Crossing the fens to Cambridge’s ancient courts, our series crowns the 1st Cambridge Company, trailblazers of the Pentateuch—Genesis redux through Deuteronomy, the Torah’s thunderous charter. These 9 men, a balanced Anglican ensemble with reformist glints, huddled in Trinity and Christ’s Colleges amid marsh mists, their Hebraic hammers forging Mosaic law anew. Every commandment and covenant crystallized via 14 exacting reviews, a foundation unshakable as Sinai granite.

The Fenland Forgers: Scrolls of Cambridge Gold

**Joseph Meade **, Fellow of Christ’s College , scholarly nephew of William Perkins; diaries brim with translation notes.

**Roger Fenton **, Rector St. Stephen Wallbrook , Donne’s mentor; A Treatise of the Right Way echoes Exodus freedom.

**Michael Rabbet **, BA 1598, MA 1601 Christ’s, Hebrew devotee.

**Thomas Sanderson **, quadruple marvel Prebendary Lincoln , Levitical precision.

**John Richardson **, Fellow Queens’ College , covenant clinician.

**John Wilkinson **, BA 1598 St. John’s, MA 1601, Numbers navigator.

**Robert Ward **, BA 1597 Emmanuel, MA 1600, tabernacle textmaster.

**William Covarie **, BA 1593 Trinity, MA 1596, Deuteronomic dynamo.

**Anthony Burgesse **, BA 1596 St. Catharine’s, MA 1599, ritual rigorist .

Anecdotes Amid the Fens: Manna in the Marshes

Meade’s journals whisper late-night Genesis vigils, plague bells tolling. Fenton preached pilgrim sermons, Exodus liberation afire. Sanderson, ever-overlapped, shuttled south like Aaron’s rod. Rabbet decoded Urim-Thummim arcana; the crew braved 1608 agues, Deuteronomy’s wilderness their mirror. Yarn: Covarie, poring over manna math , fasted in solidarity—hunger sharpening Hebrew.

Legacy: Mosaic Pillars for the Ages

Their Pentateuch undergirds law, liberty, liturgy—from Pilgrims’ Mayflower Compact to pulpit thunder. Reviewed 14 times, immutable as “Thou shalt.”

Next: 2nd Cambridge – Epistles’ Architects. Finale looms. Soli Deo Gloria.