CUJAS or CUJAc1Us, JACQUES (or as he called himself, JACQUES DE CUJAS) (1520-1 S9o), French jurisconsult, was born at Toulouse, where his father, whose name was Cujaus, was a fuller. Having taught himself Latin and Greek, he studied law under Arnoul Ferrier, then professor at Toulouse, and rapidly gained a great reputation as a lecturer on Justinian. In 1554 he was appointed professor of law at Cahors, and about a year after L'Hopital called him to Bourges. Duaren, however, who also held a professorship at Bourges, stirred up the students against the new professor, and such was the disorder produced in consequence that Cujas yielded, and accepted an invitation he had received to the University of Valence. Recalled to Bourges at the death of Duaren in 1559, he remained there till 1567, when he returned to Valence. There he gained a European reputation, and collected students from all parts of the Continent, among whom were Joseph Scaliger and de Thou. In 1573 Charles IX. appointed Cujas counsellor to the parlement of Grenoble, and in the follow ing year a pension was bestowed on him by Henry III. Margaret of Savoy induced him to remove to Turin ; but after a few months 7 5) he once more took his old place at Bourges. But the religious wars drove him thence. He was called by the king to Paris, and permission was granted him by the parlement to lec ture on civil law in the university of the capital. A year after, however, he finally took up his residence at Bourges, where he remained till his death.
The life of Cujas was altogether that of a scholar and teacher.
In the religious wars which filled all the thoughts of his con temporaries he steadily refused to take any part. Nihil hoc ad edictum praetoris, "This has nothing to do with the edict of the praetor," was his usual answer to those who spoke to him on the subject. His surpassing merit as a jurisconsult consisted in the fact that he turned from the ignorant commentators on Roman law to the Roman law itself. He collected more than Soo mss. but his library was broken up after his death and a great part lost. His emendations, of which a large number were published under the title of Animadversiones et observationes, were not confined to law books, but extended to many of the Latin and Greek classical authors. In jurisprudence his study was far from being devoted solely to Justinian; he recovered and gave to the world a part of the Theodosian Code, with explanations; and he procured the manuscript of the Basilica, a Greek abridgment of Justinian, afterwards published by Fabrot (see BASILICA). He also composed a commentary on the Consuetudines Feudorum, and on some books of the Decretals. In the Paratitla, or summaries which he made of the Digest, and particularly of the Code of Justinian, he condensed into short axioms the elementary principles of law, and gave definitions remarkable for their admirable clearness and pre cision. The edition of his works (Neville, 1577) is now very scarce. The edition of Colombet (1634) is incomplete. Fabrot, however, collected the whole in the edition which he published at Paris (1658), and which was reprinted at Naples (1722, 1727), and at Naples and Venice (1758), with an index forming an 11th volume.
See Papire Masson Vie de Cujas (i59o) ; A. Terrasson Histoire de la jurisprudence romaine (175o) ; and Melanges d'histoire, de litterature, et de jurisprudence (1768) ; J. E. D. Bernardi doge de Cujas (Lyons, ; G. Hugo Civilistisches Magazine (1791, etc.) ; J. Berriat Saint Prix Memoires de Cujas, appended to his Histoire du droit romain (1821) ; E. P. J. Spangenberg Jacob Cujas and seine Zeitgenossen (Leipzig, 1822).