When Was Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Founded?

Updated

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge was founded in 1352. The college's own website states this directly on its welcome page and describes the college as providing "a stimulating academic and residential environment, both on the site of our original foundation" — meaning the present-day college still occupies the location of its 14th-century founding.

What the founding date tells you

A 1352 foundation places Corpus among the older Cambridge colleges, and the college presents that longevity as context for its current role rather than as a standalone historical fact. The same welcome text pairs the founding history with the college's modern academic and residential purpose, so the site frames the college as both historically rooted and currently active.

How the college presents its history alongside its present

  • Continuity of place: The reference to "the site of our original foundation" links the medieval college to the buildings students use today.
  • Present-tense framing: The welcome message leads with what the college offers now — an academic and residential environment — with the 1352 date as background.
  • Ongoing institutional life: Site news shows current activity, such as the Master, Professor Christopher Kelly, admitting seven new Fellows on 7 October (news item dated 12 October).

What the website covers

If you are using the site to learn about the college, the welcome page gives you the founding year, the original-site detail, and a sense of the college's dual identity as a historic foundation and a working academic community. News items add current developments, such as Fellowship appointments.

For deeper historical background — founders, original statutes, or architectural history — the welcome page excerpt does not provide those details, so treat 1352 and the original foundation site as the confirmed facts available here and look to the college's own historical pages for more.