DURAND, GUILLAUME (DURANTI or DURANTIS) (C. 1230-1296), French canonist and liturgical writer, and bishop of Mende, was born at Puimisson, near Beziers. He studied law at Bologna, and about 1264 was teaching canon law at Modena. Clement IV. called him to the pontifical court as a chaplain and auditor of the palace, and in 1274 he accompanied Gregory X. to the Council of Lyons, the constitutions of which he helped to draw up. Martin IV. made him vicar spiritual in 1281, then governor of Romagna and of the March of Ancona (1283) . In the midst of the struggles between Guelphs and Ghibellines, Durand successfully defended the papal territories, both by diplomacy and by arms. Honorius IV. retained him in his offices, and al though elected bishop of Mende in 1286, he remained in Italy until 1291. In 1295 he refused the archbishopric of Ravenna, and in 1296 retired to Rome, where he died on Nov. 1.
Durand's principal work is the Speculum judiciale, which was drawn up in 1271, and revised in 1286 and 1291 (best ed. Turin, 1578). It is a general explanation of civil, criminal and canonical procedure, and also includes a survey of the subject of contracts. It is a remarkable synthesis of Roman and ecclesiastical law, dis tinguished by its clarity, its method, and especially its practical sense, in a field in which it was pioneer, and its repute was as lasting in the courts as in the schools. His Rationale divinorum officiorum, on the origin and symbolic sense of the Christian rit ual, written before 1286, is one of the authorities on the Western liturgy (latest ed. Naples, 1866) . The other important works of Durand comprise a Repertorium juris canonici (Breviarium aur eum), a collection of citations from canonists on questions of controversy, a Commentarius in sacrosanctum Lugdunense con cilium (ed. 1569), of especial value owing to the share of Durand in the elaboration of the constitutions of this council (1274), and inserted by Boniface VIII. in the Sextus.
Durand's nephew, also named GUILLAUME DURAND (d. 1330), and also a canonist, was rector of the university of Toulouse and succeeded his uncle as bishop of Mende. He wrote in 1311, in connection with the Council of Vienne, De modo celebrandi con cilii et corruptelis in Ecclesia ref ormandis.
On the elder Durand see V. Leclerc in Histoire litteraire de la France, vol. xx. pp. 411-497 (1842) ; Schulte, Geschichte der Quellen des canonischen Rechts (1877) ; E. Male, L'Art religieux au siecle en France (1898) . On the nephew see B. Haureau, in Journal des savants (1892) .