Note y — Chapter IX · [a] (continued 3)

The earliest authentic mention of Cambridge as a place of learning, if I mistake not, is in Matthew Paris, who informs us, that in 1209, John having caused three clerks of Oxford to be hanged on suspicion of murder, the whole body of scholars left that city, and emigrated, some to Cambridge, some to Reading, in order to carry on their studies (p. 191, edit. 1684). But it may be conjectured with some probability, that they were led to a town so distant as Cambridge by the previous establishment of academical instruction in that place. The incorporation of Cambridge is in 1231 (15 Hen. III.), so that there is no great difference in the legal antiquity of our two universities.