The ancient universities are a set of seven British and Irish medieval universities and early modern universities that were founded before 1600 AD, and are located in Scotland, England, and Ireland. The seven universities are:

These ancient universities in Great Britain and Ireland are amongst the oldest extant universities in the world. The ancient universities in Britain are also among twenty-seven institutions recognised by the British monarchy as privileged bodies of the United Kingdom.

The surviving ancient universities in England, Scotland and Ireland are, in order of formation:

In the middle ages, universities followed the canonical hours of the church. As the masters in the arts faculty would often also be students in one of the higher faculties, universities used these canonical hours to define periods when the compulsory lectures in the different facilities were given in order to prevent timetable clashes. At Cambridge, for example, only the canon lawyers could lecture between prime (dawn) and nones (mid afternoon). In the morning, there were lectures offered by regent masters on standard texts that they wanted to lecture. Then in the afternoon there would be advanced bachelors that would give lectures that reviews the material learned that morning. Also in the afternoon, the junior masters would discuss about other books of mathematical science or natural philosophy.

These universities are often governed in a quite different fashion to more recent foundations. The ancient universities of Scotland also share several distinctive features and are governed by arrangements laid down by the Universities (Scotland) Acts. In addition to these universities, some now-defunct institutions were founded during this period, including the University of Northampton (1261–1265), University of Stamford, Lincolnshire (1333–1335), and the University of Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire (1592–1605). There was also the medieval University of Dublin which was an early but largely unsuccessful attempt to establish a university in Dublin, the capital city of the Lordship of Ireland. Founded in 1320, it maintained an intermittent existence for the next two centuries, but it never flourished, and disappeared for good at the Reformation in Ireland (1534–41). It was located in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. It had no connection with the present University of Dublin, better known as Trinity College Dublin (its sole college), which was founded in 1592.

The ancient universities are distinctive in awarding the Magister Artium/Master of Arts (MA) as an undergraduate academic degree. This is commonly known as the Oxbridge MA, Trinity MA (Dublin), or the Scottish MA.

The ancient universities in Scotland confer the MA degree at graduation with honours and a final mark; in contrast, the ancient universities in England and Ireland award the MA purely after a period of good standing following graduation as Bachelor of Arts, usually around three years.

Because they award the MA as an undergraduate Arts degree, the ancient universities award differing titles for their postgraduate master's degrees in the Arts and Humanities, such as the taught Master of Letters ("MLitt (T)"). Some confusion can arise as to whether such degrees are taught degrees or the most established (and advanced) two-year research degrees, although this is often specified.