GOTHOFRED, or GODFREY, DENIS or DIONYSIUS, an eminent civil lawyer, born of an illustrious house at Paris in 1549. Finding his country involved in the confusion of the leaguers, he accepted of a professor's chair at Geneva, until he was patronized and employed by Henry IV.; but being afterwards stripped of his employments as a Huguenot, he at length retired to Heidelberg, from whence no offers were able to detach him. He was, however, disappointed of his intention to end his days there; for the disturbances that broke out in the Palatinate obliged him, in 1621, to take refuge in Strasburgh, where he died the following year. He wrote a great number of books; but his principal work is the Corpus Juris Civilis, cum notis.