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Michaelhouse is the name of one of the former colleges of the University of Cambridge, that existed between 1324 and 1546 before becoming part of Trinity College.
The University officially began in 1284 with the foundation of Peterhouse, followed 33 years later when Edward II created King's Hall. It was the third college to be formed, in 1324 when Hervey de Stanton , Edward II's Chancellor of the Exchequer, bought the house owned by Roger Buttetourte on the site of what is now the southwest corner of Trinity's Great Court and named it Michaelhouse, after St Michael.
The college enjoyed very modest growth until the sixteenth century when the whole university was thrown into chaos by the crisis that had changed the country. With the country's friaries and monasteries having already been destroyed, in 1544 an act was passed by parliament enabling the king, Henry VIII, to dissolve any institution whatsoever and appropriate its wealth. The Cambridge colleges, understandably, feared for the future of the university, and used their contacts to petition the queen, Katharine Parr, who in turn persuaded Henry not only to spare the colleges, but to found a royal college to reflect his grandeur, and to endow it with vast tracts of land acquired from the dissolution of the monasteries. Thus in 1546 Michaelhouse was merged with King's Hall to form Trinity, that has remained the largest and wealthiest college in the university.
Unlike King's Hall, nothing now remains of the original Michaelhouse buildings, the last being demolished when Great Court was completed in the early seventeenth century, though much of the stone may have been reused in making the current buildings.
Between 1497 and 1505 the Master of the college was John Fisher.
This article draws from 'Trinity College - An Historical Sketch' by GM Trevelyan, among other sources.
