Cambridge

The city of Cambridge in the United Kingdom is home to several churches and academic institutions that are steeped in church history. Today, Dr. Stephen Nichols takes us on a tour of this English city.

Well, welcome back to another episode of 5 Minutes In Church History. For this month of February, in the year 2023, 5 Minutes In Church History will be conducting a world tour. We are going to visit four significant cities this month, and we will begin with the charming and fabled city of Cambridge.

The town takes its name as a bridge over the river Cam, and so Cambridge was a place for clerics and trade from the 800s to the 1200s. The town, of course, is synonymous with its university, and it was founded in 1209. We learned that it was founded by “scholars taking refuge from hostile townsmen in Oxford,” who then migrated to Cambridge and settled there. Well, there is nothing more difficult for a scholar to contend with than hostile townsmen, and whatever the issue was back in Oxford, it sent these particular scholars to Cambridge. As an aside, Cambridge is the third oldest university. The first is Bologna, in Bologna, Italy. The second is the aforementioned Oxford, and then thirdly is Cambridge.

Cambridge University is comprised of various colleges. I want to talk about a few of those colleges that have a fascinating history in their own right. The first is Trinity College. It was founded in 1546 by Henry VIII. Trinity College Chapel, with its stained glass windows, tells the entire story of church history. It begins up in the front with some of the church fathers and then goes through some of the medieval figures, the Reformers, and right into the 17-1800s. If you ever want to teach a church history class in one place, you probably would do no better than to go to Trinity College Chapel and use its windows.

Just outside the chapel is the courtyard. The 400 yard perimeter and top is the clock. The clock that strikes 12:00 and takes 43 seconds to do it, and yes, this is the site of the famous courtyard run, an annual event for the students of Cambridge.

The other college is Emmanuel. It was founded in 1584 as a puritan college. It was founded by Sir Walter Midmany, and when he met with Queen Elizabeth I, she said to him, "I see you erected a Puritan foundation." He replied, "No, madam. I would not go against your established laws. Instead," he said, "I have planted an acorn, which when it becomes an oak, God alone knows what will be the fruit thereof." Well, the fruit thereof was from Emmanuel, Puritanism went out into the lands of Great Britain. But not only Great Britain, 30 Emmanuel College graduates were among the Puritan settlers of New England. Among them was Thomas Shepherd, and John Harvard, who donated his library to a fledgling university there in Puritan New England.

Well, those are two of the fascinating colleges of Cambridge. Let's talk about some of the churches. The oldest is St. Benet, short for St. Benedictine. The tower dates to 1000. The nave is from 1300, and it has pride of place as the oldest church in Cambridge. There's also the Round Church; officially, it is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It follows the Rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. It was built in 1130. It endured bombs in World War II. It was damaged in the British Civil War of the 1640s. Over the centuries, the Round Church has seen a lot. And in the interest of full disclosure, I had the wonderful privilege of preaching in the Round Church back in 2014.

Well, there's also St. Andrews Street Baptist Church. On April 16th, 1721, a group of Christians took over a property that contained a grainery and a stable, and there they erected Saint Andrews Street Baptist Church.

And finally, there is the church that is called the cradle of the British Reformation, St. Edwards Church. It's tucked away in these little alleys, you might not even know it's there. It's a Saxon church that dates to the 1300s. Most of the current structure dates to 1400. In 1525, Robert Barnes may have preached what may be the first Protestant sermon in all of England from its pulpit. Hugh Latimer preached there. Thomas Bilney preached there. Martin Bucer preached there. What a church, St. Edwards Church

Well, that's the fabled city of Cambridge. And I'm Steve Nichols, and thanks for joining us for 5 Minutes in Church History.