5T6 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
The first of the teachers, Thibaut cTEstampes, Theobaldus Stampensis, moved from St. Stephen's abbey, Caen, and taught in Oxford between 1117 and 1121. He had a school of from sixty to a hundred pupils, and called himself an Oxford master, magister oxenfordice. He was ridiculed by a monk as a " petty clerk " tantillus clericellm, one of those " wandering chaplains, with pointed beards, curled hair, and effeminate dress, who are ashamed of the proper ecclesiastical habit and the tonsure," and was also accused of being " occupied with secular literature."
The University of Cambridge, which first appears clearly in 1209,1 did not gain a position of much rank till the fif teenth century and can show no eminent teacher before that time. The first papal recognition dates from the bull of Gregory IX., 1233, which mentions a chancellor.2
During the Reformation period, Cambridge occupied a posi tion of note and influence equal to Oxford. Fisher, bishop of Rochester, martyred by Henry VIII. and one of the freest patrons of learning, was instrumental in the foundation of two colleges, Christs, 1505, and St. John, 1511. Among its teachers were Erasmus, and later Bucer and Fagius, the Continental Reformers. Tyndale, the translator of the first printed English New Testament, and Thomas Bilney, both of them martyrs, were its scholars. So were the three martyrs, Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, though they were burnt at Oxford. During the Elizabethan period, the university was a stronghold of Puritanism with Cartwright and Travers oc cupying chairs. Cud worth and the Neo-Platonists flourished there. And in recent years its chairs have been filled by such representatives of the historical and exegetical schools
1Mullinger and others find that the priory of Barn well furnished the germ of the university in the early years of the twelfth century. Rashdall, II. 545, denies this origin. Legend ascribed the foundation of the university to a Spanish prince, Cantaber, of uncertain date, or to King Arthur or to the Saxon king Sigebert of the seventh century.
2 Gregory IX. 's bull, addressed to the cancellarius et universitas scholarium Cantabrigiensium, is preserved in the Vatican Archives and printed by Denifle, Universitaten, pp. 370 sq. The university archives were burned by townsmen during riots, 1261 and 1322.
§ 93. OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 577
as Bishop Lightfoot, Westcott, his successor at Durham, Ellicott, bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, and John Anthony Hort.
Oxford and Cambridge differ from the Continental uni versities in giving prominence to undergraduate studies and in the system of colleges and halls, and also in the closer vital relations they sustain to the Church.
In 1149 the Italian, Vacarius, introduced the study of civil law in Oxford, if we are to follow the doubtful testi mony of Gervaise of Canterbury, though it is more probable that he delivered his lectures in the household of the arch bishop of Canterbury, Theobald.1 He wrote, it is said, a digest of laws "sufficient for deciding all legal problems which are wont to be discussed in the schools."
One of the very earliest notices of Oxford as a seat of study is found in a description by Giraldus Cambrensis, the Welsh traveller and historian. About the year 1185 he visited the town and read " before the faculties, doctors, and students" his work on the Topography of Ireland.2 The school was evidently of some importance to attract such a man. Walter Map, archdeacon of Oxford, is called by Giraldus "an Oxford master." The first degree known to have been conferred was given to Edmund Rich, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. From Geraldus it is evident that the masters were grouped in faculties. As early as 1209 and in consequence of the hanging of three students by the mayor, there was a migration of masters and students, said to have been three thousand in number, from which the University of Cambridge had its beginning.3
The University of Oxford was less bound by ecclesiastical
1 For the quotation from Gervaise see Rashdall, II. 336. John of Salis bury puts the teaching in the archbishop's household.
2 Quoted by Rashdall, II. 341.
3 Roger of Wendover, anno 1290, says that Oxford was completely for saken of all masters and students who went, some to Cambridge and some to Reading. These students had lived together with a fourth who killed a woman and then fled. For other cessations see Rashdall, II. 395, etc. For other attempts to form universities at Northampton, Stamford, and Durham (by Cromwell), see Rashdall, II. 396 sqq*