Jacques Cujas

Jacques Cujas (or Cujacius) (1522 – 4 October 1590) was a French legal expert. He was prominent among the legal humanists or mos gallicus school, which sought to abandon the work of the medieval Commentators and concentrate on ascertaining the correct text and social context of the original works of Roman law.

He was born at Toulouse, where his father, surnamed Cujaus, was a fuller. Having taught himself Latin and Greek, he studied law under Arnaud du Ferrièr, then professor at Toulouse, and rapidly gained a great reputation as a lecturer on Justinian. In 1554 he was appointed professor of law at Cahors, and about a year after Michel de l'Hôpital called him to Bourges. François Douaren (Franciscus Duarenus), who also held a professorship at Bourges, stirred up the students against the new professor, and Cujas was glad to accept an invitation he had received to the University of Valence.

Recalled to Bourges at the death of Duaren in 1559, he remained there till 1567, when he returned to Valence. There he gained a European reputation, and collected students from all parts of the continent, among whom were Joseph Scaliger and Jacques Auguste de Thou. In 1573 King Charles IX of France appointed Cujas counsellor to the parlement of Grenoble, and in the following year a pension was bestowed on him by Henry III. Margaret of Savoy persuaded him to move to Turin; but after a few months (1575) he returned to his old place at Bourges. The religious wars drove him out. He was called by the king to Paris, and permission was granted him by the parlement to lecture on civil law in the university there. A year later, he finally took up residence at Bourges, where he remained till his death in 1590, in spite of a handsome offer made him by pope Gregory XIII in 1584 to attract him to Bologna.

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