Note 30 — Book I. LETTERS TO MAXIMILIAN.

The Sorbonne was ‘a society or corporation of Doctors of Divinity settled in the University of Paris, and famous all over Europe. It was founded by the French King St. Lewis, and Ralph de Sorbonne, his confessor, a Canon of the Church of Paris, who gave it its name from the village of Sorbonne, near Lyons, which was the place of his nativity.’—World of Words.

Their determination, dated July 2, 1530, is given by Holinshed, Chronicles, iii. 924. It is to the effect that ‘the foresaid marriage with the brother’s wife, departing without children, be so forbidden both by the law of God and of nature, that the Pope hath no power to dispense with such mariages, whether they be contract or to be contract.’ It was read to the House of Commons with the decisions of the other Universities, March 30, 1531.