Introduction

Summary

The good work of transcribing and translating the royal charters of the town of Cambridge was undertaken some years ago by the late Mr F. C. Wace, M.A., then Mayor of the Borough, and Mr J. E. L. Whitehead, M.A., the Town Clerk. After having been for a while in my hands, it has been brought to completion by Miss Bateson, Associate and Lecturer of Newnham College. Though more than one hand has laboured on this book, I hope that it will not be found unworthy of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society or of the Municipal Corporation which has generously sanctioned and forwarded the publication of these its ancient records.

Cambridge, when it compares itself with other towns, has no reason to be ashamed of its charters. All the kings and queens regnant of England from Henry I to Charles II are represented in the following pages, with the exception of Stephen, Richard I, Edward V, Richard III, and Henry VII, though Edward III and Mary Tudor will appear only in an appendix. The reader will be able to compare a curt writ of Henry I with the artificially contrived cadences that were fashionable in the chancery of Richard II and with the lengthy and wordy, pompous and yet very cautious clauses of the seventeenth century. And beneath all this he may see the growth of an English town.

But to see this he must look somewhat intently. It must be confessed that to a student of institutions the series of charters granted to a borough is apt to be a little disappointing, at least for a moment.