The ancient universities are British and Irish medieval universities and early modern universities founded before the year 1600. Four of these are located in Scotland, two in England, and one in Ireland. The ancient universities in Britain and Ireland are amongst the oldest extant universities in the world. The ancient universities in Britain are part of twenty-seven culturally significant institutions recognised by the British monarchy as privileged bodies of the United Kingdom.
The University of Oxford in Oxford, England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world
The University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England
The University of St Andrews in St Andrews, Scotland
The University of Glasgow in Glasgow, Scotland
A medieval university was a corporation organized during the Middle Ages for the purposes of higher education. The first Western European institutions generally considered to be universities were established in present-day Italy, including the Kingdoms of Sicily and Naples, and the Kingdoms of England, France, Spain, Portugal, and Scotland between the 11th and 15th centuries for the study of the arts and the higher disciplines of theology, law, and medicine. These universities evolved from much older Christian cathedral schools and monastic schools, and it is difficult to define the exact date when they became true universities, though the lists of studia generalia for higher education in Europe held by the Vatican are a useful guide.
Illustration from a 16th-century manuscript showing a meeting of doctors at the University of Paris
Teaching at Paris, in a late 14th-century Grandes Chroniques de France: the tonsured students sit on the floor
Established in 1224 by Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, University of Naples Federico II in Italy is the world's oldest state-funded university in continuous operation.
This Mob Quad group of buildings in Merton College, Oxford was constructed in three phases and concluded in c. 1378.
