The University of
Cambridge(abbreviated as Cantab in post-nominal letters; also known as
Cambridge University) is a collegiate public research university in Cambridge,
England. Founded in 1209, Cambridge is the second oldest university in the
English-speaking world and the world's fourth-oldest surviving university. It
grew out of an association of scholars who left the University of Oxford after
a dispute with the townspeople.The two ancient universities share many common
features and are often jointly referred to as "Oxbridge".
Cambridge is formed from a variety
of institutions which include 31 constituent colleges and over 100 academic
departments organised into six schools.The university occupies buildings
throughout the city, many of which are of historical importance. The colleges
are self-governing institutions founded as integral parts of the university. In
the year ended 31 July 2015, the university had a total income of £1.638
billion, of which £397 million was from research grants and contracts.The
central university and colleges have a combined endowment of around £5.89
billion, the largest of any university outside the United States.Cambridge is a
member of many associations and forms part of the "golden triangle"
of leading English universities and Cambridge University Health Partners, an
academic health science centre. The university is closely linked with the
development of the high-tech business cluster known as "Silicon Fen".
Students' learning involves lectures
and laboratory sessions organised by departments, and supervisions provided by
the colleges. The university operates eight arts, cultural, and scientific
museums, including the Fitzwilliam Museum and a botanic garden. Cambridge's
libraries hold a total of around 15 million books, 8 million of which are in
Cambridge University Library which is a legal deposit library. Cambridge
University Press, a department of the university, is the world's oldest
publishing house and the second-largest university press in the world.Cambridge
is regularly included among the world's best and most reputable universities by
most university rankings.Beside academic studies, student life is centred on
the colleges and numerous pan-university artistic activities, sports clubs and
societies.
Cambridge has many notable alumni,
including several eminent mathematicians, scientists, economists, writers,
philosophers, actors, politicians. Ninety-two Nobel laureates have been
affiliated with it as students, faculty, staff or alumni.Throughout its
history, the university has featured in literature and artistic works by
numerous authors including Geoffrey Chaucer, E. M. Forster and C. P. Snow.
By the late 12th century, the
Cambridge region already had a scholarly and ecclesiastical reputation, due to
monks from the nearby bishopric church of Ely. However, it was an incident at
Oxford which is most likely to have formed the establishment of the university:
two Oxford scholars were hanged by the town authorities for the death of a
woman, without consulting the ecclesiastical authorities, who would normally
take precedence (and pardon the scholars) in such a case, but were at that time
in conflict with the King John. The University of Oxford went into suspension
in protest, and most scholars moved to cities such as Paris, Reading, and
Cambridge. After the University of Oxford reformed several years later, enough
scholars remained in Cambridge to form the nucleus of the new university. In
order to claim precedence, it is common for Cambridge to trace its founding to
the 1231 charter from King Henry III granting it the right to discipline its
own members (ius non-trahi extra) and an exemption from some taxes. (Oxford
would not receive a similar enhancement until 1248.)
A bull in 1233 from Pope Gregory IX
gave graduates from Cambridge the right to teach "everywhere in Christendom".After
Cambridge was described as a studium generale in a letter by Pope Nicholas IV
in 1290,and confirmed as such in a bull byPope John XXII in 1318,it became
common for researchers from other European medieval universities to visit
Cambridge to study or to give lecture courses.
The colleges at the University of
Cambridge 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
Peterhouse, Cambridge's first college, in 1284. Many colleges were founded
during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but colleges continued to be
established throughout the centuries to modern times, although there was a gap
of 204 years between the founding of Sidney Sussex in 1596 and Downing in 1800.
The most recently established college is Robinson, built in the late 1970s.
However, Homerton College only achieved full university college status in March
2010, making it the newest full college (it was previously an "Approved Society"
affiliated with the university).
In medieval times, many colleges
were founded so that their members would pray for the souls of the founders,
and 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 response, colleges changed their
curricula away from canon law, and towards the classics, the Bible, and
mathematics.
Nearly a century later, the
university was at the centre of a Protestant schism. Many nobles, intellectuals
and even commoners saw the ways of the Church of England as being too similar
to the Catholic Church and 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
Catharine's Hall, Sidney Sussex and Christ's College.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 1630s. Oliver Cromwell, Parliamentary commander during the English Civil
War and head of the English Commonwealth (1649–1660), attended Sidney Sussex.