scholars in their studies, was yet
the chief censor of their morals,[41] and the representative of the
university in its dealings with foreign bodies, and especially with the
Roman See.[42]

[Sidenote: The Sorbonne.]

No other mediaeval seat of learning attained so enviable a reputation as
Paris for completeness of theological training. From all parts of
Christendom students resorted to it as to the most abundant and the
purest fountain of sound learning. In 1250, Robert de Sorbonne, the
private confessor of Louis the Ninth, emulating the munificence of
previous patrons of letters, founded a college intended to facilitate
the education of secular students of theology. The college took the
name of its author, and, becoming famous for the ability of its
instructors, the Sorbonne soon engrossed within its walls almost the
entire course of theological teaching given in the University of Paris.
Although the students in the colleges of Navarre and Plessis devoted
themselves to the acquisition of the same science, they had little
public instruction save that for which they resorted to the Sorbonne. By
reason of the prominence thus gained as the seat of the principal
instruction in theology, the Sorbonne became synonymous with the
theological faculty itself.[43]

[Sidenote: Its great authority.]

A body of theologians of admitted eminence necessarily spoke with
authority. In France the decisions of the Sorbonne were accepted as
final upon almost all questions affecting the doctrine and practice of
the Church. Abroad its opinions were esteemed of little less weight than
the deliberate judgments of synods. Difficulties in church and state
were referred to it for solution. In the age of the reformation the
Sorbonne was invited to pronounce upon the truth or falsity of the
propositions maintained by Martin Luther, and, a few years later, upon
the validity of the grounds of the divorce sought by Henry the Eighth of
England. But, unhappily, the reputation of the faculty was tarnished by
scholastic bigotry. Slavish attachment to the past had destroyed freedom
of thought. With a species of inconsistency not altogether without a
parallel in history, the very body which had been active in the
promotion of science during the Middle Ages assumed the posture of
resistance the moment that the advocates of substantial reform urged the
necessity of immediate action. Abuses which had provoked the indignation
of Gerson, once Chancellor of