PITHOU, PIERRE. - Jurist, b. at Troyes on 1 Nov. 1539, d. at Nogent-sur-Seine on 1 Nov. 1596. He completed his legal studies together with his brother François at the University of Bourges, in the school of Cujas.
Having become a lawyer, he did not practice the profession for long, also because, being a Calvinist, he had to wander through various cities. At Sedan he was commissioned by the Duke of Bouillon to draft the customs of his domain. In 1571 he converted to Catholicism, at the same time as Henry IV of Bourbon, whose partisan he was. He was subsequently appointed governor general of the Chamber of Justice of Guienne, where he remained for some years; he then returned to Paris, continuing his legal investigations there. He carried out effective action for the accession of Henry IV to the throne, and after the King's entry into Paris he was given the post of procurator general at the Parliament provisionally established.
An advocate of Gallican ideas, he championed them in the work Les libertés de l'Église gallicane (Paris 1594), to which the subsequent supporters of Gallicanism turned. He edited, in addition to that of many literary and historical works (Quintilian, Petronius, Phaedrus, Paul the Deacon, Otto of Freising), the edition of the Novellae giustiniane (Basel 1574), of the Leges Wisigothorum (Paris 1579), of the Caroli Magni, Ludovici Pii et Caroli Calvi Capitula (ibid. 1588); and, with his brother François, the edition of the Corpus Iuris Canonici, published after his death (2 vols., ibid. 1687).
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M. Teresa de Simone Niquesa