certain rights in regard to these
hithes that the earliest Royal charter of which we have record deals. It
is an undated writ of Henry I. (1100-1135) addressed to Henry, Bishop of
Ely (1109-1131), and attested by an unnamed Chancellor and by Miles of
Gloucester and by Richard Basset. The main object of the King's writ
seems to be to make "his borough of Cambridge" the one "port" and
emporium of the shire. "I forbid"--so runs the writ--"that any boat
shall ply at any hithe in Cambridgeshire save at the hithe of my borough
at Cambridge, nor shall barges be laden save in the borough of
Cambridge, nor shall any take toll elsewhere, but only there."
Numerous narrow lanes, all now vanished, with the exception of John's
Lane, Gareth Hostel Lane, and Silver Street, led down from High Street
to the quays. The town was intersected by three main streets. From the
Great Bridge ran the streets already mentioned as following the line of
the old Roman Way (the Via Devana). From this old roadway, at a point
opposite the Round Church, there branched off the High Street--now
Trinity Street and King's Parade--leading to Trumpington Gate. Parallel
to the High Street, and between it and the river, ran Milne Street,
leading from the King's Mill at the south end of the town, and
continuing northwards to a point about the site of the existing sun-dial
in Trinity Great Court, where it joined a cross-street leading into the
High Street. Parts of Milne Street still exist in the lanes which run
past the fronts of Queen's College and Trinity Hall. In mediæval times
the entrance gateways of six colleges opened into it--King's Hall,
Michael House, Trinity Hall, King's College, S. Catharine's Hall, and
Queen's College. Of the most ancient church of the town, that of S.
Benedict, we have already spoken. Of the possibly contemporary church of
S. Peter by the Castle, the only architectural remains of any importance
now existing are a rich late Norman doorway and the bowl of an ancient
font. The tower and spire belong to the fourteenth century. The rest of
the building is entirely modern. Bricks, however, said to be Roman,
appear to have been used in the new walls. Similarly of the other two
ancient Castle-end churches, All Saints by the Castle, and S. Giles. Of
the former nothing now remains and its actual site is doubtful, for the
parish attached to it has been united with S. Giles ever since the time
when in the fourteenth century the Black Death left it almost without
inhabitants. Of the Church of S. Giles there remains the ancient
chancel arch of late Saxon or early Norman character (the familiar
long-and-short work seems to date it about the middle of the eleventh
century), and the doorway of the nave, which have been rebuilt in the
large new church opened in 1875.
[Illustration: The Abbey House]
It was, however, from this old church of S. Giles by the Castle that the
first religious house in Cambridge of which we have any record, and
quite possibly the most important factor in the early development of the
University, the wealthy Augustinian Priory of Barnwell, took its origin.
The story of that foundation is this.[9]
Roger Picot, Baron of Bourne and Norman Sheriff of Cambridgeshire, of
whose hard treatment the Cambridge burgesses complained to the
commissioners of the Domesday Survey, had married a noble and pious
woman named Hugoline. Hugoline being taken very ill at Cambridge, and on
the point, as she thought, of death, vowed a vow, that if she recovered
she would build a church in honour of God and S. Giles. "Whereupon,"
says the legend, "she recovered in three days." And in gratitude to God
she built close to the Castle the Church of S. Giles in the year 1092,
together with appropriate buildings, and placed therein six canons
regular of the order of S. Augustine, under the charge of Canon Geoffrey
of Huntingdon, a man of great piety, and prevailed upon her husband to
endow the Church and house with half the tithes of his manorial
demesnes. Some vestiges of this small house (_veteris coenobioli
vestigia_) were still extant in Leland's time. Before, however, this
Augustinian house had been thoroughly established, Earl Pigot and his
wife Hugoline died, committing the foundation to the care of their son
Robert. Robert unfortunately became implicated in a conspiracy against
Henry I., was charged with treason, and obliged to fly the country. The
estates were confiscated, and the canons reduced to great want and
misery. In this extremity a certain Pain Peverel, a valiant young
Crusader, who had been standard-bearer to Robert Curthose in the Holy
Land, and who had received the confiscated estates of Picot's son,
Robert, came to the rescue, declaring that as he had become Picot's
heir, so he would succeed him in the care of this foundation, and
increase the number of canons to the number of the years of his own age,
namely thirty. He determined also to move the house to a more
convenient situation, and accordingly, in the year 1112, he transferred
it to an excellent site in Barnwell, a mile and a half or so down the
river, just off the high-road leading from Cambridge to Newmarket. This
transaction is related as follows:--
"Perceiving that the site on which their house stood was not
sufficiently large for all the buildings needful for his canons,
and was devoid of any spring of fresh water, Pain Peverel besought
King Henry to give him a certain site beyond the borough of
Cambridge, extending from the highway to the river, and
sufficiently agreeable from the pleasantness of its position.
Besides, from the midst of that site there bubbled forth springs of
clear fresh water, called at that time in English _Barnewelle_, the
children's springs, because once a year, on St. John Baptist's Eve,
boys and lads met there and amused themselves in the English
fashion with wrestling matches and other games, and applauded each
other in singing songs and playing on musical instruments. Hence by
reason of the crowd of boys and girls who met and played there, a
habit grew up that on the same day a crowd of buyers and sellers
should meet in the same place to do business. There, too, a man of
great sanctity, called Godesone, used to lead a solitary life in a
small wooden oratory that he had built in honour of St. Andrew. He
had died a short time before, leaving the place without any
habitation upon it, and his oratory without a keeper."[10]
In this pleasant place accordingly the house was rebuilt on a very large
scale, and by the liberality of Peverel and his son William richly
endowed. In the year 1112, we read in the Cartulary that Peverel at once
set about building "a church of wonderful beauty and massive work in
honour of S. Giles." To this church he gave "vestment, ornaments, and
relics of undoubted authenticity which he had brought back from
Palestine"; but before he could carry out his intention of completing
it, he died in London of a fever "barely ten years after the translation
of the canons. His body was brought to Barnwell and buried in a becoming
manner on the north side of the high altar." By the munificence,
however, of a later benefactor, the church was finished and consecrated
in 1191, and before the end of the next century the conventual
buildings, cloister, chapter house, frater, farmery, guest hall, gate
house, were complete, and the Priory of Augustinian canons at Barnwell
took its place in the monastic history of Cambridgeshire, a place only
second probably to that of the great Benedictine House at Ely.[11] All
that now remains of the Priory is a small church or chapel standing near
the road, and the fragment of some other building. The whole site,
however, was excavated for gravel in the beginning of the last century,
so that it is impossible to speak with any certainty of the disposition
of the buildings, although Mr. Willis Clark, in his "Customs of
Augustinian Canons," has from documentary sources made an ingenious
attempt to reconstruct the whole plan of the Priory. The small chapel of
S. Andrew the Less, although it has long been known as the Abbey Church,
has, of course, strictly no right to that name. Obviously it cannot be
the church of "wondrous dimensions" built by Pain Peverel. The chapel,
although in all likelihood it did stand within the Priory precincts, was
most probably built for the use of the inhabitants of the parish by the
canons, in order that they themselves might be left undisturbed in the
exclusive use of the Conventual Church. It is a building of the early
English style, with long, narrow lancet windows, evidently belonging to
the early part of the thirteenth century.
[Illustration: Chapel Barnwell Priory]
The material remains of the Priory are therefore very meagre, but a most
interesting insight into the domestic economy of a monastic house is
afforded by the "_Consuetudinarium_; or, Book of Observances of the
Austin Canons," which forms the Eighth Book of the Barnwell Cartulary,
to which we have already alluded. A comparison of the domestic customs
of a monastic house in the thirteenth century, as shown in this book,
and of the functions of its various officers, with many of the
corresponding customs and functions in the government of a Cambridge
college, not only in mediæval but in modern times, throws much light on
the origin of some of the most characteristic features of college life
to-day.[12]
Let us retrace our steps, however, along the Barnwell Road from the
suburban monastery to the ancient town. There are still some features,
belonging to the Norman structure of Cambridge, which demand our notice
before we pass on.
At a point where the High Street, now Trinity Street, branches off from
Bridge Street stands the church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of the four
round churches of England.[13]
[Illustration: The Round Church]
Presumably it must have been built by some confraternity connected with
the newly established Military Order of the Templars, and, to judge by
the style of its architecture--the only real evidence we have as to its
date, for the conjecture that it owes its foundation to the young
crusader, Pain Peverel, is purely fanciful, and of "the Ralph with a
Beard," of which we read in the Ramsey cartularies as receiving "a grant
of land to build a Minster in honour of God and the Holy Sepulchre," we
know nothing--probably between 1120 and 1140. In its original shape, the
church must have consisted of its present circular nave with the
ambulatory aisle, and in all probability a semi-circular eastern apse.
The ambulatory was vaulted, as in all probability was also the central
area, while the apse would doubtless be covered with a semi-dome. The
chancel and its north aisle, which had apparently been remodelled in
early English times, was again reconstructed in the fifteenth century.
At about the same time an important alteration was made in the circular
nave by carrying up the walls to form a belfry. The additional stage was
polygonal and terminated in a battlemented parapet. The Norman corbel
table, under the original eaves of what was probably a dwarf spire, was
not destroyed, and thus serves to mark the top of the Norman wall.
Windows of three lights were not only inserted in the additional stage,
but were also substituted for the circular-headed Norman windows of both
ambulatory and clerestory.
"Such," says Mr. Atkinson, "was the condition of the Church when,
in 1841, the Cambridge Camden Society undertook its 'restoration.'
The polygonal upper story of the circular nave, containing four
bells, was destroyed; sham Norman windows, copied from one
remaining old one, replaced those which had been inserted in the
15th century; and new stone vaults and high pitched roofs were
constructed over the nave and ambulatory. The chancel, with the
exception of one arch and the wall above it, were entirely rebuilt;
the north aisle, with the exception of the entrance arch from the
west, was rebuilt and extended eastwards to the same length as the
chancel; a new south aisle of equal dimensions with the enlarged
north aisle was added; and a small turret for two bells was built
at the north-west corner of the north aisle; the lower stage of
this turret was considered a sufficient substitute for the
destroyed vestry. A new chancel arch of less width than the old one
was built, and a pierced stone screen was formed above it. In
addition to all this, those old parts which were not destroyed were
'repaired and beautified,' or 'dressed and pointed,' or 'thoroughly
restored.' What these processes involved is clear from an
inspection of the parts to which they were applied; in the west
doorway, for instance, there is not one old stone left."[14]
Across the road from the Round Church, in the angle of land caused by
the branching apart of the High Street and the Bridge Street, was
planted one of the earliest Jewries established in England. The coming
of the Jews to England was one of the incidental effects of the Norman
Conquest. They had followed in the wake of the invading army as in
modern times they followed the German hosts into France, assisting the
Normans to dispose of their spoil, finding at usurious interest
ready-money for the impoverished English landowner, to meet his
conqueror's requisitions, and generally meeting the money-broking needs
of both King and subject. In a curious diatribe by Richard of Devizes
(1190), Canterbury, Rochester, Chichester, Oxford, Exeter, Worcester,
Chester, Hereford, York, Ely, Durham, Norwich, Lincoln, Bristol,
Winchester, and of course London are all mentioned as harbouring Jewish
settlements. The position of the Jew, however, in England was all along
anomalous. As the member of an alien race, and still more of an alien
religion, he could gain no kind of constitutional status in the kingdom.
The common law ignored him. His Jewry, like the royal forest, was
outside its domain. He came, indeed, as the King's special man--nay,
more, as the King's special chattel. And in this character he lived for
the most part secure. The romantic picture of the despised, trembling
Jew--the Isaac of York, depicted for us in Scott's "Ivanhoe"--cringing
before every Christian that he meets, is, in any age of English history,
simply a romantic picture. The attitude of the Jew almost to the last is
one of proud and even insolent defiance. In the days of the Red King at
any rate, he stood erect before the prince, and seemed to have enjoyed
no small share of his favour and personal familiarity. The presence of
the unbelieving Hebrew at his court supplied, it is said, William Rufus
with many opportunities of mocking at the Christian Church and its
bishops. In a well-known story of Eadmer, the Red King actually forbids
the conversion of a Jew to the Christian faith. "It was a poor
exchange," he said, "which would rob me of a valuable property and give
me only a subject." The extortion of the Jew was therefore sheltered
from the common law by the protection of the King. The bonds of the Jew
were kept, in fact, under the royal seal in the royal archives, a fact
of which the memory long remained in the name of "The Star" chamber; a
name derived from the Hebrew word (_ishtar_) for a "bond."
[Illustration: Oriel Windows from House in Petty-Cury now demolished _To
face p. 46_]
The late Mr. J. R. Green, in a delightful sketch on the early history of
Oxford in his "Stray Studies," afterwards incorporated into the pages of
his "History of the English People," seems inclined to give some support
to the theory which would connect the origin of the University with the
establishment of the Oxford Jewry. This theory, however, can hardly be
accepted.[15] It is very probable indeed that the medical school, which
we find established at Oxford and in high repute during the twelfth
century, is traceable to Jewish origin; and the story is no doubt true
also, which tells how Roger Bacon penetrated to the older world of
material research by means of the Hebrew instruction and the Hebrew
books which he found among the Jewish rabbis of the Oxford Synagogue. It
is reasonable also to suppose that the history of Christian
Aristotelianism, and of the Scholastic Theology that was based upon it,
may have been largely influenced by the philosophers of the Synagogue.
It seems, indeed, to be a well-established conclusion, that the
philosophy of Aristotle was first made known to the West through the
Arabic versions brought from Spain by Jewish scholars and rabbis. But
it is undoubtedly "in a more purely material way" that, as Mr. Green
truly says, the Jewry most directly influenced academic history. At
Oxford, as elsewhere, "the Jew brought with him something more than the
art or science which he had gathered at Cordova or Bagdad; he brought
with him the new power of wealth. The erection of stately castles, of
yet statelier abbeys, which followed the Conquest, the rebuilding of
almost every cathedral or conventual church, marks the advent of the
Jewish capitalist. No one can study the earlier history of our great
monastic houses without finding the secret of that sudden outburst of
industrial activity to which we own the noblest of our Minsters in the
loans of the Jew."
Certainly at Cambridge, though perhaps hardly to the same extent as at
Oxford, the material influence on the town of the Jewry is traceable. At
Oxford, it is said that nearly all the larger dwelling-houses, which
were subsequently converted into hostels, bore traces of their Jewish
origin in their names, such as Moysey's Hall, Lombard's Hall, Jacob's
Hall, and each of the successive Town Halls of the borough had
previously been Jewish houses. We have some evidence of a similar
conversion at Cambridge. In the first half of the thirteenth century,
before we hear either of Tolbooth or of Guildhall, the enlarged judicial
responsibilities of the town authorities made it necessary that they
should be in possession of some strong building suitable for a prison.
Accordingly, in 1224, we find King Henry III. granting to the burgesses
the House of Benjamin, the Jew, for the purposes of a gaol. It is said
that either the next house or a part of Benjamin's House had been the
Synagogue of the Jewry, and was granted in the first instance to the
Franciscan Friars on their arrival in the city. Benjamin's House,
although it had been altered from time to time, appears never to have
been entirely rebuilt, and some fragments of this, the earliest of
Cambridge municipal buildings, are perhaps still to be found embedded in
the walls of the old Town Arms public-house--a room in which, as late as
the seventeenth century, was still known as "The Star Chamber"--at the
western side of Butter Row, in the block of old buildings at the corner
of Market Square, adjoining the new frontage of the Guildhall.
With this relic of the ancient Jewry we reach the last remaining
building in Cambridge that had any existence in Norman times. And with
the close of this age--the age of the Crusades--we already find the
Cambridge burgess safely in possession, not only of that personal
freedom which had descended to him by traditional usage from the
communal customs of his early Teutonic forefathers, but also of many
privileges which he had bought in hard cash from his Norman conqueror.
Before the time of the first charter of King John (1201) Cambridge had
passed through most of the earlier steps of emancipation which
eventually led to complete self-government. The town-bell ringing out
from the old tower of S. Benet's already summoned the Cambridge freemen
to a borough mote in which the principles of civic justice, of loyal
association, of mutual counsel, of mutual aid, were acknowledged by
every member of a free, self-ruling assembly.