Thank you for posting this article. I really enjoyed reading this for culture. This is a fresh breeze from all the AI and VC madness taking over the front page recently.

I get 403, not even login redirect if it is paywalled.

Abelard died in 1142, slightly before the founding of the University of Paris. So don’t go there to study with him.

Loved the Oxford dig: "Best for: aspiring power brokers"

I clicked the link hoping for a primary source talking about the different universities of their day, like a journal entry of a Medieval student. I was a little disappointed to see it's just a silly little thing with a peppering of historical revisionism. It's still kinda neat.

I was the same hoping for a well researched article.

* * *

I’m missing my university on the list, Ruperto Carola, established 1386. Best for: aspiring biochemists or South Asia scholars

(Also known as Heidelberg University)

Fair enough, however, not to be confused with Heidelberg University (Tiffin, OH)

If you fancy studying at a medieval University today, I was surprised to find that there is a revival of "classical education" in the medieval mould. E.g.

- https://reginaacademies.org/2020/10/08/the-trivium/

- https://udallas.edu/braniff/academics/ma/classical_education...

It seems to be a strange mix of fetishization of the trivium and quadrivium, conservative Christianity, and perhaps some useful pedagogy along the St John's model.

The Accademia Vivarium Novum in Rome still has its classes in Latin and ancient Greek - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accademia_Vivarium_Novum

That's both awesome and horrifying at the same time!

If trivium the source of the word trivia?

Yes, the Latin root means "three ways", such as an intersection of foot paths where people who met would stop to exchange "trivia".

This is a very biased list to universities that survived to the modern period. There were dozens which didn't and were vastly more important at the time. E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Constantinople

Come on, it’s still a fun little article, not a serious one.

Would be nice if there was some explanation about “best for”…. Or just any content.

This reads like some generated content I would expect to see on some “news” site that likes arbitrary top 10 lists.

Very incomplete - one would expect they would mention most of these:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_universities_...

How fascinating that Schola Medica Salernitana is best for aspiring doctors and surgeons but worst for bookish types.

Contrast that to today, where my friends growing up who went on to become doctors were among the most bookish people I know.

That suggests that the skills needed to be a successful surgeon or doctor back then are way different from the skills needed now.

back then, the best surgeon was the one that could cut off your leg in less than a minuite. the only anesthesia you'd get was some booze or passing out from the pain.