Historiae Cantebrigiensis Academiae ab urbe condita, liber primus [-secundus]

Chancellor. And thus we have established the beginnings and the state of the city; we have indicated its site, its founder, and its name. Now we shall say how it grew.

On the growth of the Academy.

It grew, however, through the magnificence and liberality of Grantinus the Earl, son of Cantaber, a man of great power, who added walls to his father's city, as some believe, and built a bridge over the Canta, just as Hipparchus did for the Athenian Academy. For as Nicholaus Cantelupus writes, not only was Cambridge built by the father Cantaber, but it was also first surrounded with walls by the son Grantinus, as King Cadwalladrus also states in his diploma (of which more later) issued to the Academy.

Guthelinus. Beda.

It grew also by the benefit of King Guthelinus, son of Gurguntius, a most learned prince in Greek and Latin by the testimony of Beda, who increased and organized it with buildings and walls. For according to the history of Brutus, he managed the kingdom kindly and modestly for nine years throughout his whole life, as one may know from the anonymous genealogical work on the deeds of the English (the beginning of which is: "Not only are the sacred scriptures to be heard, etc.").

Martia.

He had a wife, a noble woman named Martia, learned in all arts, as is evident from the same genealogy. Among many unheard-of things which she discovered by her own ingenuity, she found the Martian Law, which the Saxons called methenologe a term for Martian law according to this genealogist. This same woman, wise and beautiful beyond others, ennobled the Cambridge Academy.

Cambridge the royal seat of Guthelinus.

For at the urging of the philosophers, so that Cambridge, the royal seat of Guthelinus, would not be abandoned after her husband was dead, she constantly graced and adorned it with her presence. In it, she gave to the British people the law named after her, the Martian Law, full of equity and justice. For the woman, skilled in many things, took up the care and government of the kingdom because Sicilius, her only son, was not yet mature enough for the empire by reason of his age.

Academy

There had been citizens and athletes at Cambridge

Humanity, then dignity. Among these the author...