This work presents a composite view of medieval English university life. The author offers detailed insights into the social and economic conditions of the lives of students, their teaching masters and fellows. The experiences of college benefactors, women and university servants are also examined, demonstrating the vibrancy they brought to university life. The second half of the book is concerned with the complex methods of teaching and learning, the regime of studies taught, the relationship between the universities in Oxford and Cambridge, as well as the relationship between "town" and "gown".

The university is indigenous to Western Europe and is probably the greatest and most enduring achievement of the Middle Ages. Much more than stodgy institutions of learning, medieval universities were exciting arenas of people and ideas. They contributed greatly to the economic vitality of their host cities and served as birthplaces for some of the era's most effective minds, laws and discoveries. This survey traces the growth of the largest medieval universities of Bologna, Paris, and Oxford, along with the universities of Cambridge, Padua, Naples, Montpellier, Toulouse, Orleans, Angers, Prague, Vienna and Glasgow. Covering the years 1179-1499, this work discusses common traits of medieval universities, their major figures, and their roles in medieval life.

Philosophy.

This, the first In the series, is also the first volume on the medieval University as a whole to be published In over a century. It provides a synthesis of the intellectual, social, political and religious life of the early University, and gives serious attention to the development of classroom studies and how they changed with the coming of the Renaissance and the Reformation. Following the first stirrings of the University In the thirteenth century, the evolution of the University is traced from the original Corporation of masters and Scholars through the early development of the colleges. The second half of the book focuses on the century from the 1440s to 1540s, which saw the flowering of the University under Tudor patronage. In the decades preceding the Reformation many colleges were founded, the teaching structures reorganised and the curriculum made more humanistic. The place of Cambridge at the forefront of northern European universities was eventually assured when Henry VIII founded Trinity College In 1546, In the face of changes and difficulties experienced during the course of the Reformation.

The 10 papers in this volume examine university and pre-university education in the 14th to 16th centuries in Germany, Italy, France, and England. Particular attention recruitment, financial support, studying abroad, social status, and careers of graduates.