Around the year 199, one Niklaus Biltkratser, an intinerant artist who had found shelter in the wine cellar of King's College, Komdn, began a series of scratchboard renderings of the Komdn colleges to sell on the street to visitors to the city. Their strange, formal yet ethereal, quality made them great favorites with the public, and before too many years penny reproductions of Biltkratser's little pictures had been widely distributed and indissolubly associated with the name of the university. When the artist died in 221, having been able to support himself comfortably during the later years of his life from the proceeds of his college pictures, he willed the originals and the copyright to the Syndics of the University Press, who have been gracious enough to allow their reproduction here.

Erected more than five hundred years ago by Archbishop Elestan, the south range of the Commons Quad fronts along Miller Street. At the extreme right is the Gate, with the Master's Lodge above, permitting him constant casual observation of the comings and goings of the fellows, undergraduates, and their visitors. In the center is the Hall, with its impressive lantern. The archway to the left leads to a passage under the Senior Common Room and directly into the college Chapel.

The most substantial medieval college, Trinity was founded by the Bishops of Midlburgh five centuries ago to house clerics who would later serve in the region of the new royal capital, which was already becoming a metropolis of sorts. The tower of the Chapel, considered a masterpiece of the Middle Period of Altlandic Gothic, can be seen rising from across the quad in the middle of Biltkratser's rendering of the college's High Street frontage. The top of the lantern on the college Hall can be seen peeping over the roof at the extreme right. The solidity and comfort of this oldest part of Trinity is reflected in its general proportions and especially in the thickness of its engaged buttresses.

The waning of the pure Gothic style is already visible in the original buildings of Duke Martin's College, founded some 450 years ago by Martin the Wise, 13th Duke of Nijmork. The college was never provided with a chapel, but has always used the adjacent parish Church of St. Martin, whose steeple appears in the background at left, for this purpose. The intention of the founder to train up able clerks for the Ducal court is still reflected in the fact the college is today distinguished for the study of politics and public administration.

Perhaps the most impressive secular example of Late Altlandic Gothic, Kings College's Library, which separates its two quads, was originally built and endowed five centuries ago by the munificent King Hijnrik IV to be the library of the University as a whole. Later monarchs, however, wishing to establish a "royal" college par excellence at Komdn, chartered the college now known as Kings, surrounded their library with the buildings, then made it the college's own. Nonetheless, it continued to serve the University at large until the present University Library facing the Cathedral Garth was constructed to replace it two centuries thereafter.

Roughly contemporary with Duke Martin's College, pictured above, the earliest building of Norhem College does not display the weakening of the Gothic influence in so obvious a way. Designed for the foundation of the Bishops of Norhem by an anonymous Birgense architect, the gatehouse range is noted for its absolute symmetry and for the gracefulness of its proportions. In the tower above the gate are the ample apartments of the Rector. In the two ranges perpendicular to this, the central space is taken by the Hall and the Chapel, while the facing range is nearly identical but has the Senior Common Room above the gate. The undergraduates and fellows of the college are still drawn mainly from Norrik and northern Montemar.

For several centuries the Black Monks pursuing higher studies at Komdn were lodged in the monastery attached to the ancient Kristcirc Cathedral. When their numbers grew to the point of overwhelming that community, the two dozen abbots of the north-western monasteries pooled their resources and opened a separate monastic college, St. Benet's. Sparing no expense, they constructed what was then the most magnificent of the Komdn colleges and placed at its center a monastic church larger than the city's old cathdedral. At the extreme right is a doorway which gives onto the Cloister Quad; balancing at left is the eastern end of what was formerly the monks' dormitory, now the college library. Still a monastic foundation, the college now admits laymen.

When, fifty years after the founding St. Benets by the Black Monks, the mendicants felt the need for their own house of study at Komdn, they commissioned Willem of Morvel, who had the master mason who had erected the monastic church at Flores (now the university chapel) to work for them. This massive building containing chapel, hall, and library, separating the two quads and dominating the entire college was soon imitated by the new foundation of the Austin Canons and set a precedent for such structures becoming the central features of in a number of later colleges.

Inspired directly by the building separating the two quads at Greyfriars, the central building at Austin, erected by the canons less than twenty years later, also incorporates chapel, hall, and library into a single symmetical design. Here, however, the former two are set at right angles to one another on the left of the central tower, with the chapel, terminating in two short transcepts, occupying the entire corresponding part of the structure on the right. The central archway, while giving access to both chapel and library, also provides a passageway to the farther quad.

A little more than four hundred years ago, the then Earls of Swonferd became concerned to establish a center of higher learning for the growing number of clerks in their domains. After considering a free-standing foundation within their own territory, they opted instead to endow a college at Komdn, known for two centuries as Earl's Hall, was erected in the Late Gothic style, with the impressive western range with its impressive central gatehouse facing onto Broad Street. The buildings are known within the university for the particularly spacious accomodations they afford undergraduates.

Inspired by the example of the Earl of Swonferd, the Dukes of Estgorth, Riksfildar, Norrik, and the Earl of Klook collaborated in endowing a college for clerks drawn from their domains. Like many colleges of the period, it was designed with two quadrangles, but in this case without the kind of large, dominating structure separating them which had become a popular central feature in the foundations of the period, as for example at Greyfriars and Austin. The central building of New College, rather, contains the apartments of the four "wardens," one for each of the four "nations" which composed the original body of undergraduates. This unique collegiate structure is still maintained, though the four "nations" are now merely four of the sixteen provinces of Altland; each, however, separately funds one quarter of the college's expenses and reserves one eighth of the college's undergraduate places for its own most promising students.

Founded as Sigesburgh College 450 years ago and built in the late Gothic style then prevalent, the college was entrusted by its patrons, the family of the Dukes of Norrik, to the newly-arrived Companions of Jesus some fifty years later, and its name was changed. Although the Companions have since founded their own autonomous universities at Sperança and Midleburgh, Jesus is still considered their premier house of studies, where many of their own members destined for professorships take their degrees.

Famed for its delicate and beautifully proportioned Hall, the north range of Queens formed the crowning touch to a collection of college buildings considered among the finest in Komdn: "A small, gem-like college," reads the official guidebook of the university. Queens is particularly eminent for its cultivation of literature and the fine arts.

The Gatehouse Range of St. Catherines, thought to be by the same anonymous architect as many of the buildings at Queens, is recognized by its distinctive tower, which for the past three hundred years has housed astronomical instruments. Perhaps because of this circumstance, the college has developed the reputation of being the most distinguished in the natural sciences and in mathematics

All Hallows College was the product of a merger of more than a dozen small private halls named for various patron saints and scattered throughout the city. After the merger, the President and Fellows took over the unfinished remains of a royal monastery whose foundation had been successfully opposed by the monks of St. Benets and remodeled them for their purposes. The large central structure of the "screen," which now houses the college's hall and library, was intended as the transcepts of the monastic church. What was built of the nave, out of view directly behind, became the college chapel.