' De Antiquitate, Heame's ed., p. 186.

* Ibid. p. 190. He is possibly referring to the fact that Geoffrey of Monmouth
in one place uses the name Oxonia in reference to supposed British times.

=* Ibid. p. 193.

* It cannot be discovered what he means unless it be Sir John Mandeville. Of his
book, an edition was printed as early as 1499, and another edition was published the
same year as the De Antiquitate, i. e. 1568.



THE MYTHICAL ORIGIN OF OXFORD. 31

his journey to Jerusalem in the year 1367. He, that is Graius, in tlie
Scala Cronica, in the life of Alfred, writes thus, " Cejte Rot Alured fist
etablir le tiniversite de Oxenforde^."'
He argues that Leland, on whom his antagonist has relied so
implicitly for overthrowing the Cantaber story, makes Alfred the actual
founder of the University, not the restorer, and the same Polydore Virgil
and Ranulph [Higden] do before him. He meets, too, the argu-
ment which the Oxford champion had drawn from the Historiola in
respect to its silence about Alfred, by asking ^, ' If it were only a
restoration, and not a foundation, how is it that it is not mentioned by
other writers in so many words ? ' He also comments on the statement
that Alfred founded University Hall, and questions how this agrees
with the restoration of the University. He then touches upon some
further objections as to the Cricklade schools, and, quoting from the
Chronicon Jornallense, shows that the authorities are not agreed
whether the Cricklade schools were transferred to Oxford in the time of
the Britons, or in the time of the Saxons, or in the time even of King
Alfred, and whether or not, after they were restored, they died out.
Here is an example of a clever piece of reasoning on these points : —
' From this and that, it also necessarily follows that : If the Cricklade
schools were swept away before the time of Alfred so neither are the
Oxford scholars sprung from them, nor were they created or increased
by the translation, or restored by Alfred since they were not before
this sprung from the Philosophers, nor could they by reason of the
vicinity of the two have coalesced with them. And in the second
place, that which is of still greater weight must be added from history,
that in the time of Alfred there was no grammar school at all through-
out the whole western kingdom. And this you would be able to aver
much more surely if you read Alfred's letter to the Bishop of Wor-
cester '.'
Hitherto his arguments perhaps may appear somewhat weak,
because they depend upon the mere words rather than on the general
sense of the Chronicles ; but, as already said, if the passages quoted
are received as authorities in the sense in which his antagonist receives
them, these arguments have considerable weight. At this point, how-

' Scala Chronica, by Thomas Graius, MS. Lamb. 22. It has not been ascer-
tained at what date this author wiote.

- Dc Antiqiiitate, Hearne's ed., p. 193.

^ Ibid. p. 200. By this vagne reform he means no doubt the Preface to Alfred's
version of the Ctira Pastoralis of Gregory, though in this treatise Alfred does
not say there was no grammar school. All he says is that there were very few on
this side of the Humber who were able to understand their service in English, or
even to turn a letter from Lalin into English : still a passage in Asser justifies the
statement that there were no grammar schools.



32 THE EARLY HISTORY OF OXFORD.

ever, he seems to enter upon a new and more vigorous course of
action. He begins to consider the authority of ' the authorities ! '
Hitherto he had attacked the Oxonian on Hnes parallel to those on
which the latter had defended his position with regard to the antiquity
of Oxford, namely, by accepting the statements of writers of all periods,
as if they were equally reliable. They were, it is true, the same lines
to which he had adhered in defending his story of Cantaber — indeed,
the only lines appearing to be at all tenable under the circumstances.
On the other hand, too, the Oxonian, during his attack upon them,
scarcely ever ventured to move beyond the lines he had drawn for his
own defence. Now, however, the Cambridge champion, having
arrived at the time of King Alfred, completely changes his tactics.
He has driven his adversary away from his positions, which gave him
Cricklade and Bellositum in British times, by pressing on him the
importance of the reiterated statements of several authors that Alfred
was the first founder of the University of Oxford. He now over-
throws the statements of these very authors, and will not allow that
the University of Oxford can boast of an antiquity even as early as
this.

It will be remembered that the argument in the orator's speech was
that while Cambridge could boast of Cantaber as its founder, and, if
not that, at least King Sigebert (which even its supposed enemies were
said to allow), the University of Oxford could only go back to Alfred,
' whom everybody knows was much later as to date than both Gur-
guntius and Sigebert ^.' Now, however, the credit of Alfred's foundation
is an object of attack : —

' If in the whole western kingdom there were no schools, where were
those of Oxford ? If in the time of Alfred there were none, how could
Alfred be a founder of your school ? how a benefactor ? But if he was
not the founder, where is the invention of your Higden, and where
that of Higden's mimic your Historia Regia^ and of all those who
follow in the wake about Alfred being the founder of the Oxford
School, of the variety of the Arts taught, and the number of the privi-
leges? For they write that Alfred established the University of Oxford,
and rendered the city famous by his many privileges granted to it,
which are certainly nothing else but mere figments, composed for the
sake of glorifying the University of Oxford, or else glorifying Neot, as
we shall presently show. For Asser, the Chaplain of Alfred, Capgrave,
and Osbern in the life of S. Neot, Henry of Huntingdon and William
of Malmesbury, in the acts of King Alfred make mention of the Eng-

• See the orator's speech, ante, p. 25 (Heame, p. 282). Also note Caius' argu-
ment, ante, p. 30 (Heame, p. 192), though previously he had already hinted at this
line of argument ; ante, p. 28 (Hearne, p. no).



THE MYTHICAL ORIGIN OF OXFORD. 33

lish school at Rome (which Ina erected, and Ethelwulf, Alfred's father,

restored) and how it was endowed with Pontifical privileges at the

request of Alfred, but say nothing of the Oxford school founded by

Alfred or furnished with Charters ^.'

Then, referring to the historical improbabilities of Alfred founding a

school in Mercia at that time, and a chronological difficulty in reference

to Neot's death, he concludes with : —

* Wherefore I think it is through an error of the Scribes that they

speak of Schola Oxoniensis when they should say Romana. Otherwise

Asser who was one of the familiar friends of, and attendants upon,

Alfred, and to whom everything of his life and actions were known,

would most certainly have recorded this as something most worthy of

memorial '-.'

It would almost appear that, having come nearly to the end of his

book, his work had taught him the right way of proceeding, for he

devotes two or three pages to a disquisition on the relative credit to be

given to statements made by the older and the newer authors, and

amongst other observations makes the following : —

' For those more recent writers who seem to hand down blunders

as it were hand from hand, and sometimes add a blunder or so of their

own as well, just so far as they deviate much from historic fidelity so far

they corrupt much which the older historians set forth truthfully ^.'

He then proceeds * to give some examples of his theory. They are

certainly not well chosen, but they show that he has more than a

glimmer of the truth respecting historical data becoming more and

more impure as they descend further from the source. When one

reads these later pages of his second book, one cannot but ask, ' if

only he had applied those principles in the slightest degree to the two

hundred and fifty pages of his first book, where would two hundred

and forty of them have been ? '

It is only right, perhaps, after exhibiting the defence of and attack
upon the antiquity of the Oxford University, to say a few words about
the discussions as regards the antiquity of the Cambridge University.
Besides being only fair, it will be useful, as the growth of the myths
appear to have gone on very much pari passu — the one series explains
and illustrates the other; and lastly, because the rivalry between the
two Universities, which in its earliest stages had not the benefit of the
printing-press to chronicle the disputes, has been, there can be little
doubt, an important factor in the propagation of the myths which
have surrounded the early history of the two foundations.

^ De AntiqtUtate. Hearne's ed., p. 202. " Ibid. p. 204.

^ Ibid. p. 206. â– " Ibid. p. 207.



34 THE EARLY HISTORY OF OXFORD.

The outline of the story of Cantaber in one of its stages, and
perhaps the earliest, has already been given from the pages of Rous,
and to this stage an approximate date may be assigned of a.d. 1490.
It rests practically upon the same ground, and may be correlated with
the particular stage of the story of Mempric, as detailed by the same
chronicler. It is mainly a combination of stories which have grown
up around guesses either of an historical or etymological nature.
Rous, as already said, may well have seen the Oxford Hisloriola as
we now have it, when he compiled his Oxford story, and worked it
into his chronicle ; but if he had seen the Cambridge Historiola when
he wrote his ' His tor ia reguvi Angh'ae,' he certainly did not think it
necessary to insert much from it, and his own story in some particulars
differs widely from it. He adopts the theory that a person named
Cantaber was founder of Cambridge, and he includes the story of his
founding a siudium there, but goes no further. This Cambridge
Historiola, which is much longer than its Oxford representative, seems
to be also in a higher stage of development. It has been the subject
of much criticism, but there seems to be a very general agreement in
ascribing it in substance to Nicholas Cantelupe ^, who was a Welshman
but was Prior of the Carmelite Monastery in Northampton, where he
died in 1 44 1. It appears, however, that the official copy now relied
on as the chief authority was not transcribed into the Black Book till
about 1509, when Dr. Buckenham was Vice-Chancellor, and in it may
possibly have been inserted a good deal more than was in the original
copy by Cantelupe. It is far too long to print here entire, but
Leland's summary of it, which excited the wrath of the Cambridge
champion, may not be out of place : —

' There exists at Granta Girviorum in the archives an Historiola of
an uncertain credit. Herein it appears that Gurguntius, some unknown
British King, gave to a Spanish Cantaber who had studied at Athens,
the eastern part of Britain, and that he afterwards built a city on the
river Cante, and estabhshed a University there, which took its name
from his son the Earl Grantanus. The same informs us that Anaxi-
mander and Anaxagoras, Greek Philosophers, came to Granta for the
sake of study. There are there besides a hundred fables of the same
grain. Truly I never read anything more empty, more foolish, or more
stupid V

^ The treatise, as it now appears in the Cambridge Book, is printed by Heame
at the end of his edition of Sprotti Clironicon, Oxonii, 1719.

^ This is quoted from Leland's notes at the end of the Cygnea Cantio under the
v^ord ' Granta/ printed in the ninth volume of Leland's Itinerary m Heame's edition ^P
of that work, p. 64. The Cygnea Cantio was first printed in 4to, London, 1544.
It is also quoted as above by the Oxford champion, Assertio, Hearne's ed,, p. 290.



I



THE MYTHICAL ORIGIN OF OXFORD. 35

One characteristic passage, however, out of the Cambridge Historia
must be added to Leland's summary : —

* On this city King Cassibelaunus, Avhen he had obtained rule over the
kingdom, bestowed great pre-eminence. . . . And on this account, and
because of the richness of the soil, the purity of the air, the abundance
of learning, and the royal clemency, there gathered thither young
men and old from the different regions of the earth, some of whom
Julius Caesar after he had gained a victory over Cassibelaunus took with
him to Rome, where afterwards they became famous for their Rhetoric \
It will also be well, perhaps, to give a version of the story as it
appears in the pages of Polydore Virgil, the first edition of whose
Hisloria Anglica was published in 1534, and therefore almost con-
temporary with the Cygnea Ca^itio of Leland, especially as it is (in
part) quoted by the Oxford champion : —

' If we believe the fabrications {commentis) of an unknown author,
the origin of the city is older than the University 2, For they say that
there was formerly a city by name Cbergrantium (sic) at the foot of a
neighbouring hill which they call Fuyt-hill, and that while Gurguntius,
the son of Bellinus was king, a certain Bartholomew, a man of Can-
tabria (Bartholomeum quemdam hominem Cantabrum) came there for
the sake of teaching, and married Chembrigia daughter of the king, and
that he built a city called after the name of his wife Cantabrigiam, and
in that first taught. I now however return to history ^.'

It will be seen here how the etymological element predominates.
Not content with making Cantabrigia come from Cantaber, who must
have a local habitation as well as name, we have the river Cante, and the
earl Grantaniis ; and Polydore Virgil caps the whole, as if almost he was
indulging in sarcasm, by introducing Chembrigia. No doubt, how-
ever, it was a Cambridge story like the rest, first told as a guess, and
then passed on as a fact, and then told as history, leaving the
historians to find a place and a date for the lady. It illustrates the
Greeklade of the Oxford story, and all that followed from it.

The other myth relating to the foundation of the Cambridge
University, which is laid stress upon in the controversy, is an
interesting one as far as it shows at what shadows the writers were

' Quoted from the Cambridge Historia as printed in Sprotti Chronicon, ed.
Heame, p. 265. It is so characteristic a passage that it is given in the Appendix
A, §15.

^ It must be remembered that Polydore Virgil elsewhere ascribes the University
to King Sigebert in the seventh century.

^ Polydori Virgilii Historia Ajigiica, lib. v. First ed., Basil, 1534. Douay ed.,
i2mo, 1603, p. 296. Quoted by the Oxford champion, Hearne, p. 285, and
accurately so. He however prints Whit-hill for Vuyt-hill. Polydore Virgil
died in 1555.

D 2



36 THE EARLY HISTORY OF OXFORD.

ready to grasp, so as to gain a point in their favour. It is the story of
FeHx, Bishop of the East Angles, founding the University of Cambridge,
and it rests wholly upon a single passage in Beda's Ecclesiastical
History, which runs as follows : —

'At this time [i. e. a.d. 636] ^ Sigbert ruled over the kingdom of the
East Angles .... a good and religious man, who some time before,
had been baptized in Gaul whilst he was living there in exile; and
returning home, as soon as he came to the throne, being desirous to
imitate those things which he had seen to be well ordered in Gaul, set
up a school in which youths might be instructed in letters ; and this
with the assistance of Bishop Felix, whom he had received from Kent,
and who furnished them with teachers and masters after the manner
of the Kentish men ^.'
Naturally this brief passage has given rise to much conjecture, both
as to what schools in Kent are referred to, and where the school was
established in East Anglia. Taking into account the surrounding
circumstances, it is clear that the object which Sigbert had, and which
Bede, in recounting this circumstance evidently wished to show he
had, was to supply education for a native clergy, and not to be
dependent on priests from Gaul or Italy. That such a school had
already been established at Canterbury was certainly Bede's belief, and
he may well have held it from the facts supplied to him by Nothelm,
and which he duly records, namely, that when the see of Canterbury was
vacant in 628, the reigning Pope appointed as a successor in the see
Honorius from the school at Rome, but that in 644 Ithamar, a Kentish
man, was ^ appointed to the see of Rochester. He was the first native
Bishop, and as there is no reason whatever to suppose he had journeyed
to Rome to be educated, it would appear that between the dates above
named a native school had sprung up for the education of priests.
Bishop Felix in 636, seeing the advantage of providing a native
clergy, and so the necessity of supplying means for their education,
naturally followed the Canterbury plan, and as his seat was at Domnoc
it is only reasonable to suppose that Bishop Felix established his
school, where now in all probability the waves of the sea wash, that
is, if the old Domnoc is correctly assigned to the effaced Dunwich.
But in the desire to enhance the glories of Cambridge, it was sug-
gested that the school must have been at Cambridge, and therefore

^ The date is fixed by the entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which under
this year records, ' And Bishop Felix preached the faith of Christ to the East
Angles.' Nothing is here recorded about founding any school, so that all the story
rests wholly and absolutely upon the authority of Beda.

â– â– ' Beda, bk. iii. cap. 18. The original runs: 'instituit scholam in qua pueri
literis erudirentur.' ^ Ibid. bk. iii. 14.



THE MYTHICAL ORIGIN OF OXFORD. 37

that Cambridge could date back to the time of King Sigbcrt. This
story, which first finds a phice in the Chronkoii Jomallejise'^, was hold-
ing good in the early part of the sixteenth century, as is gathered
from Leland and Polydore Virgil, but later on its rival, the far more
wonderful story of Cantaber and the Greek philosophers, eclipsed it,
so that, as we have seen, Leland is looked upon by the Cambridge
champion as an enemy rather than a friend, for recording even such a
momentary belief in Sigebert's foundation as the brief extract warrants.

This story of Sigebert runs very much on the same lines as the story
of Alfred. It would seem almost that the same reasoning must have
been applied in both instances ; e.g. We have a University of Cambridge.
We read that King Sigebert founded a school. That school must be
Cambridge University, because Sigebert was king of the East Angles,
and Cambridge is within the territory which once bore that name.
And in the case of Oxford a similar argument would run : We read
that Alfred founded schools ; one of them must have been Oxford, for
Oxford bordered on the kingdom of Wessex.

There are several other arguments brought forward on the Cam-
bridge side equally worthless, for which, however, parallel examples
may be found on the side of Oxford. First of all there is the
circumstance that Beda mentions Cambridge ^ ; but the fact is Gran-
chester only is mentioned, which is two miles away from Cambridge,
nor is it spoken of otherwise than as a small deserted Roman city,
amidst the ruins of which they discovered a coffin, which they used
for burying Queen Ethelfrith^

Then we have as much as can be made out of the very doubtful list
of British cities*, which occur in the pages of Nennius, amongst which
Caer Grauth appears, and this, having become Caer Grant, is sup-
posed to be the Granchester of Beda, and so Cambridge.

Less easy to follow is the supposed connection of King Lucius with
Cambridge, whose name is made to occur, with that of Asclepiodorus
Constantine, Uther Pendragon, and Arthur in a charter granted to
Cambridge by King Cadwallader^ but composed and written in the
fifteenth century. Again, it would appear from certain very doubtful
'Burton Annals,' that Christianity flourished at Cambridge before
King Lucius, for the following is quoted from this source : — ' a.d. 141.
This year were baptized nine of the Doctors and Scholars of Cam-

* Twisden, Decern Scriptores, London, 1652, col. 814. The passage has already
been given, p. 14.

^ De Antiquitate, Heame's ed., p. 127. ' Beda, bk. iv. cap. 19.

* De Antiquitate, Heame's ed., p. 47. ^ Ibid. p. 64.



38 THE EARLY HISTORY OF OXFORD.

bridge.' After some digression, he expresses his opinion {conjicio)
that the missionaries of Pope Eleutherius, i. e. Ehvan and Medwin,
were alumni of the University of Cambridge \ There is much more
of the same kind, but enough has been given.

The most remarkable evidence relied upon is that which is attached
to the documents in the Cambridge Black Book. In that we find a
charter of King Arthur (but written in all the style of the fifteenth
century), in which he grants, liceniia sedis Apostoh'cae, that the Scholars
and Doctors are to have certain liberties, such as King Lucius decreed
when he embraced Christianity, in consequence of the preaching of
the Cambridge Doctors, and which has this date : — ' Datum anno ab
Incarnatione Domini 531, vii. die Aprilis in Civitate London-.' It
should be added that Cantahrigiensis devotes several pages to sustaining
its genuine character, and from the same source he quotes a charter
from Pope Honorius with regard to the privileges of the Chancellor,
' Scriptwn apud sanctum Petrum anno ab incarnatione verbi 624, 21 die
Februarii,' adding gravely that this too was before King Sigebert and
Bishop Felix ^. He then gives a charter from Pope Sergius, Scripta
JRomae in ecclesia Later anensi anno ab Ijicarnatione Verbi 68 g, tertio die
mensis Maii^, with some five or six pages, proving that these charters
are as genuine as that of King Arthur. It would seem, if his state-
ments are to be trusted, that the two latter were used successfully
in a law-suit between the University and the Bishop of Ely in 1430.
If they were forged for the purpose at this date, it would not be
unreasonable to suppose that Nicolas Cantelupe (who died in 1441)
was their author as well as of the charter of Arthur, as there
considerable family resemblance between the series and the rest of
the Cambridge Historia.

Looking back at the controversy as a whole, what strikes one most
is, first, the vast number of authors from which the champions obtain
their evidence ; secondly, the worthless character of by far the greater
portion. It is not as if they were unacquainted with the sources of
our history. Printed editions of the most important and, so to speak,
standard historical authorities, were already accessible, and, as is
shown, they had a wide acquaintance with MSS. preserved in libraries, so
that in judging of the merits of the case, we must not attribute anything

* Dc Antiqiiitate, Hearne's ed., p. 67.

"^ This and the others will be found printed in full from the Cambridge Black
Book, by Heame, at the end of his ' Sprotti Chronicon.' It is quoted by the Cam-
bridge champion in De Antiquitate, Hearne's ed., p. 48.

^ De Antiquitate, Hearne's ed., p. 52. * Ibid. p. 57.



THE MYTHICAL ORIGIN OF OXFORD. 39

to the ignorance on the part of the combatants of the material which
existed for the purpose of the discussion. The fact is that with all the
advantages resulting from later historical research, with the admirable
work which has been carried on for years in the MS. departments of
the British IMuseum and other public libraries in cataloguing and
rendering their treasures accessible ; with the similar work which has
gone on at the Public Record Office, and by the Historical Record Com-
mission, and with the printing also of the long series of historians under
the direction of the IMaster of the Rolls, we have not obtained any further
evidence than they possessed in support of their respective arguments.
No records have been found, simply from the fact that no records exist.

The controversy does not seem to have produced any other works
during Elizabeth's reign. As has been said, the MS, of Thomas
Caius, the Oxford champion, lay unpubHshed. But the case was
taken up in the following reign and in the following century by Bryan
Twyne, i.e. in 1608.

Before, however, reaching this date, an event has to be recorded of
very great importance to the controversy. The result of the contest
seemed to show that the real issue lay with the proof of Alfred
having founded the University of Oxford, The attack upon this was
felt to be the boldest, as well as the most formidable, of any made