History of Universities

Although the name university is sometimes given to some celebrated schools in Alexandria and Athens, it is generally held that the universities first arose in the Middle Ages. For those that were chartered during the thirteenth century, dates and documents can be accurately given; but the beginnings of the earliest are obscure, hence the legends connected with their origin: University of Oxford was supposed to have been founded by King Alfred, of Paris by Charlemagne, and of Bologna by Theodosius II (A.D. 433).

The earliest universities had no charters; they grew ex consuetudine. Out of these others quickly developed, by migration, or by formal establishment. As the universities in the beginning possessed no buildings like our modern halls and laboratories, it was an easy matter for the students and professors, in case they became dissatisfied in one place, to find accommodations in another...