Note 5 — Chapter I · LEGENDARY ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSITY

The easiest way for those who are not much acquainted with phonetic laws to understand this rather difficult point is to observe the chronology of this place-name. It is thus condensed by Mr. T. D. Atkinson (“Cambridge Described and Illustrated,” p. 4) from Professor Skeat’s “Place-Names of Cambridgeshire,” 29-30:—“The name of the town was Grantebrycge in A.D. 875, and in Doomsday Book it is Grentebrige. About 1142 we first meet with the violent change Cantebrieggescir (for the county), the change from Gr to C being due to the Normans. This form lasted, with slight changes, down to the fifteenth century. Grauntbrigge (also spelt Cauntbrigge in the name of the same person) survived as a surname till 1401. After 1142 the form Cantebrigge is common; it occurs in Chaucer as a word of four syllables, and was Latinised as Cantabrigia in the thirteenth century. Then the former e dropped out; and we come to such forms as Cantbrigge and Cauntbrigge (fourteenth century); then Cānbrigge (1436) and Cawnbrege (1461) with n. Then the b turned the n into m, giving Cambrigge (after 1400) and Caumbrege (1458). The long a, formerly aa in baa, but now ei in vein, was never shortened. The old name of the river, Granta, still survives. Cant occurs in 1372, and le Ee and le Ree in the fifteenth century. In the sixteenth century the river is spoken of as the Canta, now called the Rhee; and later we find both Granta and the Latinised form of Camus. Cam, which appears in Speed’s map of 1610, was suggested by the written form Cam-bridge, and is a product of the sixteenth century, having no connection with the Welsh Cam, or the British Cambos, “crooked.”