My object in writing the foregoing pages was to trace the development of the study of mathematics at Cambridge from the foundation of the university to the year 1858. Some knowledge of the history, constitution, and organization of the university is however (in my opinion) essential to any who would understand the manner in which mathematics was introduced into the university curriculum and the way in which it developed. To a sketch of these subjects this chapter is accordingly devoted. I have made it somewhat fuller than is absolutely essential for my purpose, in the hope that I may enable the reader to realize the life of a student in former times.

The history of the university is divisible into three tolerably distinct periods. The first commences with its foundation towards the close of the twelfth century, and terminates with the royal injunctions of 1535. This was followed by some thirty or forty years of confusion, but about the end of the sixteenth century the university assumed that form and character which continued with but few material changes to the middle of this century. Most of its members would, I think agree that a fresh departure in its development then began, the outcome of which cannot yet be predicted.

The mediaeval university

Cambridge, like all the early mediaeval universities, arose from a voluntary association of teachers who were exercising their profession in the same place. Of the exact details of its early history we know nothing; but the general outlines are as follows.