ABSTRACT
The undergraduate experience in the medieval English universities was intended to be exclusively male. However, it needs to be stressed that, prior to the sixteenth century, the preferential treatment accorded to English noble students was decidedly modest in comparison with that conferred upon noble scholars in many continental universities. In the course of the correspondence the university boasted that it had maintained many sons of noble families, and it gave the impression that it had for long been a natural venue for the education of the nobility. Although many surviving student letters are originals but stereotypes adapted to meet the student's personal concerns, it may be supposed that they would be representative of the main features of undergraduate life. Suffice it to say here that the exuberant aspect of English undergraduate life did not manifest itself in any form of student power.
