The University of Cambridge (informally Cambridge University, or simply Cambridge) is the second oldest university in England and the fourth oldest in Europe. In post-nominals the university's name is abbreviated as Cantab, a shortened form of Cantabrigiensis (an adjective derived from Cantabrigia, the Latinised form of Cambridge).
The university grew out of an association of scholars in the city of Cambridge that was formed, early records suggest, in 1209 by scholars leaving Oxford after a dispute with townsfolk.[5] The two "ancient universities" have many common features and are often jointly referred to as Oxbridge. In addition to cultural and practical associations as a historic part of British society, the two universities have a long history of rivalry with each other.
Academically, Cambridge has been ranked one of the world's top five universities,[6] the leading university in Europe,[7] and contends with Oxford for first place in UK league tables.[8][9][10] The University's alumni include 87 Nobel Laureates as of 2010[update].[11] The University is a member of the Russell Group of research-led British universities, the Coimbra Group, the League of European Research Universities and the International Alliance of Research Universities.
History
Trinity Lane in the snow, with King's College Chapel (centre) and Clare College Chapel (right).
Roger of Wendover wrote shortly after its foundation that the University of Cambridge could trace its origins to a crime committed in 1209. Although not always a reliable source, the detail given in his contemporaneous writings lends them credence.[citation needed]
Two Oxford scholars were convicted of the murder or manslaughter of a woman and were hanged by the town authorities with the assent of King
John. In protest at the hanging, the University of Oxford went into voluntary suspension, and scholars migrated to a number of other locations, including the pre-existing school at Cambr
idge (Cambridge had been recorded as a “school” rather than as a university when John Grim held the office of Master there in 1201). These exile Oxford scholars (post-graduate researchers by present day terminology) started Cambridge’s life as a university in 1209.
Cambridge’s status was enhanced by a charter in 1231
from King Henry III of England which awarded the ius non trahi extra (a right to discipline its own members) plus some exemption from taxes, and a bull in 1233 from Pope Gregory IX that gave graduates from Cambridge the right to teach everywhere in Christendom.
After Cambridge was described as a studium gener
ale in a letter by Pope Nicholas IV in 1290, and confirmed as such in a bull by Pope John XXII in 1318, it became common for researchers from other European medieval universities to come and visit Cambridge to study or to give lecture courses.[12]
Foundation of the colleges
Cambridge’s colleges were originally an incidental
feature of the system. No college is as old as the university itself. The colleges were endowed fellowships of scholars. There were also institutions without endowments, called hostels. The hostels
were gradually absorbed by the colleges over the centuries, but they have left some indicators of their time, such as the name of Garret Hostel Lane.
Hugh Balsham, Bishop of Ely, founded Peterhous
e in 1284, Cambridge’s first college. Many colleges were founded during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but colleges continued to be established throughout the centuries to modern times, alth
ough there was a gap of 204 years between the founding of Sidney Sussex in 1596 and Downing in 1800. The most recent college established is Robinson, built in the late 1970s. However, Hughes Hall only achieved full university college
status in Apr
il 2007, making it the newest full college.[13]
In medieval times, colleges were founded so tha
t their stu
dents would pray for the souls of the founders. For that reason they were often associated with chapels or abbeys. A change in the colleges’ focus occurred in 1536 with the Dissolution of the Monasteries. King Henry VIII ordered the university to disband its Faculty of Canon Law and to stop teaching “scholastic philosophy”. In respo
nse, colleges changed their curricula away from canon law and towards the classics, the Bible, and mathematics.
As Cambridge moved away from Canon Law so too did it move away from Catholicism. As early as the 1520’s, the continental rumblings of Lutheranism
and what was to become more broadly known as the Protestant Reformation were making their presence felt in the intellectual discourse of the university. Among the intellectuals involved was the theologically influential Thomas Cranmer, la
ter to become Archbishop of Canterbury. As it became convenient to Henry VIII in the 1530’s, the King looked to Cranmer and others (within and without Cambridge) to craft a new religious path that was wholly different from Catholicism yet also different from what Martin Luther had in mind.
Nearly a century later, the university was at the centre of another Christian schism. Many nobles, intellectuals and even common folk saw
the ways of the Church of England as being all too similar to the Catholic Church and moreover that it was used by the crown to usurp the rightful powers of the counties. East Anglia was the centre of what became the Puritan movement and at Cambridge, it was particularly strong at Emmanuel, St. Catherine’s Hall, Sidney Sussex and Christ’s College.[14] They produced
many “non-conformist” graduates who greatly influenced, by social position or pulpit, the approximately 20,000 Puritans who left for New England and especially the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the Great Migration decade of the
1630’s.
Myths, legends a
nd traditions
Main article: University of Cambridge legends
As an institution with such a long history, the University has developed a large number of myths and legends. The vast majority of these are untrue, but have been propagated nonetheless by generations of students and tour guides.
A discontinued tradition is that of the wooden spoon, the ‘prize’ awarded to the student with the lowest passing grade in the final examinations of the Mathematical Tripos. The last of these spoons was awarded in 1909 to Cuthbert Lempriere Holthouse, an oarsman of the Lady Margaret Boat Club of St John’s College. It was over one metre in length and had an oar blade for a handle. It can now be seen outside the Senior
Combination Room of St John's. Since 1909, results were published alphabetically within class rather than score order. This made it harder to ascertain who the winner of the spoon was (unless there was only one person in the third class), and so the practice was abandoned.
Each Christmas Eve, BBC radio and television broadcasts The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols by the Choir of King's College, Cambridg
e. The radio broadcast has been a national Christmas tradition since it was first transmitted in 1928 (though the festival has existed since 1918). The radio broadcast is carried worldwide by the BBC World Service and is also syndicated to hundreds of radio stations in the USA. The first television broadcast of the festival was in 1954.[20][21]
Great Court of King's College.
cambridge.............is the best...
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