First Published in 1999. 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".

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 university has proved to be one of the most enduring legacies that the Middle Ages has bequeathed to the modern world. This essay examines the concept of the medieval university, deals with the origins and subsequent expansion of the university movement, and analyzes the phenomenon of student power in southern Europe. Parallels are made throughout between medieval and modern universities to give an added perspective to the understanding of these institutions.

Volume 2 Part 1 covers the Italian universities from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries; the universities of Spain and Portugal from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries; the universities of France with detail on the universities of Montpellier, Orleans, Angers, Toulouse and Avignon; the universities of Germany, Bohemia and the Low Countries; the universities of Hungary; and the universities of Scotland. The origins and constitutions, institutional development, and curriculum of each university is analysed. Rashdall's study was one of the first comparative works on the subject. Its scope and breadth has ensured its place as a key work of intellectual history, and an indispensable tool for the study of the educational organisation of the Middle Ages.

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.