University of Lyon

History[edit]

Lyon has historically been an industrious and mercantile city, oriented towards free trade and commerce due to its geographical location: at the confluence of the Saône and Rhône rivers, near Switzerland and Italy, on the route between northern and southern Europe. Primarily a merchant city under the Ancien Régime, Lyon does not have a long university history: this delay is partly due to the fear that education would divert young people from commerce and industry.^[2] The first modern higher education institution in Lyon was established in 1519 under the initiative of the Brotherhood of the Trinity (Confrérie de la Trinité). On 21 July 1527, following its success, the institution came under the control of the Lyon municipality, which then assumed financial responsibility for it. The institution became the Collège Confrérie de la Trinité. It was the first coeducational institution, notably welcoming poets Louise Labé and Pernette du Guillet during the Renaissance. In the 16th century, this university college was an influential humanist centre. Amidst the religious wars between Catholic and Huguenots, the director of the institution, the poet Barthélemy Aneau, was massacred in 1561, accused of sympathising with the Reformation. In 1565, Pope Pius IV confirmed the transfer of the college’s administration to the Jesuits, a transfer later validated in 1568 by King Charles IX of France. The college expanded in the 17th century, with the works financed by Queen Anne of Austria. Besides a theatre, a library, and an observatory, the Collège de la Trinité incorporated numerous buildings not primarily intended for education, including eight congregation chapels. To construct buildings specifically for boarders, the Jesuits began acquiring properties from the 1680s onwards, with acquisitions peaking between 1712 and 1713. In 1702, an astronomical observatory was built atop the Trinity Chapel, driven by astronomer Jean de Saint-Bonnet. In 1763, following the suppression of the Jesuit order in France, the Lyon municipality ordered the institution’s takeover by the Oratorian order. Like all universities and higher education institutions of the Ancien Régime, the Collège de la Trinité was abolished by the National Convention on 15 September 1793 during the Revolution, on the grounds that they were too aristocratic and did not align with the revolutionaries' vision of public education accessible to all.


In 1806, Napoleon I established the University of France, an institution that centralised all faculties in France. Ephemeral faculties of arts and sciences were created in Lyon during this period but were abolished during the Bourbon Restoration in 1815. At the beginning of the 19th century, it had a total of 2,551 students, making it the largest university in the country after Paris. The modern faculties, ancestors of the University of Lyon, were established under the July Monarchy: the Faculty of Sciences of Lyon opened its doors in 1833, the Faculty of Letters in 1838, the Faculty of Theology in 1839 (transformed into the Catholic Faculty in 1885), the Faculty of Law in 1875 by decree of President Mac Mahon, and the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy in 1877. The law of 10 July 1896 formally created the University of Lyon, composed of these faculties. Each faculty maintained a high degree of autonomy despite sharing what was then known as the Palais des Facultés, now the Palais Hirsch, located on the left bank of the Rhône at Quai Claude-Bernard. By 1920, Lyon had over 3,500 university students, making it the second largest university in the country after Paris, which had 17,000 students.^[3] The University of Lyon in this centralised form existed until 1968.


As with all universities in France, following the events of May 1968, the University of Lyon was replaced by autonomous faculties. The Edgar Faure law aimed to grant greater autonomy to faculties and break with the highly centralised vision that had governed higher education in France since 1896. The law provided a legal status of autonomy to the faculties, that of "public establishments of a scientific and cultural nature." The University of Lyon was then divided into three autonomous entities: University Lyon-I - Claude Bernard (former faculty of medicine and pharmacy, now a university of sciences), University Lyon-II - Lumière (former faculty of letters, now a university dedicated to the humanities, social sciences, and arts), and University Lyon-III - Jean Moulin (former faculty of law, now a university dedicated to law and political science). The University of Sciences Lyon-I is named Claude Bernard in honour of this eminent physiologist and scientist; the University of Lyon-II is named Lumière in reference to the brothers Louis and Auguste Lumière, the inventors of cinema; the University Lyon-III is named Jean Moulin in honour of the prefect and resistance leader during World War II, who unified the French Resistance and died under torture by the Gestapo in Lyon in 1943.