The university is associated with a papal bull issued by
Pope Nicholas IV in 1289, combining various centuries-old schools into a university. 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. 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). The statutes given in 1220 by Cardinal
Conrad von Urach, legate of
Pope Honorius III, which were confirmed and extended in 1240, placed this school under the direction of the
Bishop of Maguelonne, but the school enjoyed a great deal of
de facto autonomy. The school was famous for arguing in the fourteenth century that the
Black Death was caused by a miasma entering the opening of the body's pores, citing theories developed by
Galen. Doctors educated at Montpellier advocated against bathing because they claimed bathing opened the body's pores, making one more susceptible to the
bubonic plague. In 1529, after some years as an apothecary,
Nostradamus entered the University of Montpellier to study for a doctorate in medicine. He was expelled shortly afterwards when it was discovered that he had been an apothecary, a "manual trade" expressly banned by the university statutes. The expulsion document (BIU Montpellier, Register S 2 folio 87) still exists in the faculty library.
Rabelais took his medical degree at Montpellier, and his portrait hangs among the gallery of professors. The
Jardin des Plantes de Montpellier, founded in 1593, is the oldest
botanical garden in France. It was in this school that the biological theory of
vitalism, elaborated by
Barthez (1734–1806), had its origin. The
French Revolution did not interrupt the existence of the
School of Medicine. The
Benedictine monastery that had been converted into the bishop's palace, was given to house the medical school in 1795. A gallery devoted to the portraits of professors since 1239 contains one of Rabelais. The School of Theology had its origins in lectures in the convents: St.
Anthony of Padua,
Raymundus Lullus, and the Dominican
Bernard of Trilia all lectured. Two letters of
King John II prove that a School of Theology existed at Montpellier independently of the convents, in January 1350. By a Bull of 17 December 1421,
Pope Martin V granted
canonical institution to this faculty and united it closely with the faculty of law. In the 16th century the local triumph of Calvinism interrupted the somewhat somnolent Catholic School of Theology, which was reinstated in 1622; but the rivalries of Dominicans and
Jesuits interfered seriously with the prosperity of the faculty, which disappeared at the Revolution. In better days, among Montpellier's illustrious pupils of law were
Petrarch, who spent four years at Montpellier, and among its lecturers were
William of Nogaret, chancellor to
Philip IV, Guillaume de Grimoard, afterwards
Pope Urban V, and Pedro de Luna, afterwards antipope
Benedict XIII. Like all other provincial universities of France, that of Montpellier was suppressed at the outbreak of the
French Revolution in 1793. The School of Science and the School of Letters were re-established in 1810; the School of Law in 1880. The University of Montpellier was officially re-organised in 1969, on the aftermath of
May 1968 and the students' revolt all over the country. It was split into its successor institutions the
University of Montpellier 1 (comprising the former schools of medicine, law, and economy),
University of Montpellier 2 (science and technology) and
University of Montpellier 3 (social sciences, humanities and liberal arts). On 1 January 2015, the
University of Montpellier 1 and the
University of Montpellier 2 merged to form the newly recreated University of Montpellier. Meanwhile, the
Paul Valéry University Montpellier 3, now only
Paul Valéry, remains a separate institution. == Campuses ==