FABULOUS HISTORY

Summary

“I humbly conceive the credit of either University is sufficiently established, without the advantage in point of time. There's no need of torturing a text, catching at bare possibilities, and applying almost to romances for belief. They are both of 'em, without contest, the most illustrious seats of learning in Europe; and since they are thus well founded in merit, what occasion is there to strain for antiquity, to have recourse to questionable records, and run as it were into the dark for light and evidence.”

JEREMY COLLIER.

The improbable statements of our older writers respecting the early history of Cambridge having been frequently appealed to in the disputes as to the relative antiquity of Oxford and Cambridge, some notice of these legends seems necessary.

According to some of these statements, Cambridge owes its origin to one Cantaber a Spanish Prince, who being banished from his native country, was hospitably received by Gurguntius King of Britain, who gave him the hand of his daughter Guenolena, and with her the eastern part of Britain. Cantaber built a large city on the river Cante, where he placed and maintained at his own charge, a society of astronomers and philosophers brought from Athens, in which city he had himself been educated.

With respect to the time of Cantaber's foundation there is some difference.