If one disregards the considerable distances and numerous obstacles and hardships involved in journeys in the Middle Ages, it was in fact relatively easy between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries to attend university and become a student. European universities had no national, social, intellectual, or linguistic requirements for admission. The formal requirements were also relatively few and, in any case, they did not exceed requirements connected with matriculation. There were not even fixed periods for this or for commencing one's studies. Any day of the year was equally suitable. Even requirements for a minimum age did not exist. Minority was a problem only when taking the matriculation oath, not when being accepted at university, as numerous instances in the vast number of sources in university archives indicate.

The only criteria for admission, in addition to the self-evident one of being baptized as a Christian, seem to have been of a moral nature: they were criteria which everybody could, in principle, meet. The criterion of ‘moral conduct’ – which applied also in admission to the clergy, to citizenship, or to membership in a guild of a town – included proof of legitimacy of birth, but in practice this frequently amounted only to an affirmation that one believed oneself to be legitimate. Such affirmation was necessary only if one wished to acquire an academic degree, and, at some universities or arts faculties, it was required only before the conferring of the degree of magister artium.