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[Illustration: Map _of the_ Colleges & Churches _of_ CAMBRIDGE
References
1 _Sᵗ. Botolph’s ch._
2 _Sᵗ. Benedict’s ”_
3 _Sᵗ. Edward’s ”_
4 _Sᵗ. Mary the Gᵗ._
5 _Sᵗ. Michael’s ch._
6 _Senate House_
7 _Univʸ. Libʸ. & Mus. of Geology_
8 _Guildhall & Free Library_]
CAMBRIDGE AND ITS COLLEGES
[Illustration: The Gate of Honour
Caius Coll:]
CAMBRIDGE AND ITS COLLEGES
by
A · HAMILTON · THOMPSON · B.A.
St John’s College
Illustrated by
Edmvnd · H · New
“Ground where the grass had yielded to the steps
Of generations of illustrious men.”
Boston
L. C. Page & Company
London
Methven & Co
MDCCCXCIX
TO MY MOTHER
PREFACE
So 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 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_.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. CAMBRIDGE 1
II. THE UNIVERSITY CHURCH 18
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
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. THE UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS 277
XXIII. THE CHURCHES OF CAMBRIDGE 294
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
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 55
KING’S COLLEGE 95
KING’S COLLEGE CHAPEL 99
QUEENS’ COLLEGE 121
THE BRIDGE, QUEENS’ COLLEGE 125
ST CATHARINE’S COLLEGE 137
JESUS COLLEGE 145
CHRIST’S COLLEGE 161
ST JOHN’S COLLEGE 175
ST JOHN’S COLLEGE 179
BRIDGES OF ST JOHN’S 183
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.
I
CAMBRIDGE
Dr Caius’ ingenious contention that Cambridge 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 highroad 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 Huntingdon. The Via
Iceniana, or Icknield Way, which ran straight across England from the
Eastern Counties, parts company with the Cambridge 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 Huntingdon. At
Gogmagog Hills, five miles out of the town, we can trace the remains of
Vandlebury 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. Cambridge is on the border of the Fenland,
and the 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 Benedictine 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 Medehampstead or Goldenburgh of Saxon times, must
have been largely under water for a great part of the year. The towns
on the borders, Cambridge 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 depending on the greater abbeys; and in
these the young monks of Crowland and the other houses received their
education. This was the beginning 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 chronology almost parallel with that of Oxford. Out of the monastic
system was evolved the freer life of colleges. Oxford led the way with
University 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 link 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 Pembroke. 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 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. That to the left,
Bridge Street and Sidney Street, was called Conduit Street: it led to the
King’s Ditch at Barnwell Gate. That to the right, St John’s Street and
Trinity Street, led to the principal medieval foundations. On the right
hand of it was the Hospital of St John; on the left the Jewry and All
Saints’ Church, with its tower projecting over the roadway, like St John
Maddermarket’s at Norwich. Just beyond on the right was King’s Hall, with
King’s Hall Lane leading to the river. The next turning, St Michael’s
Lane, the present Trinity Lane, led in the same direction to Garret
Hostel Bridge. In St Michael’s Lane was Michael House, and St Michael’s
and King’s Hall Lanes were connected by the narrow and dirty street
called Foul Lane. These two colleges and the tortuous lanes connecting
them occupied the site of Trinity. The main street, after passing St
Michael’s Church, came to Great St Mary’s Church, and proceeded along
King’s Parade as High Street. On either side of this thoroughfare was an
indiscriminate mass of houses—the great court of King’s did not exist.
Its site was then a labyrinth of narrow alleys and beetling tenements.
A winding lane led across the space now occupied by the lawn east of
King’s Chapel, to the Schools, and skirting them, ran into the street
leading from Michael House to the Mill Pool, called Milne Street. Of
this street, which passed Clare and crossed King’s where Gibbs’ building
stands, we still preserve the original course in Queen’s Lane. It was
connected with the parallel High Street by Piron Lane, which occupied
the north side of the court at King’s, and St Austin’s Lane, which was
the modern King’s Lane. Several lanes led from Milne Street down to the
river. Milne Street was terminated by Small Bridges Street, now Silver
Street, which crossed the river from Newnham and joined High Street at St
Botolph’s Church.
On the other side of High Street the confusion was even worse. Many
people can remember the days when the broad thoroughfares on either side
of Great St Mary’s were filled with tumble-down houses. This picturesque
and unsanitary state of things was almost the last remnant of medieval
Cambridge. In this rabbit-warren lived many of the tradespeople.
The names of the lanes between High Street and the Market Place are
sufficient testimony. The Sheerer’s Row, north of Great St Mary’s, was
continued by the Shoemaker’s Row, which is now Market Street. The Market
Place was so largely blocked up by this dense mass of houses that it
occupied not more than half of its present site. In its centre was the
Conduit; west of the Conduit was the Cross. The Tolbooth and Prison
were on the south of the space, where the Guildhall is. In front of
the Tolbooth were the shambles, and, east of this savoury neighbourhood
Petty Cury, the Little Cookery, led to Barnwell Gate. From the Market
Place, Peas Hill led, as now, to Bene’t Street, and Bene’t Street led
back to High Street, just where King’s Parade joins Trumpington Street.
Free School Lane, at the back of Saint Bene’t’s Church and Corpus, was
called Luthburgh Lane, and the original buildings of Corpus opened into
this and not into Trumpington Street, as at present. Just before reaching
Pembroke, High Street was brought to a stop by Trumpington Gate, just as
Conduit Street was finished by Barnwell Gate. On the other side of the
King’s Ditch were the Church of St Peter and the foundation of Peterhouse.
Another point which the visitor to medieval Cambridge would notice would
be the abundance of religious houses. Great towns, such as London or
Bristol, were well off in this way, but Cambridge could not compare in
size with these cities. There are few of these houses whose remains we
cannot trace in one or other of the colleges. It became, in the fifteenth
century, the fashion to appropriate the monasteries to purposes of
learning. All the great colleges absorbed some of these institutions. The
chief were outside the King’s Ditch. If accounts are true, the monastery
of the Augustinian Canons at Barnwell must have formed a splendid object
in any prospect of Cambridge. To reach it, one would pass through
meadows, with the nunnery of St Mary and St Rhadegund away to the left.
In the southern part of Barnwell, beyond Barnwell Gate, was the house
of Black Friars, on one side of Preachers’ Street, the _faubourg_ which
stretched outside the town boundaries and formed the southern approach to
Cambridge. This friary is now Emmanuel College. Outside Trumpington Gate
was a house of Gilbertine Canons; and opposite it was the house of Friars
of the Sack, which became incorporated with Peterhouse. In Cambridge
itself the Friars were well represented. The Grey Friars occupied the
site of Sidney Sussex College; the White Friars, that picturesque order
which reckoned Elijah as its patriarch, had a house on part of the site
of Queens’ College. The Austin Friars lived on a piece of ground very
nearly corresponding to the University laboratories, which was entered
from Bene’t Street, just where that street meets Peas Hill. All these
friaries were bounded on one side by water: the Carmelite house met the
river; the Franciscan and Augustinian houses abutted on the ditch. Of
these monastic buildings in the town we have scarcely any trace; their
position is merely distinguishable. The Dominican house was swept away by
the founders of Emmanuel, and no one could detect any monastic remains
in the prosaic aspect of that eminently Puritan college. At Jesus,
however, Alcock successfully preserved the plan of the nunnery; and
the college which we see is in substance a monastic building. Barnwell
Priory, with the exception of a small chantry-chapel, has disappeared.
The Augustinian hospital of St John has been blotted out by St John’s
College; its beautiful piscina, incorporated in Sir Gilbert Scott’s
chapel, is its only relic. And, actually, the only building which has
been allowed to stand without alteration is the remote and melancholy
Lepers’ Chapel at Stourbridge, a beautiful Norman building, which was
attached to the Hospital of St Mary Magdalene.
Stourbridge is a good mile beyond Jesus College. In the field close by
the Leper’s Chapel was held the famous Stourbridge Fair, the English
counterpart of Beaucaire and Nijni-Novgorod. There is no doubt that the
medieval Cambridge owed its fame in a very large measure to this annual
mart. It was the most important of a series of fairs in the Eastern
Counties—Tombland Fair at Norwich and the marts of Lynn and Wisbech have
still a certain celebrity—and its interest is largely enhanced by the
fact that, after the dissolution of the leper’s hospital, its original
proprietor under a charter of King John, the University had an official
connection with it. It lasted for a month, from August 24th to September
28th, and during that period received visits from all the principal
merchants in England. It was opened by the Vice-Chancellor in person and
was patronised, perhaps rather noisily, by the University generally. Its
commercial importance is to be gathered from a passage in Defoe’s _Tour
of Great Britain_, quoted by Mr Atkinson in his interesting account
of the fair. Hops and wool were the two great staples of trade, and
Stourbridge Fair determined the price of hops in England. It was thus not
a mere place of pleasure, but resembled the great nomadic markets of the
east. Anybody who has been to Lynn Mart or to Stourbridge Fair itself
in its sorry old age knows that to-day the great business of the fairs
consists in steam roundabouts and side-shows. The roundabout is a late
development, but the side-show has an honourable antiquity. Stourbridge
Fair boasted, within the last century, a theatre where legitimate
Shaksperian drama was admirably performed by a Norwich company. The
performances were largely attended by the University, and enterprising
ladies like Mrs Frere of Downing were to be seen there with fashionable
parties. The story is often told of “rare Richard Farmer,” Master of
Emmanuel, how he and a few friends, ardent lovers of Shakspere, attended
the Stourbridge Theatre night after night, occupying a bench especially
reserved for them.
At Stourbridge Fair University and Town took joint management of the
proceedings. They did not, however, love one another very cordially,
and the Town resented the rights which the University enforced with
some arrogance. “Town and Gown rows” were, in the ordinary course of
things, not very common. When they broke out, they were serious; but
usually the University was much to blame. For example, in James I.’s
time, George Ruggle, fellow of Clare, wrote a play in derision of the
town’s folk, to which the college, with the worst taste, invited the
Mayor and Corporation. But that the town, at any rate in medieval times,
watched the growth of the University with favour, is sufficiently proved
by the refoundation of Corpus Christi College, the work of townspeople.
The University repaid the debt in subsequent years by foundations like
Perse’s Grammar School and Addenbrooke’s Hospital. We must remember that,
ecclesiastically, the connection of town and university was for some
centuries very close. The church of St Mary by the Market was not merely
the chapel of King’s Hall; it was also a parish church, and a large and
important gild of merchants had their chapel within its walls. At first,
the colleges were entirely opposed to the monastic spirit. They did not
worship in their own chapels, but joined in the devotions of the ordinary
congregations, going to church just as the grammar school of any town in
England attends the parish church, as a matter of course. The extreme
youth of the scholars completes the comparison. But, as the colleges grew
in riches and numbers, they reverted to the monastic ideal, and each
built its own chapel. The Town and University drew apart from each other,
and the University became the more important body. Moreover, while the
learning of the University grew, the trade of the town diminished. The
gradual diversion of trade from the Eastern Counties, the decay of ports
like Lynn, with whose commerce Cambridge was inseparably linked, all the
changes in the physical geography of the Fens, reduced the importance
of the town. It would be unfair to assert that Cambridge, as a whole,
exists for the sake of the University; but there is no doubt that the
nucleus of the town, its whole western quarter, is devoted to that
purpose, and that, without the University, it would be of little more
importance than Huntingdon or St Ives—of less importance, probably, than
Ely or Wisbech, which are still at the head of an excellent water-way.
Cambridge, no less than Oxford, took her part in the religious commotions
of the sixteenth century. She was deeply concerned in the revival of
learning. She shares with Oxford the honour of enrolling Waynflete and
Foxe among the members of the University. Bishop Fisher belongs entirely
to her, and, in consequence, Cambridge was the University which the Lady
Margaret favoured more conspicuously. Erasmus taught in her schools. Even
before the Dissolution, she showed, by her appropriation of religious
houses to scholastic purposes, the growth of that liberal spirit which
is thought to be her intellectual distinction. We shall see how pious
Churchmen like Bishop Alcock and a medieval devotee like Lady Margaret
did not scruple to sweep away monasteries for the sake of learning.
Even monasteries themselves, in these later days, followed up their
own initiative and endowed colleges. Several abbeys united to found
Buckingham College. Alcock, by virtue of his episcopal office, was abbot
of the great monastery of Ely. In the great struggle which followed the
revival of learning as its natural outcome, Cambridge contributed her
martyrs to both sides. Fisher died in the defence of a rigid principle.
On the other hand, Cambridge prepared those three reformers who suffered
for their opinions at Oxford. Cranmer was a fellow of Jesus, Ridley
was Master of Pembroke, Latimer belonged to the societies of Christ’s
and Clare. It is not at all surprising that their influence, combined
with the constant importation of Genevan teachers, rendered Cambridge
very susceptible for a time to reformed doctrine of a foreign type. But
the final result of the Reformation in the University is shown by the
intellectual freedom of her greatest sons. Bacon and Sir Isaac Newton
are the obvious examples of this, but their illustrious personalities
should not allow us to forget the brilliant ingenuity of the Cambridge
Platonists; while, side by side with the greatest of all we may place the
name of John Milton.
Milton, whose life is very largely bound up with Cambridge, brings us
to another critical point in University history. It is difficult to
estimate the attitude of Cambridge as a whole to the Civil Wars. Oxford
remained faithful to the King, but, while Cambridge possessed no college
so unanimously loyal as St John’s at Oxford, there were one or two
colleges, such as Sidney and Emmanuel, whose sympathies were undeniably
Puritan. An University cannot help a certain amount of conservatism,
and Cambridge sacrificed a great deal in the Stewart cause. A few
years ago, at the exhibition of plate in the Fitzwilliam Museum, one
realised the substantial cost of that sacrifice. But the Fens and the
whole neighbourhood were devoted to the interest of the Parliament, and
there were actually few who surrendered themselves as martyrs to the
royalist cause. On the religious side of the question, however, Cambridge
has a good deal to show. Some of the most eminent Caroline divines are
hers. Lancelot Andrewes, John Cosin, Jeremy Taylor, Peter Gunning, to
mention no other names, were all Cambridge men. George Herbert and
Nicholas Ferrar were men of some academical distinction. But, if it
is true that architecture is the best witness to history, no town in
England shows more trace of the Puritan spirit than Cambridge. While
the Oxford buildings of the seventeenth century are gravely Gothic and
semi-ecclesiastical, the only building of this type in Cambridge is the
picturesque chapel at Peterhouse. The library of St John’s, beautiful
though it is, is a hybrid example of the order. Other seventeenth century
work, the work of Ralph Symons, for example, the court of Clare, and
Wren’s masterpieces at Trinity and Emmanuel, are frankly domestic.
Men such as I have mentioned above, belong to a _coterie_, but do not
represent the general temper of their age.
During the eighteenth century the state of the University was more
or less torpid. It was the age of combination rooms and good port,
of hard-and-fast social distinctions and formal gatherings. The
Universities, during this period, lost their touch with English life,
and were not even the forcing-houses of wit. This is especially true
of Cambridge. The first half of the century is absorbed in the great
quarrel between Bentley and his society. Bentley is unquestionably the
most commanding figure of his time at Cambridge; for Newton by this time
belonged chiefly to London. But Bentley was hated by the great company of
wits, who had, for the most part, little to do with either University.
Pope, Swift, Fielding and Richardson, the four writers who had the
greatest influence on their century, were connected with neither Oxford
nor Cambridge. And, from 1750 to 1790, there is very little to relieve
the general dulness which settled over Cambridge. Mr John Willis Clark,
in a delightful and only too short chapter, has revived for us the social
etiquette and pleasures of the period. But the pleasures themselves are
remarkable, for the most part, for their unconscious humour. And even the
epigrams, in spite of their uniform cleverness, are a trifle heavy.
The French Revolution woke Cambridge from this long sleep. It was an
active stimulant to the imagination. The fall of the Bastille had its
effect upon Wordsworth at St John’s and Coleridge at Jesus; its immediate
result, the general cry for independence, moved Byron at Trinity. The
romantic enthusiasm set in, and with it that love for a liberal education
apart from mechanical scholarship which is so prominent a factor in both
Oxford and Cambridge to-day. In short, the modern life of the University
began; Cambridge began once more to play its part in English intellectual
life. Wordsworth and Tennyson, of all poets, have done most to stimulate
the minds of their countrymen, and both owe no small portion of their
personal influence to Cambridge. And, side by side with this intellectual
revival, one cannot fail to notice the spiritual revival inaugurated by
the Wesleys at Oxford, and naturalised by Charles Simeon at Cambridge.
This simply means the awakening of the University to the other side of
her responsibilities. In the Oxford movement, which was the logical
result of this revival, Cambridge had very little share. Her traditions
were somewhat different from those of Oxford, and her theological
tendencies took what is usually known as a “broader” direction. Her
position is indicated by the names of F. D. Maurice and Charles Kingsley.
At the same time, her school of theology, under Ellicott, Lightfoot,
Hort and Westcott, has preserved its scientific basis and cannot be
surpassed in any University. And time would fail to tell of what triumphs
she has won in other fields. Darwin in biology, Thomson in electricity,
Adams in astronomy, are names which tell their own tale. With these main
activities, too, others have grown. The energies of the University have
been expanded in every direction. The multiplication of open scholarships
and prizes, the University Extension system, the foundation of colleges
for women, are only a few of the ways in which her influence has been
doubled throughout Great Britain. And in all this surely her founders
and benefactors have full recompense for their labours—in the love which
the University excites in her sons and in the contribution of each member
to the corporate action of the whole body.
II
THE UNIVERSITY CHURCH
[Illustration: Sᵗ. Mary the Great]
The Church of St Mary-by-the-Market, better known as Great St Mary’s, is,
as it stands at present, a fine example of the latest style of English
architecture. Two churches, when it was built, had already occupied the
site. The first, entirely parochial, was probably built in Norman times,
but was burned down in 1290. By that time, however, the University then
emerging from its embryonic state into actual life, had begun to use it
for its meetings. The church formed, as it were, the earliest Senate
House. After the fire, which, like so many medieval catastrophes, was
put down to the Jews, the structure was renewed in the style of the
period. We find that Thomas de L’Isle, Bishop of Ely, granted a license
for the consecration of the High Altar in 1346; and that, in 1351, the
consecration took place under his successor, Simon of Langham. The
chancel still retains some features of this remodelled church. In
the year after the consecration, the Gild of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
parishioners of this church, joined with the Gild of Corpus Christi in
the foundation of Corpus College; and, in 1342, Edward III. had granted
the advowson of St Mary’s to the scholars of King’s Hall. In this way it
happened that, at the subsequent rebuilding of the church, the town, the
University, and the college were equally concerned in it. The present
building was begun in 1478, when John Morton was Bishop of Ely, and
the main structure, roughly speaking, belongs to the period between
that year and 1491. It is supposed that, during this reconstruction,
the services were held in the chancel, which, presumably, was merely
remodelled in the perpendicular manner. The character of the nave is,
for its period, strikingly excellent, and the work is not unlike that at
St Nicholas, Lynn, and other fine churches in the eastern counties. The
surface-ornament in the spandrils of the chancel-arch and nave arcade
is exceptionally good, and the depression of the arches is very slight.
Characteristically, the piers have no capitals, but a small shaft with
a plain capital carries the innermost moulding. But the best feature
of the interior is the high, plain clerestory, from which the church
originally received its principal light. This forms, as it were, a wall
of glass running along the upper storey of the church. Its lowest part is
panelled, forming a kind of mock triforium. On the whole, there are few
more stately churches of the date in England.
Although this nave was completed in 1491, it was not ready for service
till 1519, when the nave was seated and the Great Rood suspended from the
chancel-arch. Meanwhile, the tower had been begun in 1491, and progressed
very slowly. In 1515 it was at a standstill and had a thatched roof.
The west window, however, which, considering that it belongs to Henry
VIII.’s reign, is surprisingly good Gothic, was glazed by 1536. After
this time a certain amount of work went on, and the tower was carried up
to the string-course. In 1576, Sir Walter Mildmay gave twenty tons of
freestone towards the building, which was employed in erecting a somewhat
heavy Italianised porch at the west end. This, with its great pediment
and the clock above it, filled up the space between the buttresses and
reached up to the sill of the west window. Sir Walter Mildmay promised
other materials for the completion of the tower by a stone spire. This
never took place, and, in 1593, the parish decided to add a final storey
on their own account, which was completed in 1596. This storey, with
its octagonal corner-turrets and debased windows, is nevertheless in no
violent contrast to the work below. In 1608, the turrets were completed
and stone balls were placed upon the pinnacles by Robert Grumbold, to
whom we owe the balls on Clare Bridge.
The last internal addition to the church was the magnificent rood-loft,
finished in 1523. It extended not only across the chancel-arch, but
across the northern arch, leading to the Chapel of St Andrew, and the
southern, leading to the Chapel of Our Lady. These chapels were further
separated from the chancel by parclose-screens. The contract states
that the rood-lofts at Thriplow, south of Cambridge, and at Gazeley,
between Newmarket and Bury St Edmunds, were the models used for this
structure. It must have been something like the great rood-lofts which
still exist in Devonshire and parts of Norfolk. In the middle, below
the rood-beam and facing the choir, was the University pulpit. But this
screen, with its elaborate furniture, its “yomages,” candles and gilding
did not have a long existence. It was destroyed by Archbishop Parker,
that sworn enemy of rood-lofts, in 1562. However, during the Laudian
revival, in 1640, another chancel-screen was erected, part of which
remains across the chapel of St Andrew. Its fine composition and carving
are characteristic of the Stewart era. Another and even better screen
of a somewhat earlier date is to be seen in the church of Tilney All
Saints, near Lynn. However, this screen perished in its turn, not at the
hands of the zealot Dowsing, who destroyed as much as he could, but under
the gentle influence of Georgian restorers. It appears that, after the
Reformation, the University sermon became more of an institution than
it had been, and was no longer preached to the chancel. Great St Mary’s
was, however, put to other and more secular uses. Laud was informed that
the body of the church was seated like a theatre; that the pulpit was
placed in the middle and called the Cock-pit; that at sermon-time the
chancel was filled with boys and townsmen “and other whiles (thereafter
as the Preacher is) with _Townswomen_ also, all in a rude heap between
the Doctors and the Altar”; that the “Service there (which is done by
Trin. Coll.) is commonly posted over and cut short at the pleasure of
him that is sent thither to read it.” Divers other informations were
laid against the state of the church. It certainly seems curious to our
own day that the Commencements should have been held in church, and that
the feeble buffoonery of the “Prevaricator” should have been, under
these circumstances, their leading feature. The feeling against these
extraordinary ceremonies led to the building of the Senate House, which
was large enough for disputations as well as meetings of the senate.
But Sir James Burrough, to whom the Senate House is partly due, did his
best to spoil the University Church. The screen of 1640, which, with its
spirelets and canopies, must have been very like the Laudian screens
remaining in one or two northern churches,[1] was taken down; and the
church was devoted entirely to the cult of the sermon. Mr William Worts
had previously left a legacy to the University, which was employed in
erecting the present galleries (1735). The Cock-pit was remodelled, and
the centre of the church was filled with an immense octagonal pulpit on
the “three-decker” principle, the crowning glory and apex of which was
approached, like a church-tower, by an internal staircase. About 1740,
Burrough filled the chancel-arch and chancel with a permanent gallery,
which commanded a thorough view of this object. The gallery, known as the
“Throne” was an extraordinary and unique erection. The royal family of
Versailles never worshipped more comfortably than did the Vice-Chancellor
and heads of houses, in their beautiful arm-chairs, and the doctors,
sitting on the tiers of seats behind them. In this worship of the
pulpit, the altar was quite disregarded, and Cole the antiquary remarked
sorrowfully on this discreditable fact. Undergraduates, whose power of
expression was not equal to their sense of humour, irreverently called
the Throne Golgotha, because the heads of houses sat there. The church
thus became an oblong box, with the organ at one end, the Throne at the
other, and the pulpit between them. The portentous array of bevelled and
panelled oak plunged the church in darkness, and so, in 1766, the aisle
windows were altered and the present meagre insertions made.
This domestic comfort pervaded the church until 1863. The Camden
Society destroyed the picturesque top of the tower in 1842, but did
not touch the interior of the church. In 1851 Sir Gilbert Scott took
away Mildmay’s porch, and substituted for it the present west door.
Much about the same time, the ground round St Mary’s was cleared of
houses. Dr Luard, the late registrary, who was then Vicar, agitated
for the removal of the “throne” for a long time, and at last the work
of reconstruction began. The present nave-seats and chancel-stalls, in
a somewhat florid style, were put in, and the only remains of the old
preaching-house were the galleries and the organ at the west end. This
organ, which dates from 1698, and is in part the work of Father Smith,
was rebuilt by Messrs Hill in 1870. In 1888 the south porch was rebuilt
on the lines of a porch which had been destroyed in 1783. Under the
present vicar, Dr Cunningham, the work of restoration has advanced. The
tower has been thoroughly repaired, and a new organ has been built for
parochial services on the south side of the choir. Further, the late Mr
Sandars, who did so much for the University, filled in the lower part
of the aisle windows with the arms of those noblemen and prelates who
subscribed to the nave between 1478 and 1519. These windows, which are
by Messrs Powell, are full of interesting matter for the student of
monastic heraldry. Messrs Powell are similarly engaged in filling the
clerestory windows with admirable figure-glass. Altogether, during the
last half-century, the church has returned some way towards its original
design. There is now a side altar in St Andrew’s Chapel, which is used as
the chapel of the Clergy Training-School; the Lady Chapel is occupied by
the vestry. And, finally, one must not forget the “Cambridge chimes” in
the tower, which were composed in 1790 by Dr Jowett of garden fame, and
are the model of all such chimes throughout England.
III
PETERHOUSE
From the churchyard of Little St Mary’s Church a good idea of the
medieval buildings of Peterhouse may be obtained. Unfortunately, James
Essex was allowed to do as he liked with the old court somewhere about
1770, and faced it in the hideous, commonplace style of the time. It
is astonishing that he allowed the back of the older building, so out
of harmony with the cherished classical unities of his day, to remain
in so conspicuous a position. But the obvious history of the buildings
begins with Dr Andrew Perne’s library, whose later extension with its
gabled end and oriel is such a picturesque object in the perspective of
Trumpington Street, and contrasts so oddly with the Corinthian portico of
the Fitzwilliam Museum, just beyond. Perne’s work is in that familiar,
country-house style which, rather later, we associate in Cambridge
with the name of Ralph Symons. The building of 1590 forms the eastern
extension of the Hall and Combination Room. It was prolonged in 1632 to
stand flush with the present street-pavement. Bishop Matthew Wren made
a more notable and more characteristic addition. He built the chapel,
which was consecrated in 1632, on a site in the eastern half of the
court, just midway between the two wings. At the same time he united his
building to the wings by an open cloister supporting a covered gallery.
The chapel and cloisters, which divide the court into two unequal halves,
have a good deal of picturesqueness, but they are built in a very stilted
Italian manner, full of shallow late Gothic detail. The chapel has a
considerable reputation founded on its stained glass windows, which are
by Professor Aimmüller of Munich. They are astonishing specimens of their
art, and reflect the taste of the middle of the century very well. An
excellent Flemish east window, contemporary with the building, is usually
considered to harmonise very ill with these productions, whose qualities,
nevertheless, it considerably enhances.
[Illustration: Sᵗ. Peter’s College]
Under the Georgian _régime_ Peterhouse suffered a great deal. Sir James
Burrough of Caius, then neither Master nor a Knight, had a grand plan
for taking down Perne’s library and Wren’s cloisters and putting up
buildings of his own. Happily, the funds for this undertaking allowed
him to finish only the imposing northern wing, next to Little St Mary’s
Church. Like most of his work, this wing, completed in 1742, is in very
good taste, and the influence of Gibbs’ building at King’s is to be
traced throughout. Nearly half a century later came Essex with a neat
taste acquired, perhaps, in the neighbourhood of St Marylebone, and
made a beautiful structure exceptionally ugly. Last of all, Mr Francis
Gisborne’s trustees, after his death in 1821, built a new western court
in the then fashionable sort of Gothic with a part of £20,000 bequeathed
to the College in his will. This court calls for little remark.
Too late to stay the hand of the spoiler, the Gothic revival has
nevertheless done much for Peterhouse. Mr Gilbert G. Scott in 1870
rebuilt the Hall and Combination Room and incorporated in them the
remains of the medieval Master’s Lodge, which had been long ago
superseded by the comfortable brick house just across Trumpington Street.
Good, unassuming and appropriate work in themselves, these buildings are
further decorated with some very successful stained glass by the late
Sir Edward Burne-Jones and Mr William Morris. The bright oriel of the
Hall is especially beautiful, and the small figures of poets and of the
good women of Chaucer’s dream in the windows of the comfortable parlour,
share, with the chapel glass, the impartial admiration of the visitor. It
is satisfactory to think that this historical college has received some
compensation for all the damage inflicted on it.
* * * * *
In 1281 Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely, founded St Peter’s College.
The reign of Edward I. is the date from which our universities derive
their organisation, and in many other ways it marks an epoch in
English history. Walter de Merton, Bishop of Rochester, had, seventeen
years before, founded Merton College at Oxford.[2] It was therefore
emulation which, to a certain extent, inspired Hugh de Balsham in his
new departure. He was a native of Cambridgeshire: his native place is
about ten miles distant from Cambridge, on the confines of Essex; and
he had probably received his education in one of the numerous religious
houses which filled the Cambridge of that period. As Bishop of Ely, and
therefore as titular abbot of the monastery, he had much to do with the
monastic institutions of the town, and it was only natural that, with
Walter de Merton’s example before his eyes, he should wish to make his
name famous in the same way. He lived just long enough to see the college
established and in a fair way to success, with a master and fourteen
scholars in residence. His successors at Ely continued his favours to
the college, and during the next century we find the names of Bishops
Simon Montague, Thomas de L’Isle, Simon Langham and John de Fordham among
the benefactors. It is interesting to note how purely local University
education must have been at first. Although the first two masters of
Peterhouse appear to have been natives of distant parts of England, the
names of most of the masters during the fourteenth century recall the
neighbouring fenland. Roger of Mildenhall, Ralph of Holbeach, William of
Whittlesea, Richard of Wisbech, John of Bottisham, all are natives of
Cambridgeshire or the counties immediately adjoining. Thomas of Barnard’s
Castle, who became master in 1400, takes us further north, and he is the
last of the list who derives his surname from his native place.
The early history of Peterhouse is concerned chiefly with its buildings.
Under the rule of John Holbrook (1418-1431) and during the long
mastership of Dr Thomas Lane (1431-73) the college assumed a definite
shape. The old buildings north of it belong to Holbrook’s mastership. It
took in the house of the Friars of the Sack, which existed on part of its
site, and thus set a precedent which was followed almost universally—the
substitution of learned foundations for monasteries and convents. The
Peterhouse of that day, substantially the building of our own time, was
scarcely in Cambridge. St Peter’s Church lay north of it, and was itself
just outside the Trumpington or South Gate of the town. It had given its
name to the college, and was used as its chapel from the earliest period.
About the beginning of Edward III.’s reign, the church was pulled down,
and the present beautiful church of St Mary’s the Less was built on its
site, the college still continuing to use it as their place of worship.
We may assume that the scholars were required to assist at mass every
morning and at the parochial mass on Sundays, and that they formed, as it
were, the choir, using the chancel stalls. They entered the church by the
passage and staircase which still exist south of the chancel.
No famous names occur in connection with the college before the
Reformation. The early sixteenth century produced a good number of
benefactors, and Hugh de Balsham’s original provisions were considerably
amplified. In 1553 Andrew Perne became master. His fame is largely
local, but he is a very significant figure in an age chiefly remarkable
for the strength of its religious convictions. His mastership begins
at the end of Edward VI.’s reign, and lasted for thirty-six years. He
combined with it the Deanery of Ely, and showed great sagacity in the
tenure of both offices. During Mary’s reign, he was Chancellor of the
University, and under his auspices the burning of Bucer’s and Fagius’
remains took place. However, although this somewhat unnecessary act of
vengeance might have stamped his opinions, he seems to have veered at
the accession of Elizabeth with great suppleness, and to have trimmed
his sails to the royal wind up to the day of his death. The wits of
the University made his accommodating policy their butt, and, with the
heavy wit of the day, coined the verb _pernare_, which signified “to
turn one’s coat.” Perne, although he possibly merits some contempt,
made nevertheless a very good use of his unscrupulous comfort. I have
already mentioned his additions to the college. He also originated that
water-supply which is now so ornamental a feature in certain parts of the
town. The broad gutters along which streams run down Trumpington Street
for most of the year were not constructed till after his death, but it
was he who first suggested that healthy water might be brought from the
neighbouring Gogmagog Hills.
To the society of Peterhouse, for some years of Perne’s time, belonged
the celebrated John Whitgift. Whitgift was an example of a system which
has now ceased to a great extent in Cambridge. He was an undergraduate
of Queens’ to begin with; he then obtained a fellowship at Peterhouse,
and was in succession Master of Pembroke and Trinity before his elevation
to a bishoprick. His connection with Peterhouse is very passing, but,
while a member of the college, he held the Lady Margaret Professorship of
Divinity. In 1567, when he became Master of Pembroke, he vacated it for
the Regius Professorship, which he held until his translation to the See
of Worcester. At the same time Peterhouse held also another professor, Dr
Thomas Lorkin, who occupied the Regius Chair of Physic. Professorships
were then commonly held with other offices, and John Richardson, fellow
of Emmanuel, who was Master of Peterhouse from 1609 to 1615 was also
Regius Professor of Divinity.