An Iron Age Belgic tribe built its
settlement on what is now Castle Hill. The Romans took over the site in
approximately 40AD, and the area became the crossing point for the Via
Devana linking the legion towns of Colchester and Chester.
What is now called Castle Hill provided a perfect site for a fort to
guard this crossing, and once it was built, a settlement grew up around
it. The town (then called Camberitum) became busy and prosperous; but
once the Roman Legions left around 5th Century AD, the settlement shrank
and became a ghost town. In AD450, when the Saxons and Jutes invaded
England, some of them settled near the old Roman fort.
In the 6th / 7th Century AD, England was invaded again, this time by the
Danes and Norsemen of Scandinavia. When King Alfred defeated the Danes,
they were confined to an area of East Anglia called the Danelaw. They
saw Cambridge as an ideal inland port, and began trading with goods
arriving from the North Sea, via Kings Lynn. Cambridge became a wealthy
town.
Saxons, followed by the Normans under William the Conqueror, battled
deep in the Fens at Ely where the motte of William's castle stood. This
was built on a steep mound and was used as a fighting base against the
Saxon rebel Hereward the Wake. It can still be seen today and Ely
Cathedral is visible on a clear day from the top. When the Saxons
settled on the site after the Romans left, the town's name gradually
evolved from Grantchester to Grantabric and then Cantabridge and
eventually becoming the recognised town name we all know today.
Cambridge, famous world wide for its architecturally beautiful
University colleges and excellence in learning and teaching, has evolved
from dense forests to the south and trackless, marshy fens to the north
and was the lowest reliable fording place of the River Cam.
After the Norman invasion of 1066, William the Conqueror built a wooden
castle on the site of the old Roman fort. It was used to suppress
Hereward the Wake and his "Islanders" from Ely. In Williams great survey
of 1086 (the Doomsday Book), Cambridge was described as a flourishing
town with over 400 houses. As a commercial centre, Cambridge grew and
extensive building took place, including the Round Church.
After the Romans, others came and went: Vikings, Anglo-Saxons and
Normans, all remembered in the local parish names (St Clement, St Benet
and St Giles reflect three different Christian cultures, and the
Anglo-Saxon tower of St Benet's is now the oldest surviving building in
the city). The centre of the town moved south to the current market
area. With an 11th century population of some 1600, Cambridge was one of
eastern England's largest towns.
Growth continued into the 13th century. In 1209, King John declared
Cambridge a royal borough; a merchant's guild was established, and
regular fairs were held on Midsummer Common. Many goods were transported
by boat, and Cambridge's wharf trade boomed. Though already an important
market town, simultaneous developments were about to change the city's
destiny forever.
In the early 13th century, riots in Oxford - and later Paris - caused
many of these cities' scholars to flee, fearing for their lives. For
reasons unknown, many headed to Cambridge. These students - most of them
boys in their early teens - would gather in groups for lessons in
grammar, rhetoric and logic, all taught in Latin. The education lacked
formality or ceremony; indeed the learners were an unruly lot, but this
indiscipline soon prompted teachers and townsfolk to impose some form of
order. Students were gathered in hostels, and rules established.
In 1284, the Bishop of Ely, Hugh de Balsham, founded Peterhouse to house
a Master and six Fellows. This was the first of the Cambridge colleges.
Over the next 70 years, seven more followed. The Old Court of Corpus
Christi College is the oldest surviving university building, and gives
the visitor an idea of the style of colleges at this time. The town and
its nascent university survived plague, peasant uprisings and fire, and
in the 15th century, the great and good founded more colleges. These
founders live on today, immortalised in the college names and heraldry.
Around the 13th Century, as a variety of religious denominations began
settling in the town, and because of the ease of trade with the
continent, an annual "fair" started. It soon became the biggest in
Europe; but in the 18th Century its popularity lessened and in 1933 it
was ended by Royal Decree. The excesses of the fair are still preserved
by John Bunyans "Vanity Fair", which is based on the event.
The University is thought to have started in 1209. By the 14th Century,
it had become a powerful force in Cambridge this still being true today.
By this time, a deep rooted hatred had developed between the townspeople
and the University, mainly because the elected Mayor had to swear an
oath to maintain the rights and privileges of everything "University”,
and generally leave those involved with the University to live in the
manner they had become accustomed to. A peasants revolt in 1381 was soon
crushed, and it was not until the 19th Century that the University gave
up many of its rights over the town.
Although it has rarely been the centre of National affairs, Cambridge
has had continuous stream of Royal visitors, and a parliament has been
held here at least once.
Cambridge was at the centre of the English reformation; in the early
days it was even dubbed 'Little Germany'. Hugh Latimer, who preached
Lutheranism from the pulpits of St Edward's Church and Great St Mary's,
would later be burnt at the stake in Oxford. Just as these two churches
remain, so does much else from the era - a 1574 map has much in common
with the street plan of today.
'Students do not wear clerical clothes, but new fashioned gowns of blue,
green, red or mixed colours; they have fair roses upon their shoes, wear
long, frizzled hair upon the head and long Merchants Ruffs about the
neck, with fair feminine cuffs at ye wrist.' Such was the damning
disapprobation of Puritanism!
In 1640, Cambridge returned Oliver Cromwell to Parliament. Though
staunchly on the Parliamentarian side in the English Civil War, the town
was never a battleground.
The year 1667 saw a 27-year-old take the chair of Lucasian Professor of
Mathematics ' Isaac Newton still is, arguably, the university's greatest
mind to date. The following century, however, saw a curriculum too
heavily dependent on mathematics, resulting in dwindling student
numbers. This was reversed only in the 19th century: in 1800, 150
fresher's 'came up' (began studies); by 1870, this figure had risen to
800.
In the 17th and 18th Centuries, a regular coach service was setup
between London and Cambridge, "turnpike trusts" were authorised by
parliament to collect a fee from road users to pay for their upkeep. In
the 17th Century a Dr Stephen Perse left money in his will to set-up a
free school, to educate a 100 boys (hence "Free School Lane"), and in
1766, the world famous Addenbrookes Teaching Hospital was opened (named
after Dr John Addenbrookes of St Catherine's College).
The Victorian era saw the opening of the Railway Station but the
colleges ordered that the station should not be near their sites; which
explains why its over a mile from the town centre. The railway spelt the
end for the riverside wharves. The river empty, punting became and
remains a popular afternoon pastime.
Over the 20th century, town and gown learned to live and work together.
During World War I, like anywhere in England, Cambridge lost many of its
young men. However, the Government still had to instigate a bridge
building program in the City, to help ease the unemployment level.