ABSTRACT

A series of parallel myths grew up surrounding the origins of Cambridge University. This cumulative mythology pertaining to the English Universities is a striking demonstration of the extent to which inter-university rivalry was prevalent from as early as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The migrations from Paris and from Northampton are best seen as important links in chain of desultory development extending over the whole of the twelfth century. The injection of a contingent of scholars from Paris can only have strengthened the standing of the English Universities, and was particularly opportune for Cambridge, which had so aspired to a place within the international university order. The origins of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have been overlaid with the mythological imaginings of antiquarian scholarship. If the Alfredian legend of the foundation of Oxford University could be discussed in at least pseudo-historical terms, the other mythical accounts of the origins of the University were of a wholly fantastical nature.