"Record we too with just and faithful pen, That many hooded cænobites there are Who in their private cells have yet a care Of public quiet; unambitious men, Counsellors for the world, of piercing ken; Whose fervent exhortations from afar Move princes to their duty, peace or war; And oft times in the most forbidding den Of solitude, with love of science strong, How patiently the yoke of thought they bear ... By such examples moved to unbought pains The people work like congregated bees; Eager to build the quiet fortresses Where piety, as they believe, obtains From heaven a general blessing; timely rains And sunshine; prosperous enterprise and peace and equity." --WORDSWORTH. Monastic Origins--Continuity of Learning in Early England--The School of York--The Venerable Bede--Alcuin and the Schools of Charles the Great--The Danish Invasions--The Benedictine Revival--The Monkish Chroniclers--The Coming of the Friars--The Franciscan and Dominican Houses at Cambridge--The Franciscan Scholars--Roger Bacon--Bishop Grosseteste--The New Aristotle and the Scientific Spirit--The Scholastic Philosophy--Aquinas--Migration of Scholars from Paris to Cambridge--The term "University"--The Colleges and the Hostels--The Course of Study--Trivium and Quadrivium--The Four Faculties--England a Paradise of Clerks--Parable of the Monk's Pen. In the centuries which preceded the rise of the Universities, the monks had been the great educators of England, and it is to monastic origins that we must first turn to find the beginnings of university and collegiate life at Cambridge.