Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier, founded in 1220 by Cardinal Conrad of Urach under papal authority, is the oldest medical university still in operation. Its origin dates back to an edict of 1181 of the Lord Guilhem VIII, authorizing the free teaching of medicine, attracting Jewish, Arab and Christian scholars to a city between Spain and Italy. These cultural exchanges, favoured by the port of Lattes and commercial privileges with the Muslim world, made Montpellier a major medical centre in medieval Europe.

In 1220, the papal bubble formalized the universal medicorum, guiding a teaching until then informal and deregulated. This legal framework, inspired by the struggle against Cathar heresy, raises medicine to the rank of university science, a revolution for the Church. The statutes of 1220 define the rights of teachers and students, while the absence of dedicated premises causes classes to be held in private homes or churches, such as Saint-Firmin. Teaching combines theory (reading ancient texts) and clinical practice at the bedside of the sick, a method inherited from the Arab-Persane tradition.

The fourteenth century marked a turning point with the construction of the first university buildings under Pope Urban V: the College of Twelve Doctors (1369) and the College-Monastery Saint-Benoît-Saint-Germain (1367), the future seat of the faculty. This Benedictine monastery, transformed into a bishopric in 1536, became the historical building of the faculty in 1795 after its revolutionary confiscation. His amphitheatre of anatomy (1806), his 18th century parlours and his encyclopaedic library (1804) bear witness to his prestige.

The Renaissance devotes Montpellier as a European beacon of medicine, with figures like Rabelais (graduated in 1537) or Rondelet, pioneer of anatomy and botany. The Jardin des Plantes (1593), the first of France, and the amphitheatre of anatomy (1556) symbolize this innovation. The Wars of Religion and the Revolution (closure of universities in 1792) did not stop its activity: the school of health, established in 1794, perpetuates the teaching in underground, before becoming imperial faculty in 1808.

In the 19th century, the faculty enriched a museum of anatomy (1851), a museum of fine arts (Atger Museum, 1813), and a library of 100,000 books, including medieval manuscripts. Women had access to it in 1878 (Agnès McLaren), while major discoveries, such as blood transfusions (Émile Jeanbrau, 1914), were born. Ranked a historic monument in 2004, the building still houses theses and heritage collections, while extending to a modern campus (2017).

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