Elizabethan Oxford : reprints of rare tracts / edited by Charles Plummer.

Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Elizabethan Oxford : reprints of rare tracts / edited by Charles Plummer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    73/356 (page 37)
    ^ANTIQUITIES OF OXFORD. Pag. Sir, Your two Questions, the one concerning the Antiquity of Oxford, the other concerning the proofe of that Antiquity by some old Records, Monuments, Buildings or signes of Buildings, &c. did, att the first, trouble me very much. For by the Antiquity of Oxford, though I knew well you meant and intended the Antiquity of the University, yet I saw I could make noe just accompt thereof, except I first could find out the Antiquity of the Citty, noe more then it were possible to find out a Jewell, before a man could know where soile or seate to find the ^ scale and place wherein it lay. Soe then this your first Question is indeed become two, the first concerning the place, the second concerning the quality and employment of the place. The Question of the place is easily answeared out of our Chronicles. For they report, that the first building of this Citty was in the tyme of the auntient Brittaines Dominions and Government, and that the founder thereof was the Brittaine King Mempricius, who reigned about the yeare of the world. 1009. hee beeing the fift King after Brutus. Pag. After which Mempricius, saith John Rossus Warwicens. nihil boni commemoratur^ nisi quod probum filium & heredem gene- ravit^ nomine Ebrancum^ & unam nobilem urbem condidit^ quam a nomine suo Caer-Mempric nominavit. Noe other good is remembred, then that hee was Father to a vertuous Sonne and heire called Ebran, and builded a noble Citty, which after his owne name hee called Caer-Mempric. John ^ The number of Pages answering the MS. is placed in the Margin. ^ Sic.