The geographical position, in fact, of Cambridge at the head of a waterway directly communicating with the sea is a factor in the history of the town the importance of which cannot be exaggerated. In direct communication with the Continent by means of the river, and on the only, or almost the only, line of traffic between East Anglia and the rest of England, it naturally became the chief distributing centre of the commerce and trade of eastern England, and the seat of a Fair which in a later age boasted itself the largest in Europe. In his "History of the University," Thomas Fuller gives an account of the origin of this Fair, which is perhaps more picturesque than accurate:-- "About this time," he says--that is, about A.D. 1103, in the reign of the first Henry--"Barnwell,[6] that is, Children's Well, a village within the precincts of Cambridge, got both the name thereof and a Fair therein on this occasion. Many little children on Midsummer (or St. John Baptist's) Eve met there in mirth to play and sport together; their company caused the confluence of more and bigger boys to the place: then bigger than they: even their parents themselves came thither to be delighted with the activity of their children. Meat and drink must be had for their refection, which brought some victualling booths to be set up. Pedlers with toys and trifles cannot be supposed long absent, whose packs in short time swelled into tradesmen's stalls of all commodities. Now it is become a great fair, and (as I may term it) one of the townsmen's commencements, wherein they take their degrees of wealth, fraught with all store of wares and nothing (except buyers) wanting therein." This description of Fuller is obviously a rough translation of a passage from the _Liber Memorandorum Ecclesia de Bernewelle_, commonly called the "Barnewell Cartulary," given at page xii. of Mr. J. W. Clark's "Customs of Augustinian Canons," and dated about 1296.