University of Cambridge

Early record of Cambridge

When we 1st come across Cambridge in written records, it absolutely was already a substantial town. The bridge across the river cam or Granta, from that the town took its name, had existed since a minimum of 875. The city was a vital trading centre before the Domesday survey was compiled in 1086, by which period a castle stood on the rising ground to the north of the bridge , there are already substantial business and residential properties as well as many churches within the main settlement that lay south of the bridge.
Within the town, or terribly close to it, there were variety of other non secular establishments. There had been canons within the Church of St Giles below the castle before 1112, once they enraptured to a new web site across the Cam at Barnwell, and the Convent of St Radegund had existed since 1135 on the positioning that eventually became Deliverer faculty. there were additionally 2 hospitals, one reserved for lepers at Stourbridge, a second supported for paupers and dedicated to St John, that once 1200 occupied the positioning wherever St John's faculty currently stands. Seventeen miles north of the town was the good Benedictine house of Ely that, after 1109, was the seat of a bishopric.
There was therefore a lot of to bring clerks (clergymen) to the town, however traders were additionally interested in it. once regarding 1100 they may reach Cambridge simply by the stream systems that drained the whole of the East Midlands, and thru Lynn and Ely they had access to the ocean. a lot of wealth accumulated within the town, and the eleven living medieval parish churches and a minimum of one handsome stone house stay as proof of this. there were food markets before 1066, and through the twelfth century the nuns of St Radegund are allowed to line up a good on their own land at Garlic Lane; the canons of Barnwell had a fair in June (later summer solstice Fair), and the leper hospital was granted the correct to carry a fair that developed into the well-known and lasting Stourbridge truthful.

The Medieval University

The student who flocked to Cambridge before long organized their theme of study once the pattern that had become common in italy and France, and that they might have renowned in Oxford. They studied initial what would currently be termed a 'foundation course' in arts - synchronic linguistics, logic and rhetoric - followed later by arithmetic, music, pure mathematics and natural philosophy, resulting in the degrees of bachelor and master. there were no professor, the teaching was conducted by masters WHO had themselves more experinced the course and who had  approved  by the entire body of their college. The teaching took the shape of reading and explaining text, the examinations were oral disputations {in that|during which|within which} the candidates advanced a series of queries or theses which they controversial or argued with opponents slightly senior to themselves, and at last with the masters who had educated them. a number of the masters, but by no suggests that all, went on to advanced study in divinity, canon and civil law, additional seldom, medicine, that were educated and examined in the same method by people who had already pass through the course and become doctor. The doctors sorted themselves into specific schools.

It shortly became necessary, to avoid abuse of the royal privileges bestowed on scholars, to spot and demonstrate the persons to whom degrees had been granted. entry with a commissioned master was the primary step towards this; it was referred to as matric owing to the condition that the scholar's name should air the master's matricula or roll, however later the University itself assumed this duty. it was conjointly fascinating to mark the stage in an exceedingly students progress by a ceremony of admission (graduation) to the various grades, or degrees, of membership. These were bestowed by the complete body of masters, with the Chancellor elbow grease the facility on their behalf, but  deputy the Vice-Chancellor came to do later. The grade of scholar became differentiated by a series of variations on the robe, hood and cap. Reminders of those terms and practices survive these days.

Moves to independence

Most of the students of the University were initially clerks or clergymen,in holy orders of some type, and expecting careers within the Church or within the government officials (as diplomats, judges or officers of the royal household). To support them during their years of study, they hunted for preferment within the Church (a benefice, a canonry, even a dignity in an exceedingly cathedral), however as ordained clerks they were initially subject to the local member of the clergy authorities, which is the archdeacon and therefore the Bishop of Ely. Before the top of the fifteenth century, however, they'd freed themselves from this, and were freelance of all ecclesiastic authority except the Pope's. The Chancellor became AN ecclesiastic decide in his own right, hearing all cases involving the morals or discipline of students, and proving the wills of all United Nations agency died in residence. At regarding an equivalent amount, the Chancellor conjointly provided students with a profane court to which they might resort for the trial of all civil and criminal case except those concerning major crimes.
The Crown accessorial to the University's independence. It introduced measures to shield scholars against exploitation by townsmen United Nations agency had noninheritable  market and toll rights which enabled them to boost the costs of food, fuel and candles. To counter this, the University was granted the correct to proceed at law against market profiteers, and to enforce the conduct of assizes, or tests, of bread and beer by the city.
The acquisition of those powers continued  to be a supply of friction between city and robe (the University) till the nineteenth century. a lot of straightaway, it's thought that the attacks on University property within the city in 1381 were part impressed by hostility of this interference.