DURANDUS (Durand) Guillaume, Bishop of Mende. - Canonist and liturgist, b. at Puimission, north of Béziers (France), ca. 1230. He studied law in Italy and was a professor of it at Bologna and then at Modena. In Rome many delicate assignments were entrusted to him. In 1286 he was named bishop of Mende, and in 1295 governor of Romagna and of the March of Ancona. He died in Rome on 1 Nov. 1296: his body rests at S. Maria sopra Minerva. He occupies an important place in the history of law.
He was the author of Commentarii on the Novels of Gregory X, and of a Breviarium seu Repertorium on the Decretals, works very useful for both theory and practice. But D.'s most remarkable work is the Speculum iudiciale, a successful attempt at setting out the entire system of law through the procedural species. In it, alongside the formulas of the acts, which are likewise organized under the new Romanistic influence of the schools of law, there is a broad doctrinal elaboration, supported by passages of Italian theorists and practitioners sometimes quoted literally, as appears from the notes that the great canonist and historian of law Giovanni Andrea appended to D.'s Speculum. The work, of such wide influence in the juridical world of the common law, may therefore be considered a direct child of Italian dogmatic elaboration. Besides the listed treatises on law, he also wrote two works on liturgy: Rationale divinorum officiorum and Pontificalis ordinis liber. The first had very great importance in the Middle Ages, so much so as to be the first printed at Mainz with metal type in 1459. He gives a mystical, allegorical and moral exposition of the sacred liturgy, and treats of the church, its ornamentation, the Sacraments, the sacred ministers, the divine offices, the Mass, the feasts and the calendar. An exaggerated symbolism pervades it, and biblical quotations, not always verified, abound in it.
Another work that enjoyed a singular fortune is his Pontificale, which was subsequently adopted by the Roman Church. His work dates back to the last years of his life. In it he sets out the Roman liturgy, introducing into it new elements coming from local traditions. Of this Pontificale there is today an accurate critical edition accompanied by a said introduction, by the work of M. Andrieu (Le Pontifical romain au moyen âge, III: Le Pontifical de G. D. [Studi e Testi, 88, Rome 1940).
He must not be confused with D. Guillaume iunior, also a canonist and theologian, but of lesser importance and who lived a little after him (cf. on the latter J. F. Schulte, Gesch. der Quellen und Lit. des Kan. Rechts, II, Stuttgart 1876, p. 195, and P. Viollet, Guillaume D. le jeune, évêque de Mende, in Hist. litt. de la France, XXXV, Paris 1921, pp. 1-139).
Bibliography2 works
Antonio Rota