PETERBOROUGH, a city and municipal borough of Northamptonshire, England, 76 m. N. from London by the L.N.E. railway; served also by the L.M.S. railway. Pop. (1931) 43,558. It is situated on the river Nene, on the western border of the Fen country.
Peterborough (Burgh, Burgus sancti Petri), in early days named Medehamstede, was a Saxon village before 655 when Saxulf, a monk, founded the monastery on land granted to him for that purpose by Penda, king of Mercia. Its name was altered to Burgh between 992 and loos after Abbot Kenulf had made a wall round the minster, but the town was not a borough until the 12th century. The burgesses received their first charter from "Abbot Robert," probably Robert of Sutton (1262-73). Until the 19th century the dean and chapter, who succeeded the abbot as lords of the manor, appointed a high baliff, and the constables and other borough officers were elected at their court leet, but the borough was incorporated in 1874. Among the privileges claimed by the abbot as early as the 13th century was that of having a prison for felons taken in the soke and borough. In 1576 Bishop Scamble sold the lordship of the hundred of Nassa burgh, coextensive with the soke, to Queen Elizabeth, who gave it to Lord Burghley, and from that time until the 19th century he and his descendants, marquesses of Exeter, had a separate gaol in Peterborough. Weaving and woolcombing were carried on in Peterborough in the 14th century. The city sent two members to parliament for the first time in 1547, but the number was reduced to one in 1885, and in 1918 the representation of the town was merged with that of the county.
The cathedral of St. Peter is the third church that has occupied the site; the first, founded under Penda, king of the Mercians, about 656, was destroyed by the Danes in 870, and the second, founded in King Edgar's reign, was accidentally burnt in 1116. The present building, founded in the following year, was conse crated on Oct. 4, 1237. It embraces eight periods of construction, and in no other building can the transition be better studied through the various grades of Norman to Early English, while the later addition is Perpendicular.
The erection proceeded as usual from east to west, and, while an increase in elaboration is observable in the later parts, the character of the earlier buildings was kept so that no sense of incongruity is produced. A series of uniform Decorated windows were added in the 14th century. The early Norman choir, ter minating in an apse, was founded in 1117 or 11 18 by John de Sais or Sez, and dedicated in I14o or 1143; the aisles of both transepts and the whole of the south transept were built by Martin of Bec, I14o-55; the remaining portions of the transepts and the central tower, of three stories, were completed by William de Waterville, 1155-75; the nave, late Norman, was completed by Abbot Bene dict, 1177-93, who added a painted roof of wood; the western transepts, transitional Norman, were the work of Abbot Andrew, 1193-120o; the western front, actually a portico of three arches, was probably built between 1200 and 125o. The lady chapel, built parallel with the choir, was consecrated in 1290; the bell-tower was erected between 1260 and 1274; the south-west spire, the pinnacles of the flanking tower of the west portal, and the enlarge ment of the windows of the nave and aisles in the beginning of the 14th century; the "new building" or eastern chapel in the Perpendicular style, begun in 1438, was not completed till 1528. In 1541 the church was converted into a cathedral, the abbot being made the first bishop. In 1643 the building was defaced by the soldiers of Cromwell. To obtain materials for repairs the lady chapel was taken down. In the latter part of the i8th century the church was repaved and in 1831 further restoration took place. On account of the insecure state of the central tower in 1883 it was taken down, and reconstructed as it stood except for the four corner turrets added early in the 19th century.