Guy Coquille also called Conchyleus, 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...

 jurist.

He studied the humanities

Humanities

The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....

 in the Collège de Navarre

Collège de Navarre

The College of Navarre was one of the colleges of the historic University of Paris, rivaling the Sorbonne and renowned for its library. It was founded by Queen Joan I of Navarre in 1305, who provided for three departments, the arts with 20 students, philosophy with 30 and theology with 20...

, Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, from 1532 to 1539, and then law in Padua

Padua

Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...

 and Orléans

Orléans

-Prehistory and Roman:Cenabum was a Gallic stronghold, one of the principal towns of the Carnutes tribe where the Druids held their annual assembly. It was conquered and destroyed by Julius Caesar in 52 BC, then rebuilt under the Roman Empire...

. Coquille took up the practice of law in Paris in 1550, and moved to Nevers

Nevers

Nevers is a commune in – and the administrative capital of – the Nièvre department in the Bourgogne region in central France...

 in 1559, where he worked as an advocate for the Parlement

Parlement

Parlements were regional legislative bodies in Ancien Régime France.The political institutions of the Parlement in Ancien Régime France developed out of the previous council of the king, the Conseil du roi or curia regis, and consequently had ancient and customary rights of consultation and...

. He represented the Third Estate of his province in the States-General

French States-General

In France under the Old Regime, the States-General or Estates-General , was a legislative assembly of the different classes of French subjects. It had a separate assembly for each of the three estates, which were called and dismissed by the king...

 of 1560, 1576 and 1588, and served as procureur fiscal of the Duke of Nevers from 1571 on.

Coquille's writings were all published posthumously. They include the Institutions au droit des Francois, ou Nouvelle Conférence des Coutumes de France (1607) and the Questions et responses sur les Coutumes de France (1611). These works attempted to cover the laws of France comprehensively without respect to their origin in the common law or in Roman law, a novel approach that first emerged in the legal writing of 16th century France, and later in that of other European countries as well.