The Project Gutenberg eBook of Cambridge and Its Story
Title: Cambridge and Its Story
Author: Charles William Stubbs
Illustrator: Fanny Railton
Herbert Railton
Release date: September 18, 2013 [eBook #43764]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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| Every attempt has been made to replicate the original as printed. Variation in the spellings of names has not been corrected (i.e. Queens’/Queen’s) Some typographical errors have been corrected; a list follows the text. The footnotes follow the text. Some illustrations have been moved from mid-paragraph for ease of reading. In certain versions of this etext, in certain browsers, clicking on this symbol will bring up a larger version of the image. Contents List of Illustrations Index (etext transcriber's note) |
C A M B R I D G E
AND ITS STORY
All rights reserved
C A M B R I D G E
A N D I T S S T O R Y
BY
CHARLES WILLIAM STUBBS, D.D.
DEAN OF ELY
WITH TWENTY-FOUR LITHOGRAPHS
AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS BY
HERBERT RAILTON
THE LITHOGRAPHS BEING
TINTED BY
FANNY RAILTON
1903
LONDON
J. M. DENT & CO.
A L D I N E H O U S E, W. C.
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press
PREFACE
I SHOULD wish to write one word by way of explanation of the character of the descriptive historical sketch which forms the text of the present book.
Some time ago I undertook to prepare, for “the Mediæval Towns Series” of my Publisher, a work on the Story of the Town and University of Cambridge. Arrangements were made with Mr. Herbert Railton for its pictorial illustration. It had been intended in the first instance, that the artist’s pen and ink sketches should have been reproduced by the ordinary processes used in modern book illustration. But the poetic glamour of such a place as Cambridge and its genius loci did not allow the enthusiasm of the artist to remain satisfied with such drawings only as might be readily reproduced by the ordinary processes. In addition to many sketches in black and white, suitable for reproduction in the body of the text in illustration of interesting bits of architectural detail, or of quaint grouping, Mr. Railton has also drawn a series of large-sized pencil-pictures of the principal College buildings. These drawings are so beautiful, so full of delicacy and tenderness and yet so firm and effective in their treatment of light and shade, and show so much sympathy for the old buildings and all their picturesque charm, that the Publisher at once felt that they must not be treated as ordinary book illustrations. The artist had produced pictures worthy to be classed with the best work of Samuel Prout. It became the duty of the Publisher to treat them with corresponding respect. The method of auto-lithography has accordingly been adopted, by which the plates are an absolute reproduction in size and tint of the pencil drawings, and the artist’s work goes straight to the reader without any mechanical intervention. A new feature has been added by which the colour stones have been made by Mrs. Railton acting in collaboration with her husband. This process of reproduction necessarily involved a change in the proposed format of the book. It was determined, therefore, to issue in the first instance an edition de luxe of “The Story of Cambridge,” on specially prepared paper and in large quarto size. I have readily consented to such a course, for although I may seem, by the more imposing form of a large Library Edition, to be guilty of some presumption in placing my Historical Sketch in competition with such histories as those of Mr. Mullinger in the “Epochs of History Series,” or of my friend, Mr. T. D. Atkinson, in “Cambridge Described”—the larger books of Mr. J. W. Clark on the architectural history of Cambridge, and of Mr. Mullinger on the general history of the University are already classics to which humbler writers on Cambridge can only look as to final authorities—I can only hope that my readers will recognise that my presumption is only apparent, and meanwhile I rest confident that even the historical critic will have little care for the inadequacy of my prose rendering of “The Story of Cambridge,” absorbed as he must be by his delight in the beauty of Mr. Railton’s drawings. In any case, I shall be entirely satisfied if only my descriptive sketch is found adequate for the help of the general reader in appreciating the story of which the artist has been able to give so poetic an interpretation.
C. W. S.
The Deanery, Ely,
Michaelmas, 1903.
CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| PREFACE | v |
| LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS | xiii |
| CHAPTER I | |
|---|---|
| LEGENDARY ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSITY | 1 |
Geographical and commercial importance of the city site—Map of the county a palimpsest—Glamour of the Fenland—Cambridge the gateway of East Anglia—The Roman roads—The Roman station—The Castle Hill—Stourbridge Fair—Cambridge a chief centre of English commerce. | |
| CHAPTER II | |
| CAMBRIDGE IN THE NORMAN TIME | 22 |
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 Hythes—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. | |
| CHAPTER III | |
| THE BEGINNINGS OF UNIVERSITY LIFE | 49 |
Monastic Origins—Continuity of Learning in Early England—The School of York—The Venerable Bede—Alcuin and the Schools of Charles the Great—The Danish Invasions—The Benedictine Revival—The Monkish Chroniclers—The Coming of the Friars—The Franciscan and Dominican Houses at Cambridge—The Franciscan Scholars—Roger Bacon—Bishop Grosseteste—The New Aristotle and the Scientific Spirit—The Scholastic Philosophy—Aquinas—Migration of Scholars from Paris to Cambridge—The term “University”—The Colleges and the Hostels—The Course of Study—Trivium and Quadrivium—The Four Faculties—England a Paradise of Clerks—Parable of the Monk’s Pen. | |
| CHAPTER IV | |
| THE EARLIEST COLLEGE FOUNDATION: PETERHOUSE | 71 |
The Early Monastic Houses in Cambridge—Student Proselytising by the Friars—The Oxford College of Merton a Protest against this Tendency—The Rule of Merton taken as a Model by Hugh de Balsham, Founder of Peterhouse—The Hospital of S. John—The Scholars of Ely—Domestic Economy of the College—The Dress of the Mediæval Student—Peterhouse Buildings—Little S. Mary’s Church—The Perne Library—The College Chapel. | |
| CHAPTER V | |
| THE COLLEGES OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY | 93 |
The Fourteenth Century an Age of Great Men and Great Events but not of Great Scholars—Petrarch and Richard of Bury—Michael House—The King’s Scholars—King’s Hall—Clare Hall—Pembroke College—Gonville Hall—Dr. John Caius—His Three Gates of Humility, Virtue, and Honour. | |
| CHAPTER VI | |
| THE COLLEGE OF THE CAMBRIDGE GUILDS | 120 |
Unique Foundation of Corpus Christi College—The Cambridge Guilds—The influence of “the Good Duke”—The Peasant Revolt—Destruction of Charters—“Perish the skill of the Clerks!”—The Black Death—Lollardism at the Universities—The Poore Priestes of Wycliffe. | |
| CHAPTER VII | |
| TWO ROYAL FOUNDATIONS | 137 |
Henry VI—The most pitiful Character in all English History—His devotion to Learning and his Saintly Spirit—His foundation of Eton and King’s College—The Building of King’s College Chapel—Its architect, Reginald of Ely, the Cathedral Master-Mason—Its relation to the Ely Lady Chapel—Its stained glass Windows—Its close Foundation—Queens’ College—Margaret of Anjou and Elizabeth Wydville—The buildings of Queens’—Similarity to Haddon Hall—Its most famous Resident, Erasmus—His Novum Instrumentum edited within its Walls. | |
| CHAPTER VIII | |
| TWO OF THE SMALLER HALLS | 173 |
The Foundation of Trinity Hall by Bishop Bateman of Norwich—On the Site of the Hostel of Student-Monks of Ely—Prior Crauden—Evidence of the Ely Obedientary Rolls—The College Buildings—The Old Hall—S. Edward’s Church used as College Chapel—Hugh Latimer’s Sermon on a Pack of Cards—Harvey Goodwin—Frederick Maurice—The Hall Library—Its ancient Bookcases—The Foundation of S. Catherine’s Hall. | |
| CHAPTER IX | |
| BISHOP ALCOCK AND THE NUNS OF S. RHADEGUND | 183 |
The New Learning in Italy and Germany—The English “Pilgrim Scholars”: Grey, Tiptoft, Linacre, Grocyn—The practical Genius of England—Bishops Rotherham, Alcock, and Fisher—Alcock, diplomatist, financier, architect—The Founder of Jesus College—He takes as his model Jesus College, Rotherham—His Object the Training of a Preaching Clergy—The Story of the Nunnery of S. Rhadegund—Its Dissolution—Conversion of the Conventual Church into a College Chapel—The Monastic Buildings, Gateway, Cloister, Chapter House—The Founder a Better Architect than an Educational Reformer—The Jesus Roll of eminent Men from Cranmer to Coleridge. | |
| CHAPTER X | |
| COLLEGES OF THE NEW LEARNING | 210 |
The Lady Margaret Foundations—Bishop Fisher of Rochester—The Foundation of Christ’s—God’s House—The buildings of the new College—College Worthies—John Milton—Henry More—Charles Darwin—The Hospital of the Brethren of S. John—Death of the Lady Margaret—Foundation of S. John’s College—Its buildings—The Great Gateway—The new Library—The Bridge of Sighs—The Wilderness—Wordsworth’s “Prelude”—The aims of Bishop Fisher—His death. | |
| CHAPTER XI | |
| A SMALL AND A GREAT COLLEGE | 246 |
Dissolution of the Monasteries—Schemes for Collegiate Spoliation checked by Henry VIII.—Monks’ or Buckingham College—Refounded by Sir Thomas Audley as Magdalene College—Conversion of the old buildings—The Pepysian Library—Foundation of Trinity College—Michaelhouse and the King’s Hall—King Edward’s Gate—The Queen’s Gate—The Great Gate—Dr. Thomas Neville—The Great Court—The Hall—Neville’s Court—New Court—Dr. Bentley—“A House of all Kinds of Good Letters.” | |
| CHAPTER XII | |
| ANCIENT AND PROTESTANT FOUNDATIONS | 265 |
Queen Elizabeth and the Founder of Emmanuel—The Puritan Age—Sir Walter Mildmay—The Building of Emmanuel—The Tenure of Fellowships—Puritan Worthies—The Founder of Harvard—Lady Frances Sidney—The Sidney College Charter—The Buildings—The Chapel and the old Franciscan Refectory—Royalists and Puritans—Oliver Cromwell—Thomas Fuller—-A Child’s Prayer for his Mother. | |
| INDEX: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, P, R, S, T, U, V, W. | |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TINTED LITHOGRAPHS
| Oriel Windows, Queens’ College | Frontispiece | |
| The School of Pythagoras | facing page | 28 |
| Peterhouse | ” | 82 |
| Clare College and Bridge | ” | 96 |
| Pembroke College | ” | 106 |
| Gate of Honour and Gate of Virtue, Caius College | ” | 112 |
| The Churches of S. Edward and S. Mary the Great from Peas Hill | ” | 123 |
| Corpus Christi College and S. Benedict’s Church | ” | 128 |
| The Pitt Press, S. Botolph’s Church, and Corpus Christi College | ” | 132 |
| The West Doorway, King’s College Chapel | ” | 144 |
| Gateway to Old Court of King’s College | ” | 153 |
| The Chapel, Trinity Hall | ” | 174 |
| Oriel Window, Jesus College | ” | 178 |
| Gateway in Great Court, S. Catherine’s College | ” | 180 |
| The Chapel, Christ’s College | ” | 214 |
| Gateway, S. John’s College | ” | 230 |
| Oriel in Library, S. John’s College | ” | 236 |
| Tower and Turrets of Trinity from S. John’s College | ” | 243 |
| The Library, Chapel, and Hall, Magdalene College | ” | 248 |
| Gateway and Dial, Trinity College | ” | 254 |
| Neville’s Court, Trinity College | ” | 260 |
| Hall and Chapel, Emmanuel College | ” | 266 |
| Downing College | ” | 274 |
| The Garden Front, Sidney Sussex College | ” | 278 |
BLACK AND WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS
| PAGE | |
| Courtyard of the Falcon Inn | 25 |
| Saxon Tower, S. Benedict’s Church | 29 |
| The Abbey House | 35 |
| Chapel, Barnwell Priory | 39 |
| The Round Church | 41 |
| Oriel Windows from House in Petty-Cury | facing page 46 |
| Clare College and Bridge | 101 |
| Pembroke College | 107 |
| Pembroke College, Oriels and Entrance | 109 |
| Caius College, The Gate of Honour | 117 |
| King’s Parade | 139 |
| King’s College Chapel | 145 |
| King’s College Chapel | facing page 150 |
| King’s College Quadrangle | 155 |
| Cloister Court, Queens’ College | 163 |
| Oriel Window, Queens’ College | 166 |
| The Bridge and Gables, Queens’ College | 169 |
| A Bit from Sidney Street | 172 |
| Divinity Schools and S. John’s | 193 |
| Norman Work in Church of Jesus College | 197 |
| Norman Work in N. Transept, Jesus College Chapel | 201 |
| Entrance to Chapter-House, Priory of S. Rhadegund | 203 |
| Jack in Wolsey’s Kitchen, Christ’s College | 219 |
| The Courtyard of the Wrestlers’ Inn | facing page 220 |
| Entrance to S. John’s College | 229 |
| S. John’s College from the Backs | 233 |
| Bridge of Sighs, S. John’s College | 239 |
| Tower and Gateway, Trinity College | facing page 252 |
| The Fountain, Trinity College | ” 258 |
CHAPTER I
LEGENDARY ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSITY
By many a city and by many a town,
And many rivers taking under-hand
Into his waters as he passeth down,
The Cle, the Were, the Grant, the Sture, the Bowne,
Thence doth by Huntingdon and Cambridge flit,
My Mother Cambridge, whom as with a crowne
He doth adorne, and is adorn’d by it
With many a gentle Muse and many a learned wit.”
—Spenser’s Faerie Queene, iv. xi. 34.
Geographical and commercial importance of the city site—Map of the county a palimpsest—Glamour of the Fenland—Cambridge the gateway of East Anglia—The Roman roads—The Roman station—The Castle Hill—Stourbridge Fair—Cambridge a chief centre of English commerce.
ONE could wish perhaps that the story of Cambridge should begin, as so many good stories of men and cities have begun, in the antique realm of poetry and romance. That it did so begin our forefathers indeed had little doubt. John Lydgate, the poet, a Benedictine monk of Bury, “the disciple”—as he is proud to call himself—“of Geoffrey Chaucer,” but best remembered perhaps by later times as the writer of “London Lackpenny” and “Troy Book,” has left certain verses on the foundation of the Town and University of Cambridge, which are still preserved to us.[1] Some stanzas of that fourteenth-century poem will serve to show in what a cloudland of empty legend it was at one time thought that the story of the beginnings of Cambridge might be found:—
That some tyme wrotte so mikle with his hande,
And specially remembringe as I reede
In his chronicles made of England
Amounge other thynges as ye shall understand,
Whom for myne aucthour I dare alleage,
Seith the translacion and buylding of Cambridge.
. . . . . . . . . .
“Touching the date, as I rehearse can
Fro thilke tyme that the world began
Four thowsand complete by accomptès clere
And three hundred by computacion
Joyned thereto eight and fortie yeare,
When Cantebro gave the foundacion
Of thys citie and this famous towne
And of this noble universitie
Sette on this river which is called Cante.
. . . . . . . . . .
“This Cantebro, as it well knoweth
At Athenes scholed in his yougt,
All his wyttes greatlye did applie
To have acquaintance by great affection
With folke-experte in philosophie.
From Athens he brought with hym downe
Philosophers most sovereigne of renowne
Unto Cambridge, playnlye this is the case,
Anaxamander and Anaxagoras
With many other myne Aucthors dothe fare,
To Cambridge fast can hym spede
With philosophers and let for no cost spare
In the Schooles to studdie and to reede;
Of whose teachinges great profit that gan spreade
And great increase rose of his doctrine;
Thus of Cambridge the name gan first shyne
As chief schoole and universitie
Unto this tyme fro the daye it began
By cleare reporte in manye a far countre
Unto the reign of Cassibellan.
. . . . . . . . . .
“And as it is put eke in memorie,
Howe Julius Cesar entring this region
On Cassybellan after his victorye
Tooke with hym clarkes of famous renowne
Fro Cambridg and ledd theim to Rome towne,
Thus by processe remembred here to forne
Cambridg was founded long or Chryst was borne.”
But it is not only in verse that this fabric of fable is to be found. Down even to the middle of the last century the ears of Cambridge graduates were still beguiled by strange stories of the early renown of their University—how it was founded by a Spanish Prince, Cantaber (the “Cantebro” of Lydgate’s verses), “in the 4321st year of the creation of the world,” and in the sixth year of Gurgant, King of Britain; how Athenian astronomers and philosophers, “because of the pleasantness of the place,” came to Cambridge as its earliest professors, “the king having appointed them stipends”; how King Arthur, “on the 7th of April, in the year of the Incarnacion of our Lord, 531,” granted a charter of academic privileges “to Kenet, the first Rector of the schools”; and how the University subsequently found another royal patron in the East Anglian King Sigebert, and had among its earliest Doctors of Divinity the great Saxon scholars Bede and Alcuin.
I have before me as I write a small octavo volume, a guide-book to Cambridge and its Colleges, much worn and thumbed, probably by its eighteenth-century owner, possibly by his nineteenth-century successor, in which all these fables and legends are set out in order. The book has lost its title-page, but it is easily identifiable as an English translation of Richard Parker’s Skeletos Cantabrigiensis, written about 1622, but not apparently published until a century later, when the antiquary, Thomas Hearne, printed it in his edition of Leland’s Collectanea. My English edition of the Skeletos is presumably either that which was “printed for Thomas Warner at the Black Boy, Pater Noster Row,” and without a date, or that published by “J. Bateman at the Hat and Star in S. Paul’s Churchyard,” and dated 1721. As an illustration of the kind of record which passed for history even in the last century,—for the early editions of Hallam’s “History of the Middle Ages” bear evidence that that careful historian still gave some credence to these Cambridge fables,—it may be interesting to quote one or two passages from the legendary history of Nicholas Cantelupe, which is prefixed to this English version of Parker’s book:—
“Anaximander, one of the disciples of Thales, came to this city on account of his Philosophy and great Skill in Astrology, where he left much Improvement in Learning to Posterity. After his Example, Anaxagoras, quitting his Possessions, after a long Peregrination, came to Cambridge, where he writ Books, and instructed the unlearned, for which reason that City was by the People of the Country call’d the City of Scholars.
“King Cassibelan, when he had taken upon him the Government of the Kingdom, bestowed such Preheminence on this City, that any Fugitive or Criminal, desirous to acquire Learning, flying to it, was defended in the sight of His Enemy, with Pardon, and without Molestation, Upbraiding or Affront offer’d him. For which Reason, as also on account of the Richness of the Soil, the Serenity of the Air, the great Source of Learning, and the King’s Favour, young and old, from many Parts of the Earth, resorted thither, some of whom Julius Cæsar, having vanquished Cassibelan, carry’d away to Rome, where they afterwards flourish’d.”
There then follows a letter, given without any doubt of authenticity, from Alcuin of York, purporting to be written to the scholars of Cambridge from the Court of Charles the Great:—
“To the discreet Heirs of Christ, the Scholars of the unspotted Mother Cambridge, Ælqninus, by Life a Sinner, Greeting and Glory in the Virtues of Learning. Forasmuch as Ignorance is the Mother of Error, I earnestly intreat that Youths among you be us’d to be present at the Praises of the Supreme King, not to unearth Foxes, not to hunt Hares, let them now learn the Holy Scriptures, having obtain’d Knowledge of the Science of Truth, to the end that in their perfect Age they may teach others. Call to mind, I beseech you dearly beloved the most noble Master of our Time, Bede the Priest, Doctor of your University, under whom by permission of the Divine Grace, I took the Doctor’s Degree in the Year from the Incarnation of our Lord 692, what an Inclination he had to study in His Youth, what Praise he has now among Men, and much more what Glory of Reward with God. Farewell always in Christ Jesu, by whose Grace you are assisted in Learning. Amen.”
We may omit the mythical charter of King Arthur and come to the passage concerning King Alfred, obviously intended to turn the flank of the Oxford patriots, who too circumstantially relate how their University was founded by that great scholar king.
“In process of time, when Alfred, or Alred, supported by divine Comfort, after many Tribulations, had obtained the Monarchy of all England, he translated to Oxford the scholars, which Penda, King of the Mercians, had with the leave of King Ceadwald carried from Cambridge to Kirneflad (rather Cricklade, as above), to which scholars he was wont to distribute Alms in three several Places. He much honour’d the Cantabrigians and Oxonians, and granted them many Privileges.
“Afterwards he erected and establish’d Grammar Schools throughout the whole Island, and caus’d the Youth to be instructed in their Mother Tongue. Then perceiving that the Scholars, whom he had conveyed to Oxford, continually applied themselves to the Study of the Laws and expounded the Holy Scriptures: he appointed Grimwald their Rector, who had been Rector and Chancellor of the City of Cambridge.”
The severer canons of modern historical criticism have naturally made short work of all these absurd fables; nor do they even allow us to accept as authentic the otherwise not unpleasing story quoted from the Chronicle, or rather historical novel, of Ingulph, in the quaint pages of Thomas Fuller, written a generation later than Richard Parker’s book, which tells how, early in the twelfth century, certain monks were sent to Cambridge by Joffrey, Abbot of Crowland, to expound in a certain public barn (by later writers fondly thought to be that which is now known by the name of Pythagoras’ School) the pages of Priscian, Quintillian, and Aristotle.
There is little doubt, I fear, that we may find the inciting motive of all this exuberant fancy and invention in the desire to glorify the one University at the expense of the other, which is palpably present in that last quotation from Parker’s book, and which is perhaps not altogether absent from the writings and the conversation of some academic patriots of our own day. We may, however, more wisely dismiss all these foolish legends and myths as to origins in the kindlier spirit of quaint old Fuller in the Introduction to his “History of the University of Cambridge”:—
“Sure I am,” he says, “there needeth no such pains to be took, or provision to be made, about the pre-eminence of our English Universities, to regulate their places, they having better learned humility from the precept of the Apostle, In honour preferring one another. Wherefore I presume my aunt Oxford will not be justly offended if in this book I give my own mother the upper hand, and first begin with her history. Thus desiring God to pour his blessing upon both, that neither may want milk for their children, or children for their milk, we proceed to the business.”
Descending then from the misty cloudland of Fable to the hard ground of historic Fact, we are shortly met by a question which, I hope, Fuller would have recognised as businesslike. How did it come about that our forefathers founded a University on the site which we now call Cambridge—“that distant marsh town,” as a modern Oxford historian somewhat contemptuously calls it? The question is a natural one, and has not seldom been asked. We shall find, I think, the most reasonable answer to it by asking a prior question. How did the town of Cambridge itself come to be a place of any importance in the early days? The answer is, in the first place, geographical; in the second, commercial. We may fitly occupy the remaining space of this chapter in seeking to formulate that answer.
And first, as to the physical features of the district which has Cambridge for its most important centre. “The map of England,” it has been strikingly said by Professor Maitland, “is the most wonderful of all palimpsests.” Certainly that portion of the map of England which depicts the country surrounding the Fenlands of East Anglia is not the least interesting part of that palimpsest. Let us take such a map and try roughly to decipher it.[2]
If we begin with the seaboard line we shall perhaps at first sight be inclined to think that it cannot have changed much in the course of the centuries. And most probably the coast-line of Lincolnshire, from a point northwards near Great Grimsby or Cleethorpes at the mouth of the Humber to a point southwards near Waynefleet at the mouth of the Steeping River, twenty miles or less north of Boston, and again the coast-line of Norfolk and Suffolk from Hunstanton Point at the north-east corner of the Wash round past Brancaster and Wells and Cromer to Yarmouth and then southwards past Southwold and Aldborough to Harwich at the mouth of the Orwell and Stour estuary, has not altered much in ten or even twenty centuries. But that can hardly be said with regard to the coast-line of the Wash itself. For on its western side our palimpsest warns us that there is a considerable district called Holland; that on its south side, a dozen miles or more from the present coast-line, is a town called Wisbech (or Ouse-beach); that still farther inland, within a mile or two of Cambridge itself, are to be found the villages of Waterbeach and Landbeach; and that scattered throughout the whole district of the low-lying lands are villages and towns whose place-names have the termination “ey” or “ea,” meaning “island”—such, as Thorney, Spinny, Sawtrey, Ramsey, Whittlesea, Horningsea; and that one considerable tract of slightly higher ground, though now undoubtedly surrounded by dry land, is still called the Isle of Ely. These place-names are significant, and tell their own story. And that story, as we try to interpret it, will gradually lead us to the conclusion that the ancient seaboard line of the Wash, instead of being marked on the map of England as we have it now, by a line roughly joining Boston and King’s Lynn, would on the earliest text of the palimpsest require an extended sea boundary on which Lincoln, and Stamford and Peterborough, and Huntingdon and Cambridge, and Brandon and Downham Market would become almost seaboard towns, and Ely an island fifteen miles or so off the coast at Cambridge.
Such a conclusion, of course, would be somewhat of an exaggeration, for the wide waste of waters which thus formed an extension of the Wash southwards was not all or always sea water. So utterly transformed, however, has the whole Fen country become in modern times—the vast plain of the Bedford level contains some 2000 square miles of the richest corn-land in England—that it is very difficult to restore in the imagination the original scenery of the days before the drainage, when the rivers which take the rainfall of the central counties of England—the Nene, the Welland, the Witham, the Glen, and the Bedfordshire Ouse—spread out into one vast delta or wilderness of shallow waters.
The poetic glamour of the land, now on the side of its fertility and strange beauty, now on the side of its monotony and weird loneliness, has always had a strange fascination for the chroniclers and writers of every age. In the first Book of the Liber Eliensis (ii. 105), written by Thomas, a monk of Ely, in the twelfth century, there is a description of the fenlands, given by a soldier to William the Conqueror, which reads like the report of the land of plenty and promise brought by the spies to Joshua. In the Historia Major of Matthew Paris, however, it is described as a place “neither accessible for man or beast, affording only deep mud, with sedge and reeds, and possest of birds, yea, much more by devils, as appeareth in the Life of S. Guthlac, who, finding it a place of horror and great solitude, began to inhabit there.” At a later time Drayton in his Polyolbion gives a picture of the Fenland life as one of manifold industry:—