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The Early Days

There has been a continuous tradition of academic study on the site of Magdalene College for more than 550 years. In 1428 Abbot Lytlington of Crowland Abbey near Peterborough was licensed by Letters Patent of King Henry VI to acquire the site, so that a hostel could be established in Cambridge for Benedictine student-monks. Aiming to put themselves at a distance from the temptations of town, the Benedictines were attracted by having their "Monks' Hostel" north of the river. They chose a location which had been inhabited in prehistoric times (an Iron Age settlement of circular houses has been located close by, on the only hill in the area) and by the Romans (under the Fellows' Garden, parts of a paved road, rubbish pits and coins have been found).

The Benedictine monks began fine new buildings early in the 1470s. John de Wisbech, Abbot of Crowland, planned First Court and completed the Chapel . The Benedictines were responsible only for the communal buildings of their monastic colleges, and so individual abbeys were invited to provide their own student chambers here. Four local Benedictine abbeys - Crowland, Ely, Ramsey and Walden - each built a staircase (of two storeys), three of them in the south range. As a result of patronage by the family of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, the name of the institution was changed from Monks' Hostel to Buckingham College (the change is known to have occurred between 1472 and 1483). It was not long before students who were not monks were admitted. Such lay students would have paid rent to the host abbey whose rooms they occupied. The College suffered an early misfortune when the Duke of Buckingham was executed for treason in 1483.

Thomas Cranmer, later Archbishop of Canterbury, was appointed a lecturer at Magdalene in 1515.

Recently, a spectacular collection of medieval coins has been found at the edge of the College site. The 'Magdalene hoard' is now displayed in the Fitzwilliam Museum.