Oxford vs Cambridge

Medieval universities and an unlikely friendship | Podcast | History Extra

Hannah Skoda: They think about themselves in sort of special ways as well.

There's a recent article by Ad Putter, who's a medievalist at the University of Bristol. About the origins of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Not in real terms but in terms of what scholars were saying about their origins in the 15th century.

And he unearths a text by Nicholas Cantaloupe (?), a scholar from Cambridge, who claimed that Cambridge had been founded by King Arthur and was therefore older than Oxford.

And Oxford responded by saying that: no, Oxford was older than King Arthur because they were founded by a group of Greek masters who were studying at Cricklade, near Oxford, and then gradually migrated towards Oxford. So their roots are actually Greek.

And then Cantaloupe (?) responded by saying, well Cambridge, in Latin, sounds a bit like Cantabria, meaning Spain. So Cambridge was actually founded by a group of Spanish scholars who predated those guys from Cricklade.