Guillaume Durand was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 clergyman, a nephew of a more famous Guillaume Durand

Guillaume Durand

Guillaume Durand, or William Durand, , also known as Durandus, Duranti or Durantis, from the Italian form of Durandi filius, as he sometimes signed himself, was a French canonist and liturgical writer, and Bishop of Mende.-Life:He was born at Puimisson, near Béziers, of a noble family of Languedoc...

, nicknamed "The Speculator".

Like his uncle, he was a canonist, was rector of the University of Toulouse

University of Toulouse

The Université de Toulouse is a consortium of French universities, grandes écoles and other institutions of higher education and research, named after one of the earliest universities established in Europe in 1229, and including the successor universities to that earlier university...

 and succeeded his uncle as Bishop of Mende.
Pope John XXII and Charles IV of France

Charles IV of France

Charles IV, known as the Fair , was the King of France and of Navarre and Count of Champagne from 1322 to his death: he was the last French king of the senior Capetian lineage....

 sent him on an embassy to the Sultan

Sultan

Sultan is a title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who...

 Orkhan (1326–1360) at Brusa

Brusa

Brusa may refer to:*Brusa, historical name of the city Bursa in Turkey*1943 BRUSA Agreement between the British and American governments in cypher cracking*Brusa , a genus of butterfly in the grass skipper family...

, to obtain more favourable conditions for the Latins in Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

. He died on the way back, in Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

 (1328 or 1330).

Works

He wrote in 1311, by command of Clement V and in connection with the Council of Vienne

Council of Vienne

The Council of Vienne was the fifteenth Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church that met between 1311 and 1312 in Vienne. Its principal act was to withdraw papal support for the Knights Templar on the instigation of Philip IV of France.-Background:...

, De modo celebrandi concilii et corruptelis in Ecclesia reformandis, in three books. It attacks the abuses of the Church with extreme sincerity and vigour. It is a treatise on the canonical process of summoning and holding general councils, gathered from approved sources with many quotations and illustrations from the Church Fathers

Church Fathers

The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were early and influential theologians, eminent Christian teachers and great bishops. Their scholarly works were used as a precedent for centuries to come...

 and from church history, together with attacks on various abuses and corruptions that were common in the fourteenth century among ecclesiastical persons. This treatise illustrates the role of traditional ideas in the formation of conciliarism

Conciliarism

Conciliarism, or the conciliar movement, was a reform movement in the 14th, 15th and 16th century Roman Catholic Church which held that final authority in spiritual matters resided with the Roman Church as a corporation of Christians, embodied by a general church council, not with the pope...

, the idea that a church council could regulate the papacy.

The first edition was printed at Lyons in 1531, then again at Paris by Philip Probus, a canonist of Bourges, in 1545, and dedicated to Pope Paul III

Pope Paul III

Pope Paul III , born Alessandro Farnese, was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1534 to his death in 1549. He came to the papal throne in an era following the sack of Rome in 1527 and rife with uncertainties in the Catholic Church following the Protestant Reformation...

 as a help towards the Council of Trent

Council of Trent

The Council of Trent was the 16th-century Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church. It is considered to be one of the Church's most important councils. It convened in Trent between December 13, 1545, and December 4, 1563 in twenty-five sessions for three periods...

. Other editions, Paris, 1671, etc.