Sorbonne founded in Paris

1257

Robert de Sorbon, a chaplain of Louis IX, established a college for poor theology students near the Seine. From these rooms a college, and eventually an entire faculty, grew. For centuries its name would serve as shorthand for French theological authority. The Sorbonne's theologians would weigh in on every major doctrinal controversy from the Great Schism to the Enlightenment, their opinions carrying near-papal weight.