Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, self-governing corporations of teachers and students coalesced at Bologna (conventionally dated around 1088), Paris and Oxford, formalising the medieval university. They secured charters and legal privileges from popes and rulers, set curricula in law, medicine, theology and the arts, and granted degrees that licensed graduates to teach across Christendom. The word universitas referred to the guild-like community itself. From these models the institution spread to dozens of other towns.
The universities created the enduring university quarter — a privileged, self-governing community of students and scholars — that has shaped the social fabric, economy and physical form of host cities for nearly a thousand years.