DURANDUS, GULIELMUS: French canonists. 1. Called “Speculator” after his chief work; b. at Puimisson, near Béziers, 1237; d. in Rome Nov. 1, 1296. Clement IV. made him his auditor-general, subdeacon, and chaplain; Gregory X., his secretary at the council of Lyons (1274); Nicholas III. sent him into the Romagna and to Bologna to receive their homage in his name (1278); Martin IV. made him spiritual legate in the Romagna (1281), and in 1283 rector-general. In 1286 he became bishop of Mende, southern France. His chief book was the Speculum iudiciale [Rome, 1474; latest ed., Frankfort, 1668]. Another useful book was his Rationale divinorum offlciorum, Augshurg, 1470 (Eng. transl. of the first book, The Symbolism of Churches and Church Ornaments, London, 1906).

 

2. His nephew succeeded him as bishop of Mendes, Dec. 18, 1296; d. there 1331. His book, De modo celebrandi concilii et corruptelis in ecclesia reformandis (in Tractatus illustrium Juris consultorum, XIII., I. 159 sqq., Venice, 1584), made quite a sensation in the Middle Ages.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. F. von Schulte, Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des canonischen Rechts, ii. 155-156, Stuttgart, 1877; KL, iv. 45-46; and preface to the Eng. transl. of the Rationale, 1906.