The Regulation of Undergraduate Academic Dress at Oxford and Cambridge, 1660–1832

Throughout the ‘long’ eighteenth century undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge were differentiated into four principal classes: noblemen; gentlemen commoners (at Cambridge fellow-commoners); scholars (including pensioners at Cambridge); and servitors (sometimes known at Cambridge as sizars and also at Oxford as battelers.) At Oxford there was an additional group, commoners, between scholars and servitors. Each of these classes of undergraduates was entitled to a different form of dress. [Excerpt]