Holders of superior degrees were required from 1613 to subscribe to the Three Articles of Religion; a stipulation which was extended to all holders of inferior degrees from 1616. The practice was suppressed during the Civil War but reinstituted in 1660. In 1856 following increasing opposition to the test, the declaration was changed to one of being a bona fide member of the Church of England. The practice was abolished in both Oxford and Cambridge by the Universities Test Act, 1871.
