【英文文学】Cambridge and Its Colleges.docx

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1、【英文文学】Cambridge and Its CollegesPREFACESo 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 o

2、n “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 Clarks Architectural History of the University; and Mr Atkinsons lately published book gives a singul

3、ar 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 pointand to follow out carefully every date and mark every alteration would be beyond these limits. My endea

4、vour 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 modernxii works on the subject, I owe a gr

5、eat deal to Mr J. W. Clarks “Cambridge: Historical and Picturesque Notes” (Seeley, 1890). I am sure, too, that whatever interest my own part in this book may lack, Mr News drawings will more than supply.Wisbech,April 23, 1898.I CAMBRIDGEDr Caius ingenious contention that Cambridge was founded in 353

6、8 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 Britis

7、h 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, whi

8、ch 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 Hu

9、ntingdon. At Gogmagog Hills, five miles out of the town, we can trace the remains of Vandlebury2 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

10、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 import

11、ant 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 t

12、he 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 munici

13、pal 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 sch

14、ools at Cambridge was probably insignificant. Cambridge is on the border of the Fenland, and the3 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 abbe

15、ys 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 bord

16、ers, 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 Crowl

17、and 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 pe

18、dants 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 histo

19、ry, however, has a chronology almost parallel with that of Oxford. Out of the monastic system was evolved the freer life4 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

20、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 m

21、uch 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 th

22、e 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 e

23、nclosed by the Kings 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

24、 to the left, until it reached Barnwell Gate at the bottom of Petty Cury. From Barnwell Gate it followed the present Hobson Street, ran5 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 ellip

25、tic 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 Kings Ditch at Barnwell Gate. That to the right, St Johns

26、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 Maddermarkets at Norwich. Just beyond on the right was Kings Hall, with Kin

27、gs Hall Lane leading to the river. The next turning, St Michaels Lane, the present Trinity Lane, led in the same direction to Garret Hostel Bridge. In St Michaels Lane was Michael House, and St Michaels and Kings Hall Lanes were connected by the narrow and dirty street called Foul Lane. These two co

28、lleges and the tortuous lanes connecting them occupied the site of Trinity. The main street, after passing St Michaels Church, came to Great St Marys Church, and proceeded along Kings Parade as High Street. On either side of this thoroughfare was an indiscriminate mass of housesthe great court of Ki

29、ngs did not exist. Its site was then a labyrinth of narrow alleys and beetling tenements. A winding lane led across the space now6 occupied by the lawn east of Kings Chapel, to the Schools, and skirting them, ran into the street leading from Michael House to the Mill Pool, called Milne Street. Of th

30、is street, which passed Clare and crossed Kings where Gibbs building stands, we still preserve the original course in Queens Lane. It was connected with the parallel High Street by Piron Lane, which occupied the north side of the court at Kings, and St Austins Lane, which was the modern Kings Lane.

31、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 Botolphs Church.On the other side of High Street the confusion was even worse. Many people can remember the

32、 days when the broad thoroughfares on either side of Great St Marys 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

33、 and the Market Place are sufficient testimony. The Sheerers Row, north of Great St Marys, was continued by the Shoemakers 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 w

34、as the Conduit; west of the Conduit was the Cross. The Tolbooth and Prison were on the south of the space, where the7 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 Hi

35、ll led, as now, to Benet Street, and Benet Street led back to High Street, just where Kings Parade joins Trumpington Street. Free School Lane, at the back of Saint Benets Church and Corpus, was called Luthburgh Lane, and the original buildings of Corpus opened into this and not into Trumpington Stre

36、et, 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 Kings Ditch were the Church of St Peter and the foundation of Peterhouse.Another point which the visitor to medieval

37、 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

38、 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 Kings Ditch. If accounts are true, the monastery of the Augustinian Canons at Barnwell must have formed a splendid object

39、 in any prospect of Cambridge. To reach it, one would pass through meadows, with the nunnery of St Mary and St Rhadegund away to the8 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

40、 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 rep

41、resented. 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 laborator

42、ies, which was entered from Benet 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; t

43、heir 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 whi

44、ch we see is in substance a monastic building. Barnwell Priory, with the exception of a small chantry-chapel, has disappeared. The Augustinian9 hospital of St John has been blotted out by St Johns College; its beautiful piscina, incorporated in Sir Gilbert Scotts chapel, is its only relic. And, actu

45、ally, 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 Lepers

46、 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 CountiesTombland Fair at Norwi

47、ch and the marts of Lynn and Wisbech have still a certain celebrityand its interest is largely enhanced by the fact that, after the dissolution of the lepers hospital, its original proprietor under a charter of King John, the University had an official connection with it. It lasted for a month, from

48、 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 De

49、foes Tour of Great Britain, quoted by Mr Atkinson in his interesting account of the fair. Hops and wool were the two great staples10 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 ro