Note 18 — Chapter I · THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

For the vii c. foundation of Ely see chap. vi. p. 311. The see dates from 1107, when the minster became a cathedral. Crowland, in Lincolnshire on the borders of Cambridgeshire, was built over the tomb of Guthlac, a prince and a saint of the house of Mercia, in the vii c. Bury rose after the martyrdom of the East Anglian king Edmund (870) c. 903; it did not become a monastery till 1020. Peterborough was founded by Wulfhere, king of Mercia from 659 to 674: it formed part of the diocese of Lincoln till the xvi c. Ramsey and Thorney were other fen monasteries. Ramsey was on the borders, in Huntingdonshire, but Thorney was in Cambridgeshire. Peterborough and Thorney with Ely and Crowland were sacked by the Danes in 870. All these were ‘black Benedictine’ houses.