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The Court of the Paris Arts Faculty probably came into being during the 15th century, to make apply rulesas a body for enforcing regulations and to resolving internal conflicts. Consisting of the rector and four proctors from the student nations, all of whom were elected, it represented all faculty members. However, from the late 17th century, teaching staff from the humanities colleges took control of the institution and excluded students. It then became a corporate body which controlled admission to the teaching staff and defended the collective and individual interests of regent masters, particularly against the principals, who failed to impose their authority. During the last decades of the Ancien Régime, the court became a kind of permanent academic council, responsible for administering certain university foundations and entering into dialogue with the authorities. By tracing the history of this medieval university institution, the article emphasises the teaching staff's success in mobilising and overhauling a traditional structure so as to set itself apart from the students, put up effective resistance to the emerging authority of principals and assert its own identity and interests.