would have to resign his Fellowship and he would lose the opportunity to make a name for himself by teaching philosophy – and perhaps even to be the Master of the College himself one day.’
‘God forbid!’ muttered Michael under his breath. ‘And the name he would make for himself by teaching philosophy would not be one I would repeat in a church!’
‘Why should I resign?’ asked Langelee, startled. ‘Why can I not marry Julianna and keep my Fellowship as well?’
‘It is against the rules,’ said Kenyngham. ‘No Fellows are allowed to marry. But the choice is yours: marry and have a happy and fulfilled life with children and a wife who loves you, or stay at Michaelhouse and take part in the shaping of young minds or perhaps tread in the footsteps of others before you and become an emissary to the King or the Pope.’
‘Really?’ asked Langelee, intrigued. ‘Scholars from Michaelhouse have become emissaries to popes and kings?’
‘Not very many,’ said Michael quickly. ‘And the opportunities are few and far between, and very competitive.’
‘We would have such fun,’ whispered Julianna, leaning against him seductively. ‘We could set up business together and become rich beyond our wildest dreams.’
Langelee was silent, thinking. All Bartholomew could hear in the dark church was the splattering of sleet against the window shutters and the sound of Langelee’s heavy breathing as he pondered his dilemma.
‘Well,’ said the philosopher eventually. ‘Now, let me see …’
Historical Note
Before the drainage of parts of East Anglia in the seventeenth century, the Fens were an area of wilderness, a myriad of channels, ditches and lakes winding round innumerable small islands that were heavily wooded with tangles of willow and alder. Routes through the marshes were treacherous, and most were known only to the Fenlanders who lived there. For boats, there were winding reed- and sedge-choked waterways, and for horses and pedestrians there were unstable causeways comprising paths that led from one islet to another. The Fens saw England’s only serious rebellion against the Norman Conquest: Hereward the Wake used his knowledge of the area to lead William’s troops a merry dance until a proper causeway was built between Cambridge and Ely.
Smuggling was not uncommon in medieval England, and there was a brisk trade between there and France in the fourteenth century, despite the fact that for most of Edward III’s reign the two countries were officially at war. The Fens were almost impossible to police and were widely acknowledged as an area where contraband could be hidden and then transported to the surrounding towns and villages.
The Black Death evinced many social and economic changes. There was an increase in the popularity of shrines containing the relics of saints. It also influenced the course of the Hundred Years War, with hostilities virtually ceasing between France and England until they received a new lease of life when the Black Prince arrived in Languedoc in 1355, and spent two months happily slaughtering whoever he could catch (unless they were likely to be worth a ransom) and burning crops and villages. Skirmishing, however, continued in Brittany right through the 1350s, and there is some evidence that the King was well aware that his soldiers were ransacking religious houses, but was inclined to turn a blind eye. The chronicler Edward Walsingham recorded that, even in 1348, the country was flooded with French plunder, some of it from the religious houses of Brittany.
Michaelhouse was founded as a College at the University of Cambridge in 1324, and continued as such until it was merged with King’s Hall, Physwick Hostel and several smaller institutions to form Trinity College in 1546. Thomas Kenyngham was Michaelhouse’s Master in the early 1350s, and other members of the Fellowship at this time included John Runham and Ralph de Langelee.
The Hall of Valence Marie was founded in 1347 by Mary de Pol, the Countess of Pembroke. She called her new institution the Hall of Valence Marie, although it was called Pembroke Hall until the 1830s, when it became known as Pembroke College. The Countess of Pembroke was born in about 1304 and married the heroic Aymer de Valence, although she was a widow by the time she was twenty years old. Aymer’s death left her immensely rich and she was able to found the College, as well as endow a community of Franciscan nuns – Poor Clares – at the little convent at Denny to the north of Cambridge. Robert de Thorpe and Thomas Bingham were its first two Masters.
Gonville Hall, otherwise known as the Hall of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, was founded by Edmund Gonville by a licence from the Crown in 1348, and on 4 June 1349 John Colton of Terrington was appointed as its first Master. Another College, founded just three years later, was Corpus Christi, but it was unusual in that it was established by donations from two of the town’s guilds – the Guild of St Mary and the Guild of Corpus Christi. Because of its proximity to St Bene’t’s Church, it was often called St Bene’t’s College.
Richard de Wetherset was Chancellor of the University from 1349 to 1351, Richard Harling took over in 1352 and William Tynkell held the office from 1352 to 1359. Although de Wetherset returned for another term of office in the 1360s, Richard Harling disappears from the records.
In the town, John Cheney, Constantine Mortimer and Thomas Deschalers were all merchants who were also burgesses in fourteenth-century Cambridge. The Deschalerses were a powerful family in East Anglia, although their fortunes had begun to wane by the 1350s. The Tulyets or Tuillets were also a powerful family. A Richard Tulyet was mayor from 1337 to 1340, and also in 1345 and 1346. He was also a bailiff, and was among a group of townsmen accused of instigating riots against the University in 1322.
Fragments of the Cambridge of the fourteenth century can still be seen. Some stone coursing in a building on the southern side of Trinity Great Court shows where one of Michaelhouse’s buildings stood, while the name ‘King’s Hostel’ and a lovely range of gothic arches to the north of the Great Court are remnants of King’s Hall, along with the splendid gatehouse that was moved from its original location after Trinity College was founded. Meanwhile, nine miles to the north, the lovely, tranquil ruins of Denny Abbey are in the care of English Heritage and can be visited from April to September. The abbey has been subject to so many building phases that it is difficult to interpret, but the great pillars of the Clares’ church and fragments of the Countess of Pembroke’s sumptuous apartments can still be seen.
Finally, King Edward II was murdered in Berkeley Castle in 1327, and was succeeded by his fourteen-year- old son, Edward III. It was no secret that Queen Isabella was complicit in her husband’s death, and when Edward III was old enough to dispense with her services as Regent in 1331, she retired from his court to Castle Rising in Norfolk. She spent the rest of her life enjoying the pleasures of the country – hawking, hunting and travelling around her estates – and giving generous gifts to a nearby community of Franciscan nuns. She died in 1358, having entered the Order of Poor Clares.
