an annual mart of very great if uncertain antiquity, held near the
town during September, Cambridge at an early date became a centre of
commerce, and it had risen to be a fairly large town of some
importance before the Conquest. In the time of Ethelred a royal mint
had been established there, and it appears to have recovered rapidly
after its destruction by Robert Curthose in 1088, for it continued to
be a mint under the Plantagenets, and even as late as Henry VI. money
was coined in the town.

A bridge, as already stated, was built at Cambridge in the ninth
century, but in 870, and again in 1010, the Danes sacked the town, and
it would seem that the bridge was destroyed, for early in the twelfth
century we find a reference to the ferry being definitely fixed at
Cambridge, and that before that time it had been "a vagrant,"
passengers crossing anywhere that seemed most convenient. This fixing
of the ferry, and various favours bestowed by Henry I., resulted in an
immediate growth of prosperity, and the change was recognized by
certain Jews who took up their quarters in the town and were, it is
interesting to hear, of such "civil carriage" that they incurred
little of the spite and hatred so universally prevalent against them
in the Middle Ages. The trade guilds of Cambridge were founded before
the Conquest, and, becoming in course of time possessed of wealth and
influence, some of them were enabled to found a college.

As England settled down under the Norman Kings, the great Abbey of Ely
waxed stronger and wealthier, and in the wide Fen Country there also
grew up the abbeys of Peterborough, Crowland, Thorney, and Ramsey--all
under the Benedictine rules. To the proximity of these great
monasteries was due the beginning of the scholastic element in
Cambridge, and perhaps the immense popularity of Stourbridge Fair,