First published in 1988, this book traces the complex evolution of Oxford and Cambridge from the twelfth through the early sixteenth centuries. In the process, the author incorporates new research on Cambridge University that has become available only recently.

Alan B. Cobban is able to give an overall view of the functioning of the English universities, touching on the development of the academic hierarchy, the various features of the curriculum and the teaching offered by these institutions. The author also addresses the social and economic circumstances of students and the relations between the universities and their respective town and ecclesiastical authorities. Cobban draws on much recent work to supply new details and altered perspectives in this single-volume reappraisal of the history of these two distinguished educational institutions.