University of Paris

Timeline

1. c. 1150–1200Left Bank of Paris · ParisTeachers from the cathedral school and monastic schools of Paris gradually united, forming an academic guild with autonomy that attracted students from many regions, laying the prototype of the medieval university.
2. 1215–1250Paris · ParisPope Innocent III approved the university's statutes, establishing the four-faculty system of theology, law, medicine, and arts; the teachers' guild gained church protection and academic autonomy, marking the formal institutionalization of the University of Paris.
3. c. 1250–1350Paris · ParisParis became the center of scholastic and theological debate, where scholars such as Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Ockham taught and wrote; the university degree system and tradition of academic disputation influenced higher education across Europe.
4. 1793–1970Paris · ParisThe French Revolution briefly closed the university, and Napoleon rebuilt a centralized higher education system; in 1970 the University of Paris was divided into thirteen independent universities by discipline and campus, ending the medieval communal form while the academic tradition continued.