[Sidenote: Charters and Bulls. Charter of Hen. III. A.D. 1231. Bull of John XXII. A.D. 1317.]
These letters patent addressed to the mayor and burgesses of the town by Henry III. in 1231 are the earliest existing document which can be regarded in the light of a university charter.[64] At the same time it appears by no means certain that royal letters had not been addressed earlier to Cambridge in which the
[Illustration: ORIEL WINDOW OF THE HALL, TRINITY GREAT COURT
In the nearer part of the picture is the Master's Lodge, and in the far distance two turrets of King's Chapel stand up against the evening sky.]
academic society there was treated as a moral entity. In the following reign the jury of Cambridge made oath to the effect that "the Chancellor and Masters of the university had appropriated to themselves more ample liberties than were warranted in the charters granted them by the king's predecessors";[65] and in the same way when, at the request of Edward II., John XXII. erects Cambridge into a _studium generale_ in the second year of his pontificate, he reaffirms and confirms the privileges with which his predecessors in the apostolic chair and the English kings had adorned the university: _omnia privilegia et indulta praedicto studio ... a pontificibus et regibus praedictis concessa_.[66] In this instrument he refers to Cambridge university as _studium ab olim ibi ordinatum_, "the university from old time there established." Cambridge and Oxford, however, like the earliest centres of learning in Italy and France--Bologna and Paris--_grew into universities_; papal authorisations follow instead of preceding their institution. In other cases universities were definite creations which make their first appearance with a bull of institution and inauguration attached to them.[67]
Henry III.'s writs in behalf of Cambridge begin in the second and cover the fifty years of his reign. In the 45th and again in the 50th year he repeats and confirms his previous rescripts. The scholastic prosperity of Cambridge dates from this reign as its civil prosperity dates from that of Henry I.; and the traditions that Cambridge was Beauclerk's _alma mater_ and that Henry V. was a student at Oxford probably both derive from the signal favours shown to the two by these monarchs respectively.[68] Cambridge however was greatly reduced in the reign of John, especially about the year 1214 in spite of the recent immigration from Oxford.
