University of Paris (1200): The Royal Charter and the Sorbonne

The University of Paris grew from the cathedral schools of twelfth-century Paris into one of the first and most influential universities in Europe. A royal charter from King Philip II Augustus in 1200 gave its students legal privileges, and further papal grants made the community of masters and students a self-governing corporation. With the foundation of the Sorbonne college in 1257, Paris became the leading centre of theology in medieval Christendom, and its model shaped universities across Europe.

Background: the schools of Paris

In the early twelfth century Paris attracted students from all over Europe to schools attached to the cathedral of Notre-Dame, the abbey of Saint-Victor and the abbey of Sainte-Geneviève on the Left Bank. Famous teachers such as Peter Abelard drew crowds; his story is told in Abelard and Heloise. Peter Lombard, who wrote the Sentences, the standard textbook of theology for centuries, also taught there.

Teaching required a licence granted by the chancellor of Notre-Dame. As numbers grew, the masters began to act together, much like a guild, controlling admission to their ranks. The Latin word universitas simply meant a corporation or association, in this case “the university of masters and students of Paris”.

A similar process was happening in Italy, where the University of Bologna specialised in law and was organised by students rather than masters.

The royal charter of 1200

In 1200 a quarrel at a tavern involving the servants of a German student, a bishop-elect of Liège, turned violent. The royal provost of Paris, Thomas, led armed townsmen in an attack on the Germans’ hostel, and several students were killed. The masters threatened to leave the city.

King Philip II Augustus responded with a charter in favour of the scholars. The provost was imprisoned, and students were granted the privilege of being judged by church courts rather than royal officials. Royal officers who arrested a student had to hand him over to church authorities. This is regarded as the first formal royal recognition of the Paris scholars as a privileged body.

Statutes, strike and independence

In 1215 the papal legate Robert of Courçon issued the first known statutes. They set the minimum age and length of study for masters of arts and theology, laid down which books were to be taught and banned lectures on Aristotle’s works of natural philosophy and metaphysics, which had been condemned in Paris in 1210.

A riot during carnival in 1229 ended with royal sergeants killing several students. The masters went on strike and many left Paris for other towns, including Oxford, Toulouse and Angers. The dispute ended with Pope Gregory IX’s bull Parens scientiarum of 13 April 1231, which confirmed the masters’ right to make statutes and to suspend lectures if their rights were violated.

Organisation: faculties and nations

By the mid-thirteenth century the university had four faculties: arts, which every student entered first, and the higher faculties of theology, canon law and medicine. The arts faculty, by far the largest, was divided into four “nations” by students’ origins: the French, the Picard, the Norman and the English, later called the English-German nation. The head of the arts faculty, the rector, became head of the whole university.

Students typically began the arts course in their mid-teens. A full theology degree could take a further twelve years or more. Teaching was in Latin and based on lectures on set texts and formal debates called disputations, the method known as scholasticism.

Student life

Medieval students in Paris were technically clerics, which is why they claimed the protection of church courts. Most were young men from across Europe, and many were poor. They lived in rented rooms, hostels or, later, colleges, and the Left Bank district where they gathered became known as the Latin Quarter because Latin was the language of daily study.

Relations with the townspeople were often tense. Disputes over rents, prices and drunken brawls repeatedly turned violent, as in 1200 and 1229. The university’s most powerful weapon was the threat to stop teaching or leave the city, which would have cost Paris trade and prestige.

Books were expensive, so the university licensed booksellers called stationers who rented out approved texts in sections, known as peciae, for students to copy. Lectures often consisted of a master reading a text aloud and explaining it line by line.

Key people

• Philip II Augustus (1165–1223): king of France who granted the scholars their privileges in 1200.
• Robert of Courçon (died 1219): English-born cardinal and papal legate who issued the statutes of 1215.
• Pope Gregory IX (pope 1227–1241): a former Paris student who issued Parens scientiarum in 1231.
• Robert de Sorbon (1201–1274): royal chaplain who founded the College of Sorbonne in 1257.
• Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274): Dominican theologian who taught at Paris in two periods and became the university’s most famous scholar.

The Sorbonne

Many students were poor and struggled to find lodging. Colleges were founded to house them; the earliest, the Collège des Dix-Huit, dates from 1180. In 1257 Robert de Sorbon, a theologian and chaplain to King Louis IX, founded a college for secular clergy studying theology, with royal support. It was confirmed by the pope in 1259.

The College of Sorbonne gained a fine library and great prestige, and its name came to stand for the theology faculty itself. In the seventeenth century Cardinal Richelieu, its provisor, rebuilt it with a domed chapel by Jacques Lemercier, completed in the 1640s.

Golden age, influence and later history

In the thirteenth century Paris was the intellectual capital of Latin Christendom. The new Dominican and Franciscan friars sent their best minds there, including Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure. Their presence caused bitter disputes with the secular masters in the 1250s. In 1277 Bishop Étienne Tempier condemned 219 philosophical propositions, a landmark in the debate over Aristotle and Christian doctrine.

Paris served as the model for many universities in northern Europe, including the University of Oxford, whose growth is traditionally linked to English scholars leaving Paris in 1167, and later the universities of the Holy Roman Empire.

The university remained powerful through the late Middle Ages, working to end the Great Schism of the papacy, and its theologians played a part in the trial of Joan of Arc in 1431. It was abolished during the French Revolution in 1793. Napoleon created a new national university system, and in 1896 the University of Paris was reconstituted. After the student protests of May 1968 it was divided in 1970 into thirteen separate universities, several of which carry the Sorbonne name.

Timeline

• c. 1100–1150: Schools flourish at Notre-Dame, Saint-Victor and Sainte-Geneviève.
• 1180: The Collège des Dix-Huit, the first known Paris college, is founded.
• 1200: Philip II Augustus grants the scholars legal privileges.
• 1210: A Paris synod condemns Aristotle’s natural philosophy.
• 1215: Robert of Courçon issues the university’s first statutes.
• 1229–1231: The masters strike and leave Paris.
• 1231, 13 April: Gregory IX issues the bull Parens scientiarum.
• 1257: Robert de Sorbon founds the College of Sorbonne.
• 1277: Bishop Étienne Tempier condemns 219 propositions.

Why it matters

The University of Paris helped invent the university as we know it: a self-governing community of scholars with degrees, faculties, set courses and protected rights. Its theologians shaped Catholic thought for centuries, and its organisation was copied across Europe. The name “Sorbonne” remains a worldwide symbol of learning.