The University of Montpellier (French: Université de Montpellier; Occitan: Universitat de Montpelhièr) is a public research university located in Montpellier, in south-east of France. Established in 1220, the University of Montpellier is one of the oldest universities in the world.
The university was split into three universities (the University of Montpellier 1, the University of Montpellier 2 and the Paul Valéry University Montpellier 3) for 45 years from 1970 until 2015 when it was subsequently reunified by the merger of the two former,[2] with the latter, now named Paul Valéry University, Montpellier III, remaining a separate entity.
The university is associated with a papal bull issued by Pope Nicholas IV in 1289, combining various centuries-old schools into a university.[3] The university is considerably older than its formal founding date, with the first statutes given by Conrad of Urach in 1220.
It is not known exactly when the liberal arts schools that developed into the Montpellier School of Arts were founded; it may be that they were a direct continuation of the Gallo-Roman schools that gathered around masters of rhetoric. The School of Law was founded by Placentinus, from the School of Law at Bologna, who came to Montpellier in 1160, taught there during two different periods, and died there in 1192. The School of Law has had a long career—professors from Montpellier were prominent in the drafting of the Napoleonic Code, the civil code by which France is still guided and a foundation for modern law codes wherever Napoleonic influence extended. The School of Law was reorganized in 1998.[4]
The School of Medicine was founded perhaps by people trained in the Muslim Spanish medical schools as Muslim rule in parts of Spain did not end until 1492, when the Emirate of Granada fell (no reference is available for the founding of the School of Medicine); it is certain that, as early as 1137, there were excellent physicians at Montpellier. It is the world's oldest medical school still in operation. The School of Medicine benefited from a policy of the Guilhem Lords of Montpellier, by which any licensed physician might lecture there: with no fixed limit to the number of teachers, lectures multiplied, thus providing a great choice of teachers coming from all around the Mediterranean region (Guilhem VIII act of January 1181).[5] The statutes given in 1220 by Cardinal Conrad von Urach, legate of Pope Honorius III, which were confirmed and extended in 1240,
Sources:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Montpellier
- Official site not on record
