Then in 1209 something happened. We don’t know what, exactly, but there was certainly unrest at Oxford (one source says that there were protests in Oxford about the hanging of a couple of Oxford scholars found guilty of a murder). Whatever the cause, the result was that a number of scholars fled Oxford, to settle in another little town about 70 miles north-east; and so the University of Cambridge was born.

Since then there has been ongoing friendly (and sometimes not-so-friendly) rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge; but rivalry apart, there’s a bond between them too. As the two oldest universities in the country, two of the most prestigious and demanding in the world – jostling for position at the top of the league tables – they are often referred to as a single entity: Oxbridge.

In the eight centuries since their appearance, the two universities have evolved in parallel (each always glancing over its shoulder at the other), developing a collegiate structure that has subsequently been copied by universities across the world. Each university is made up of a number of colleges which look after students’ accommodation and some individual teaching (every college housing students in every subject), with the subject faculties looking after cross-college seminars, lectures, the subject library, and so on. A student would therefore have a home at one of the colleges – living there, eating meals there, having a Director of Studies and a personal tutor based in the college and often one-on-one supervisions; and going to the faculty for lectures attended by students from every college.

The oldest Cambridge college is Peterhouse, which was founded in 1284 by the Bishop of Ely; 30 years later Edward II founded King’s Hall (which eventually merged into what became Trinity College). Colleges have continued to be added to both universities right up to the present day; apart from some more recently founded graduate-only colleges and mature-student-only colleges, the newest are Oxford’s St Catherine’s (founded 1962) and Cambridge’s Robinson (founded 1977).

The monopoly ends

In the early centuries, Oxford and Cambridge were the only universities in the country – if you wanted a university education, that’s where you went. But even since the number of higher education institutions in the UK has increased – there are now hundreds – these two have remained pre-eminent, and have generated among the most distinguished alumnae lists in the world. Members of Trinity College, Cambridge, alone have (as they will not tire of telling you) seen a staggering 31 Nobel Prize winners pass through their doors; as a comparison, consider that to date the whole of France has produced 47. Oxbridge successes have led to considerable self-confidence - some might call it arrogance - among those associated with the universities, a perception that they are the only to universities with real merit. A character in Yes, Prime Minister demonstrates this prejudice when he lists those things he believes worth preserving in British culture, as "The Opera. Radio 3. The countryside. The law. The universities. Both of them."

And so what of Oxbridge today? Well, between them the two universities now have some 35,000 students (two-thirds of them undergraduates), spread over a total of 70 colleges. As you might expect, eight centuries of activity and dramatic history have given these students a mass of peculiar traditions to live with and some extremely unlikely urban myths (So who really did take apart the Mathematical Bridge?). Indeed, as a visitor you might even be mistaken for thinking the students speak an altogether different language, when you hear mentions of battels and sub fusc and tripos and scouts and plodges… And, of course – eight centuries on – there’s still that old rivalry too, which refuses to die out; just watch the annual University Boat Race one spring and you’ll see what we mean…