DUMOULIN, CHARLES (MOLINAEus) French jurist, was born in Paris in I Joo. He began practice as an advocate before the parlement of Paris. Dumoulin turned Cal vinist, and when the persecution of the Protestants began he went to Germany, where for a long time he taught law at Stras bourg, Besancon and elsewhere. He returned to France in Dumoulin had, in 1552, written Commentaire sur l'edit du roi Henri II. sur les petites dates, which was condemned by the Sorbonne, but his Conseil sur le fait du concile de Trente created a still greater stir, and aroused against him both the Catholics and the Calvinists. He was imprisoned by order of the parlement until 1564. Dumoulin was regarded by his contemporaries as the "prince of jurisconsults." He had a considerable effect on the subsequent development of French law. He was a bitter enemy of feudalism, which he attacked in his De feudis (Paris, Other important works were his commentaries on the customs of Paris (Paris, 1539, 1554; Frankfort, 1575; Lausanne, 1576), val uable as the only commentary on those in force in 151o, and the Extricatio labyrintlii dividui et individui, a treatise on the law of surety.
A collected edition of Dumoulin's works was published in Paris in 1681, with a life by Brodeau. See also H. de Pansey, Eloge de C. Dumoulin (1769) ; Hello, Essai sur la vie et les Ouvrages de C. Dumoulin (1839) .