Historical Route
Since it was founded over 800 years ago, Montpellier's Faculty of Medicine has remained a leading scientific center for research, discovery, teaching and the preservation of medical knowledge.
Montpellier: a university town
Compared with so many other towns in the south of France whose origins date back to Greek or Roman antiquity, Montpellier seems to have emerged only in the Middle Ages, in the middle of the 10th century.
The town emerged from the cradle into the arms of the Guilhem family, who, as Lords of Montpellier, watched over it until 1204. Its passage under the authority of the kings of Aragon and then Majorca saw the granting of a charter, enabling the bourgeois to administer their commune.
The marriage of Marie de Montpellier to Peter II, King of Aragon, placed the city's destiny in new hands. The master of the day was in constant need of money. The city's burghers saw this as an opportunity to buy their franchise, and the payment of large sums was the natural counterpart to the granting of a charter, intended to ensure a form of autonomy for the city.
While the King of Aragon retained his supreme authority in judicial matters, he let the administration of the town slip from his hands. The definitive cession of Montpellier to France in 1350 - though marred by troubles that temporarily removed many of its privileges - left its ancient concessions intact. Montpellier remained a free commune.
The Consuls, elected representatives of the various guilds and true representatives of the city's deep-rooted interests, quickly realized that the city's future lay outside its walls, open to the world. Close to the sea, separated only by a couple of kilometers from the outport of Lattes, Montpellier quickly equipped itself with an appropriate fleet, which would soon ply the Mediterranean.
The wisdom of its Consuls led it to conclude peace treaties and reciprocal alliances with Italy's major port cities, such as Genoa and Pisa. In addition to this ambitious strategy, the city also enjoyed excellent relations with the Holy See, with popes having visited or even taken refuge in Montpellier over the centuries. The accession to the Pontificate of one of its former students, Urban V, made the city one of the few to enjoy the privilege of trading with the infidels for almost all the products that the West was becoming increasingly fond of. Montpellier's diplomacy turned the city into a flourishing trading center, which was soon to become the driving force behind its development.
However, Marseille's entry into the French crown in 1481 brought Montpellier's prosperity to an abrupt halt. Montpellier could not reasonably expect to compete with the city of Marseille, as neither Lattes, now silted up, nor the port of Aigues-Mortes offered the necessary opening to pursue its activities...
Despite this competitive situation, the town was able to grow even more. Over the ages, it had indisputably established its position as a capital, in administrative, religious, judicial and even more academic terms. With its major assets, Montpellier was able to preserve them and make them prosper almost uninterruptedly until modern times.
Montpellier's growth and international renown were achieved with and through its University, and the city's youth and vitality are intrinsically linked to its scientific centers. With one, and in fact - and this is a rare occurrence - two universities in the city, it is heir to a great tradition in the transmission of knowledge.
The beginnings of the Faculty
Medical teaching in Montpellier was born out of practice, outside any institutional framework, in the early 12th century. The forerunner of physicians, a certain André appeared in Montpellier in 1122. The practice of medicine made him a powerful figure and a considerable landowner. It wasn't until 1170 that the first core of physicians-practitioners-teachers formed the embryo of the future Medical University. Thirty years later, Alexander Neckam placed Montpellier and Salerno on an equal footing. In 1181, an edict from Guilhem VIII proclaimed the freedom to teach medicine in Montpellier.
By 1220, the teaching of medicine in Montpellier had emerged from its prehistory, and Cardinal Legate Conrad d'Urach granted the Universitas medicorum its first statutes. In less than a century, an institutional framework developed around medical teaching.
On October 26, 1289, Pope Nicholas IV sent the apostolic constitution "Quia Sapientia" from Rome to all doctors and students in Montpellier.
This text includes a preamble in which Wisdom is understood in its medieval sense, close to that of the philosophers: knowledge ordered to spiritual ends, in the service of the beautiful and the true. A necessary step on the path to human perfection, Wisdom is an end to which many must aspire, both personally and in the general interest, "illuminating the hearts of men and shaping them to virtue".
The presence of these practitioners, at the heart of an international system of relations, influence and exchange with almost the entire known world, is a vector for the dissemination of medicine and all the disciplines taught in the city. Fruitful exchanges between Montpellier's teaching staff and other researchers in Christendom were a source of considerable enrichment for the University of Montpellier. The apogee of medicine, particularly in the 14th century, in terms of both the quality of its teachers and teaching methods, owes much to Montpellier's proximity to the Papal Court, just as the University of Paris owes much to its proximity to the French Court.
The University of Montpellier's specific quality of teaching, its combination of theory and practice, and the "secular and international" nature of its recruitment, made it unmistakably similar to the leading Italian medical universities of Bologna and Padua.
The departure of the Avignon papacy meant years of decline for Montpellier and its universities.
From the Renaissance to the end of the Ancien Régime
This period was marked by the gradual loss of clerical supervision to the State, with the faculty acquiring its own premises, the Collège Royal de Médecine, around 1450, and new rules enacted by the royal decree of Louis XII on August 29, 1498.
Montpellier and Paris shared a kind of monopoly on medical studies, despite the emergence of provincial faculties of largely regional influence, such as Caen, and the 1681 addition of Strasbourg, whose audience was mainly Germanic. Montpellier and Paris were the only two faculties in the kingdom to offer regular medical training, and both recognized each other's teaching. Foundation Bull of the Montpellier University by Pope Nicholas IV
The richness of this text, and its contribution to the future, lies in the recognition of Montpellier and its various schools as "a place that has been noted for being wonderfully suited to study, and in which it is appropriate to promote teaching centers". The consequence of this affirmation, born of the observation of a century of pre-university adventure, could only be the perpetual erection of a "Studium generale", i.e. a University, in which in the future "masters will have the right to teach and students the right to learn, by following the courses of the regularly established Faculties". Nicholas IV formalized and framed existing methods, born of a practice that was already a century old. Not innovating in any way, he did not create artificial structures in abstracto or ex nihilo, but, on the contrary, revitalized ancient and good practices. It pacified, and at the same time strengthened the foundations of the fledgling University, by determining the examination system and the respective powers of each authority in this area. Henceforth, candidates would be examined by their masters, after presenting themselves to the bishop of Maguelone or his delegate, who was to summon them to hear their opinions. It is up to him alone to approve and admit the candidates he deems worthy. "Un acte de licence au XIIe siècle" painting by A. Privat
The most fundamental contribution of this apostolic constitution is that the licenses issued in Montpellier, like those issued in Bologna and Paris, give the possibility of teaching and directing "ubique terrarum", i.e. anywhere.
Pope Nicholas IV's call for the various scattered schools to come together did not meet with the same response. The School of Medicine, citing its ancient statutes and proud to belong to the very select group of the four or five oldest European universities, like Bologna, Salerno, Paris and Oxford, was much less interested in a text which, apart from the universal recognition of its courses, merely ratified an established situation.
The Medical University simply continued to exist, with no real desire to merge into a "Studium generale" with the jurists, who took the path of a second University.
Montpellier belongs to the first generation of medieval universities. Now, the university tree has sufficiently strong roots to face any future.
The Papacy in Avignon
Clement V's arrival in Avignon in March 1309, establishing the Apostolic Curia on the banks of the Rhône for almost a century, came twenty years after the Apostolic Constitution had given the University of Montpellier specific statutes.
The School of Medicine was already home to a number of renowned masters. Privileged links were quickly forged between the capital of Christendom and this University, already one of the most prestigious centers of medical science. The Popes of Avignon, often elderly, sometimes even worn down by the ravages of time, found their usual entourage in a pool of doctors and jurists, mostly from Montpellier.
The arrival of the Protestants to rule the city in 1562 was accompanied by the complete destruction of the Sainte-Eulalie tower, seat of the University of Rights, which disappeared for a time. The reign of the Good King left Montpellier with the feeling of a university renaissance. The School of Medicine was endowed with a plant garden. The work of Professor Pierre Richer de Belleval, it was the will of a king. The first Royal Garden in France, and predating that of Paris, it is still one of the finest assets of the University of Montpellier.
The siege of the city dealt a further blow to the University, which was abandoned while the civil war raged. Restoration of the university never really took place during the troubles, which weakened it considerably. However, this crisis did not prevent the emergence of several illustrious figures, renowned doctors and jurists whose lives left their mark on the history of their times...
Some attempts at unification were made, notably by King Louis XIV, whose Montpellier Court of Auditors registered letters patent uniting the University of Medicine with the other faculties. However, "the Council and Letters Patent" of January 20, 1687 broke this union, so that the different universities "remained separate as they had always been".
Revolution and Empire
The consequences of the French Revolution severely undermined the prosperity of Montpellier as a merchant town. Administrative reshuffles changed the city's status from that of regional capital to that of a less prestigious departmental capital. The legal profession, attached to tradition and with a dormant school, was reserved in the face of these changes. But students and staff are not counter-revolutionaries. Far from being resistant, the medical profession was enthusiastic.
In 1790, the medical students led the assault on the military garrison, the citadel of the city being considered a Bastille to be taken. With one exception, all professors at the University of Rights courageously refused to take the constitutional oath. The medical profession, University professors and members of the Academy of Surgery took the oath in 1791. Boisset, who certainly led a relentless reign of terror in the provinces, especially against refractory priests, took effective action to inspect hospitals and coordinate health services. In Year II, hospitals had three times as many beds as before the Revolution, to the point where it was difficult to stay in one for more than a quarter of an hour without feeling ill.
By decree of September 15, 1793, the Convention put an end to six centuries of teaching, dissolved the universities and closed the schools. Despite their international lustre, the University of Medicine and the Academy of Surgery, founded in 1741, were swept aside.
But just one year after this fateful decree, on December 4, 1794 (Frimaire 14, Year III), the Convention decreed the foundation of three Health Schools.
St. Peter's Cathedral and the south facade of the École de Médecine in 1804, providing medical and surgical training. In 1795, the Faculty moved from its old, dilapidated premises to its current location in the Saint-Benoît monastery. Chaptal had an anatomy theater built. Medicine and surgery were combined.
The period 1794-1803 was a fruitful phase of reform and the teaching of new scientific ideas. However, the non-granting of diplomas linked to the free practice of medicine put medical schools in difficulty.
The decree of March 11, 1803 (19 ventôse an XI) made the practice of medicine subject to obtaining a doctorate. The Faculty of Medicine of the modern era thus found a fixed institutional framework, and was able to develop without major crisis. The reciprocal contribution of teaching and hospital practice was to continue.
