List of rectors of the University of Paris explained

This is a list of rectors of the University of Paris (the Sorbonne), a foundation of the middle of the twelfth century with a charter from 1200. The office of rector emerged in the middle of the thirteenth century. Since the rector, initially the "rector of the nations", was elected by the students and faculty, his position was very different from the appointed chancellor of the university (who was in fact the ecclesiastical chancellor of Notre Dame de Paris, whose power came to be divided also with the chancellor of the Abbey of St Genevieve). The rector became the representative of the faculty of the arts; it required another century for the recognition of the rector as representing also the other three faculties (law, medicine and theology).^[1] From the middle of the fourteenth century the rector had the status of head of the university, but limited powers.^[2]

The rectorship for most of its history was an elected position, of high academic prestige, and held in practice for a single term of one year. The formal position was that the term was of three months, so in some years there were several rectors elected. In the medieval and early Renaissance periods many holders of the post were from outside France. The reorganization of 1970 divided the historical university into thirteen parts. The office of rector still exists, with title Recteur de l'Académie de Paris.

13th century

• Guillaume de Saint-Amour
• 1271 Alberic of Reims (election disputed, and a chaotic period of opposition by Siger of Brabant follows)
• 1275 Peter of Auvergne^[3]
• 1296 Peter of Auvergne^[3]

14th century

• 1304 Guillelmus Brito^[4]
• 1313 Marsilius of Padua
• 1326 Petrus de Dacia^[5]
• 1327 Jean Buridan
• 1340 Jean Buridan (second term)
• 1348 Olivier Saladin, bishop of Nantes^[6]
• 1350 Jean de Muris^[7]
• 1351 Jean Diacre^[8]
• 1353 Albert of Saxony^[9]
• 1355 Vojtěch Raňkův of Ježov
• 1367 Marsilius of Inghen
• 1371 Marsilius of Inghen (second term)
• 1378 Guillaume Gorran^[10]
• 1381 Mathieu Regnauld^[11]
• 1383 Jean Voignon^[12]
• 1393-5 Mathieu-Nicolas Poillevillain de Clémanges (Nicholas of Clamanges)^[13]
• 1395 (October–December), Walter Forrester (future bishop of Brechin)

15th century

• 1401 (June) Jacques de Nouvion^[14]
• 1403 Pierre Cauchon^[15]
• 1405 Gérard de Machet^[16]
• 1409 Jean de Beaumont^[17]
• 1412 Jean Beaupère^[18]
• 1428 Pierre Maurice^[18]
• 1430 Thomas de Courcelles^[19]
• 1435 Olavi Maununpoika (Olavus Magni), bishop of Turku^[20]
• 1439 Guillaume Bouillé^[21]
• 1442 Jehan Pluyette^[22]
• 1448 Jehan Pluyette
• 1458 Johannes Versoris^[23]
• 1467 Guillaume Fichet^[24]
• 1468 Johannes Heynlin known as De La Pierre or Lapidanus
• 1469 John Ireland^[25]
• 1473 Cantien Hue^[26]
• 1479 Martin de Delft
• 1485 Jan Standonck
• 1485 (October–December) Johannes Molitor^[27]
• 1486 Gillis van Delft^[28]
• 1489 Jean Lanternant, Johann Lantmann^[29]
• 1491 Guillaume Cappel
• 1492 Bernard Roillet^[30]
• 1494 Adam Pluyette^[22]

16th century

• 1507-8 Jacques Almain
• 1513 Girolamo Aleandro^[31]
• 1514? Gilles de Maizières (Aegidius Maserius)
• 1519 Jean Finet^[32]
• 1519 Gervasius Waim^[33]
• 1520 Jean Tixier de Ravisi (c. 1480–1524)
• 1525 William Manderston^[34]
• 1528 (March–June) Nicholas Boissel^[35]
• 1528 Bertinus Myss^[35]
• 1531 Landéric Maciot^[36]
• 1531 Jean de Gagny^[37]
• 1533 Nicolas Cop
• 1534 André de Gouveia
• 1539 Antoine de Mouchy
• 1540 Claude D'Espence
• 1540 Simon Vigor
• 1560 Claude Roillet
• 1564 Michel Marescot
• 1581 Jean Boucher^[38]
• 1584 John Hamilton^[39]
• 1586 Jean Filesac
• 1594 Jacques d'Amboise^[40]
• Guillaume Rose, bishop of Senlis
• Guy de Saint-Paul
• 1596-1600 John Fraser clerical prior of Beauly Priory 1573–1579, Abbot of Noyon France 1580–1590, Bn 1544, Philorth, Scotland, unanimously elected Rector

17th century

• 1600-9 John Fraser died 15/16 April (Easter Sunday) 1609 : buried at the Church of the Franciscans, Paris, France
• 1646-8 Godefroy Hermant^[41]
• 1694 Charles Rollin

18th century

• 1701 Micheál Ó Mordha (Michael Moore, orMoor)
• Guillaume Dagomer^[42]
• 1707-8 Balthazar Gibert, also 1721–3, 1733-6^[43]
• 1713, 1717 Michel Godeau^[44]
• Edmond Pourchot, seven times rector^[45]
• 1719 Charles Rollin (second term)
• 1748 Jean-Baptiste Cochet^[46]
• 1789 Jean-Baptiste Dumouchel, constitutional bishop of Nîmes in 1790^[47]

Notes and References

1. La portion du corps enseignant qui avait eu l'initiative du mouvement d'indépendance, la « Faculté » des Arts (Artistae), se donna un « recteur » (vers 1245), comme l'avaient fait les étudiants de Bologne un siècle auparavant, mais ce ne fut qu'au milieu du XIVe siècle qu'il fut reconnu unanimement par les autres facultés comme le chef de la corporation universitaire de Paris.http://www.cosmovisions.com/civUniversitesMA.htm
2. Samuel Gardner Williams, The History of Mediaeval Education (1903), p. 127.

3. , which gives date as 1279, though.

4. ODNB, article Breton [Briton], Guillaume le (fl. 1249), Franciscan friar and theologian.
5. Web site: Search result . 28 November 2009 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110717205335/http://jordanus.ign.uni-muenchen.de/cgi-bin/iccmsm-search.pl?sprache=en&datenbank=iccmsm&ausgabe=dhs&ausdateiformat=&listpos=0&listen=keine&listlet=keiner&fn=t60bs.f&fi=Kalendarium+Petri . 17 July 2011 . dead .
6. http://www.infobretagne.com/roche-maurice.htm
7. Gian Giuseppe Bernardi, Counterpoint (1921), p. 155.
8. Paul Delalain, Étude sur le libraire parisien du XIIIe au XVe siècle, d'après les documents publiés dans le cartulaire de l'Université de Paris (1891), p. 38.
9. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/albert-saxony/ Albert of Saxony, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
10. Delalain, p. 52.
11. Charles Adrien Desmaze, L'Université de Paris, 1200-1875 (1876), note p. 5.
12. Alfred Franklin, Recherches sur la bibliothèque de la Faculté de médecine de Paris (1864), note p. 88.
13. William W. Kibler, Medieval France: an encyclopedia (1995), p. 664.
14. Alfred Coville, Gontier et Pierre Col et l'humanisme en France au temps de Charles VI (1934), p. 94.
15. Kibler, p. 183.
16. Web site: Salvador Miranda (historian) . Miranda . Salvador . MACHET, Gérard (1380-1448). The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church . Florida International University. 53276621.
17. Alfred Franklin, Recherches sur la bibliothèque de la Faculté de médecine de Paris (1864), p. 91.
18. http://www.stejeannedarc.net/histoire_wallon/wallon_VI-2.php
19. Web site: Salvador Miranda (historian) . Miranda . Salvador . COURCELLES, Thomas de (1400-1469). The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church . Florida International University. 53276621.
20. Web site: PISA . 28 November 2009 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20100819023646/http://www.pisa2006.helsinki.fi/finland/sibelius/men_of_letters.htm . 19 August 2010 .
21. http://www.stejeannedarc.net/rehabilitation/enquete_1450.php
22. Web site: Famille PLUYETTE . 28 November 2009 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20081112174845/http://genealog.fr/ferlab/pluyette.html . 12 November 2008 .
23. Book: David C. Lindberg. David C. Lindberg. Theories of Vision from Al-kindi to Kepler. 4 August 2012. 22 April 1996. University of Chicago Press. 978-0-226-48235-4. 138.
24. Web site: La littérature savoyarde du moyen-age au début du xviiie . 19 November 2011 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20081205012420/http://www.sabaudia.org/v2/dossiers/litterature/scientifique6.php . 5 December 2008 . fr.
25. Web site: Gifford Lecture Series - Lectures/Books . 28 November 2009 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110614103243/http://www.giffordlectures.org/Browse.asp?PubID=TPSOSC&Volume=0&Issue=0&ArticleID=2 . 14 June 2011 .
26. http://www.corpusetampois.com/cle-16-1502epitaphedecantienhue.html
27. http://www.freidok.uni-freiburg.de/volltexte/4842/pdf/Heinzer_Cod_Donaueschingen.pdf
28. Peter G. Bietenholz, Thomas B. Deutscher, Contemporaries of Erasmus (2003), p. 382.
29. http://134.76.163.162/fabian?Evangelische_St._Nikolaikirche_%28Isny%29
30. http://www.lemarois.com/jlm/data/g01geoffray.html
31. Web site: Salvador Miranda (historian) . Miranda . Salvador . ALEANDRO, Girolamo (1480-1542). The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church . Florida International University. 53276621.
32. Jeanne Vielliard, Instruments d'astronomie conservés à la bibliothèque du collège de Sorbonne aux XVe et XVIe siècles. Bibliothèque de l'école des chartes, Année 1973, Volume 131 lien Numéro 131-2 pp. 592; http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/bec_0373-6237_1973_num_131_2_449963.
33. Scholasticon page
34. ODNB, Manderston [Manderstown], William (c.1485–1552), philosopher and logician.
35. Peter G. Bietenholz, Thomas B. Deutscher, p. 160.
36. Pendergrass . J . Lettres, poèmes et débat scolaire de Germain Maciot, étudiant parisien du XVe siècle . Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi . 1997 . 2042/17050 .
37. Kenneth Hagen, Hebrews commenting from Erasmus to Bèze, 1516-1598 (1981), p. 48.
38. Scholasticon page
39. ODNB, Hamilton, John (c.1547–1610/11), Roman Catholic controversialist.
40. [:fr:s:Page:Michaud - Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne (1843) Tome 1.djvu/584]
41. http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/rhef_0300-9505_1933_num_19_84_2661, p. 362.
42. Scholasticon page
43. Samy Ben Messaoud, L'enseignement rhétorique de Gibert (PDF), p. 97 note 16.
44. http://www.corpusetampois.com/che-18-17140611louis14contregodeau.html
45. Scholasticon page
46. Scholasticon page
47. http://www.nimausensis.com/Nimes/episcopa/Episcopa.htm