SORBONNE

A college at Paris for the study of theology; so called from the village of Sorbonne, in Champagne, where its founder, a priest named Robert, was born about the beginning of the 13th century. He made a provision for the instruction of sixteen poor clerks in theology; and his college is said to be the first example of what was afterwards the common character of all the English colleges, the institution of a caenobium for regular clergy. The college of the Sorbonne was adorned with various new edifices and enriched with a library by Cardinal Richelieu, in 1629. His monument in the church is considered a chef-d'cpuvre of French art. (See Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. vol. iii. transl. 1790, p. 53. .) This great college of theology exercised a high influence in ecclesiastical affairs, and on the public mind, especially in the 16th and 17th centuries; insomuch that the sceptical wits of the 18th usually employ the name as synonymous with the spirit of bigotry itself. Its proverbial celebrity for acutene in theological disquisition is attested by the lines of our own Butler: — For he a rope of sand could twist As firm as learned Sorbonist. [s. 1144]