To mark Cambridge University's 800th anniversary, David Baddiel investigates the events which led to its foundation and trace its origins to a crime committed in the 13th century.
With the help of Cambridge University archivist Dr Patrick Zutshi, medieval historian Henrietta Leyser and Detective Inspector Ted East, David discovers that the reason for a mass exodus of scholars from Oxford to Cambridge can be traced back to a murder. He walks the very streets where the murder took place and visits Oxford Castle, where some believe those accused of the murder were hanged.
The mythic status of the Oxbridge man at the height of the British Empire continues to persist in depictions of this small, elite world as an ideal of athleticism, intellectualism, tradition, and ritual. In his investigation of the origins of this myth, Paul R. Deslandes explores the everyday life of undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge to examine how they experienced manhood...
