Chap. V - Why Oxford comes First. A Problem in Precedence

Summary

A CAMBRIDGE PROFESSOR, addressing an Oxford audience, once wittily remarked that the oldest of all Inter-University Sports was a Lying Match. Oxford claimed that it was founded by Mempricius in the days of Samuel the Prophet, and Cambridge retaliated by dating its origin from the Spanish Cantaber in the days of Gurguntius Brabtruc.

The scarce sources of information on the origin of the two ancient Universities certainly left a wide field for fable and imagination, and heated controversy took place from time to time. Ingulph, Abbot of Croyland in East Anglia in the eleventh century, Secretary to William of Normandy, and Peter of Blois, Archdeacon of Bath in the twelfth century, Secretary to Queen Eleanor, Mother of Richard Coeur de Lion, were long regarded as the leading authorities on this subject, but the writings attributed to them have not been able to stand the test of modern research and are now regarded as spurious.

Notwithstanding much research, however, authentic information still remains scanty. The probability is that both Universities arose towards the end of the twelfth century, a time when many men of scholarly tastes were conscious of their ignorance of developments taking place in theology and canon law. Schools to meet their needs were formed in Cambridge and Oxford and became permanent. The earliest Cambridge students would naturally come from the Fenland Monasteries at Anglesey, Ely, Ramsey and Croyland. The University of Paris, which served as a model for both Oxford and Cambridge, took form in the first half of the twelfth century, Oxford probably between 1150 and 1180, Cambridge certainly before 1209, possibly between 1180 and 1190.