greges."

In another epigram he derides the city itself, calling it contemptuously "Urbicula"; and he suggests, with a humour that to modern ideas savours of irreverence, that this little city of S. Peter's, "Petropolis," unless S. Peter had the keys, would run away through its own gates.

The great development of the last half of the nineteenth century is due to the railway works at New England, and to the Great Northern Line making Peterborough an important railway centre. In 1807 the entire population of the city and hamlets was under 3,500. In 1843 it was just over 5,500, and when the railway was laid it was not much more than 6,000. It has since gone up by leaps and bounds. In 1861 the population exceeded 11,000. By 1911 it had grown by steady increments to 33,578. The private diary of a resident of about 1850 would read like an old world record. The watchman in the Minster Precincts still went his rounds at night and called out the time and the weather; sedan-chairs were in use; the corn-market of the neighbourhood was held in the open street; turnpikes took toll at every road out of the town; a weekly paper had only just been started on a humble scale, being at first little more than a railway time-table with a few items of local news at the back; a couple of rooms more than sufficed for the business of the post office.

In 1874 a charter of incorporation was granted, not without some opposition; it had been, up to that time, the only city in England without a mayor, except Ely and Westminster.

An account of the church which is now the cathedral church of a diocese that was only constituted in 1541, must of necessity trace its history for some centuries before it attained its present dignity, and when it was simply the church of an abbey. Three centuries and a half of cathedral dignity have not made its old name of Minster obsolete; it is indeed the term usually employed.^[2]

The village was first known by the name of Medeshamstede, the homestead in the meadows. There is no evidence that any houses were built at all before the foundation of the monastery. There was probably not a single habitation on the spot before the rising walls of the religious house made dwelling-places for the workmen a necessity. As time went on the requirements of the inmates brought together a population, which for centuries had no interests unconnected with the abbey. The establishment of the monastery is due to the conversion of the royal family to Christianity. It was in the middle of the seventh century when Penda was King of the Mercians, and his children, three sons, Peada, Wulfere, and Ethelred, and two daughters, Kyneburga, and Kyneswitha, became converted to the Christian faith. On succeeding to the throne, Peada the eldest son, founded this monastery of Medeshamstede. The first Abbot, Saxulf, had been in a high position at court; he is described as an earl (comes); and most likely had the practical duty of building and organising the monastery, as he is called by Bede the builder of the place as well as first Abbot (Constructor et abbas). This was in the year 654 or 655 (for the date is given differently by different authorities), and Peada only lived two or three years afterwards. His brothers in turn came to the throne, and both helped to enrich the rising foundation. The elder of the two, however, had lapsed from Christianity, and killed his own two sons in his rage at finding they had become Christians; but afterwards stung with remorse he confessed his offence to S. Chad, who had brought the princes to the knowledge of Christ, and offered to expiate it in any way he was directed. He was bidden to restore the Christian Religion, to repair the ruined churches, and to found new ones. The whole story is told with great particularity by the chronicler, and it was represented in stained glass in the cloisters of the abbey, as described hereafter.

The church thus built must have been of considerable substance, if, as recorded, Peada in the foundation of it "laid such stones as that eight yoke of oxen could scarce draw one of them."[1] It has nevertheless, utterly perished. We read of the continued support bestowed by a succession of princes and nobles, of the increasing dignity of the house, and of the privileges it acquired; but there is nowhere a single line descriptive of the buildings themselves. Gunton does indeed speak of a goodly house for the Abbot constructed by King Peada; but he must have been capable of strange credulity if he imagined, as his words seem to imply, that this very house was in existence in the time of Henry VIII. He writes thus:^[3] "The Royal Founder ... built also an house for the Abbot, which upon the dissolution by Henry the Eighth, became the Bishop's Palace. A building very large and stately, as the present age can testifie; all the rooms of common habitation being built above stairs, and underneath are very fair vaults and goodly cellars for several uses. The great Hall, a magnificent room, had, at the upper end, in the Wall, very high above the ground, three stately Thrones, wherein were placed sitting, the three Royal Founders carved curiously of Wood, painted and guilt, which in the year 1644 were pulled down and broken to pieces."

There is no doubt that this first monastery was utterly destroyed by the Danes about the year 870. The very circumstantial account given in the chronicle of Abbot John, derived from Ingulf, is well known; but as it is entirely without corroboration in any of the historians who mention the destruction of the monastery, recent criticism has not hesitated to pronounce the whole account a mere invention. It is unnecessary, therefore, to give it here. The account "may have some foundation in fact," Professor Freeman admits, "but if so, it is strange to find no mention of it in Orderic."^[4] But the discredit thrown upon the minutely graphic story of Ingulf, does not of course apply to the actual fact, of which there is ample evidence, that the monastery was burnt by the Danes. Matthew of Westminster says:^[5]—"And so the wicked leaders, passing through the district of York, burned the churches, cities, and villages ... and thence advancing they destroyed all the monasteries (coenobia) of monks and nuns situated in the fens, and slew the inmates. The names of these monasteries are, Crowland, Thorney, Ramsey, Hamstede, now called Burgh S. Peter, with the Isle of Ely, and that once very famous house of nuns, wherein the holy Virgin and Queen Etheldreda laudably discharged the office of abbess for many years."

The re-edification of the monastery, henceforth known as Burgh, is due to Bishop Ethelwold, of Winchester, with the approval and support of King Edgar. This was accomplished in 972. We have now reached a point where all can take a practical interest in the subject, because portions of this church are to be seen to this day. The exact site of the Saxon church had always been a matter of