At the time of its foundation it took over the buildings and property and many of the duties of an earlier and then a venerable foundation, that of the Hospital of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge. The hospital was dissolved and replaced by the college which inherited its possessions, and the hospital’s cartulary, with a large collection of deeds relating to its lands, remains in the archives of the colleges.
The origin of the old house is obscure, and its earlier history lost, but it seems to have been founded about 1135 by Henry Frost, a burgess of Cambridge.
Lady Margaret Beaufort support for Cambridge began in 1505, when she re-founded God’s House as Christ’s College and it lasted until 1509, when she died.
St. John’s College, which was largely the work of Bishop Fisher, was posthumously created in 1511 in her honor. The college full name is ‘The Master, Fellows and Scholars of the College of St. John the Evangelist on the University of Cambridge'.
History of St. John College, Cambridge
