——. The Trinity, or, The First Principle = De Trinitate, seu De
primo principio, trans. Roland j. Teske and Francis C. Wade.
Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1989.
Bernstein, A.E. “Esoteric Theology: William of Auvergne on the
Fires of Hell and Purgatory.” Speculum 57 (1982): 509–31.
Marrone, Steven P. William of Auvergne and Robert Grosseteste:
New Ideas of Truth in the Early 13th Century. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1983.
Quentin, Albrecht. Naturkenntnisse und Naturanschauungen bei
Wilhelm von Auvergne. Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1976.
Rohls, Jan. Wilhelm von Auvergne und der mittelalterliche
Aristotelismus: Gottesbegriff und aristotelische Philosophie
zwischen Augustin und Thomas von Aquin. Munich: Kaiser,
1980.
Valois, Noel. Guillaume d’Auvergne, évêque de Paris (1228–
1249 ), sa vie et ses ouvrages. Paris: Picard, 1880.
Lesley J. Smith
WILLIAM OF CONCHES
(ca. 1085–ca. 1154)
Named by John of Salisbury as one of his teachers, Wil-
liam is most often associated with the so-called School
of Chartres, as a student of Bernard of Chartres and a
master there, although Richard W. Southern has called
into question whether William actually taught at Char-
tres, as opposed to Paris. John of Salisbury calls Wil-
liam a grammarian, and much of William’s extant work
is in the form of glosses on authoritative texts widely
used in the schools. He glossed Boethius’s De consola-
tione Philosophiae, Macrobius’s In somnium Scipionis,
Plato’s Timaeus, Priscian’s Institutiones grammaticae,
and Juvenal. He may be the author of Moralium dogma
philosophorum. His gloss on De consolatione identifi ed
the World Soul with the Holy Spirit, although the gloss
on the Timaeus presents the World Soul as a concept
with many hidden meanings. William’s glosses on
Macrobius and the Timaeus analyze the nature of fabula
and integumentum as these apply to the “cloaking” of
philosophical and theological truth in words and images
in literary texts and imaginative narratives. William’s
interest in physics and cosmology is revealed in his
Philosophia mundi (entitled Dragmaticon in a later
revision), a systematic treatment of physical, cosmo-
logical, geographical, and meteorological phenomena
and questions, summing up scientifi c knowledge in the
era before the translation of Aristotle’s scientifi c works.
He sought to discern the true workings of nature and
shunned “miraculous” explanations, even for biblical
events, when a more straightforward explanation might
be found. William made use of translations-adaptations
of medical works from the Arabic, such as Constantine
the African’s Pantegni.
See also John of Salisbury; Macrobius;
Martianus Capella
Further Reading
William of Conches. Glosae in luvenalem, ed. Bradford Wilson.
Paris: Vrin, 1980.
——. Glosae super Platonem, ed. Édouard Jeauneau. Paris:
Vrin, 1965.
——. Philosophia, ed. Gregor Maurach with Heidemarie Telle.
Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1980.
——. Das Moralium dogma philosophorum des Guillaume de
Conches, lateinisch, altfranzösich und mittelnieder-frankisch,
ed. John Holmberg. Uppsala: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1929.
Gregory, Tullio. Anima mundi: la fi losofi a de Guglielmo di
Conches e la scuola di Chartres. Florence: Sansoni, 1955.
Häring, Nikolaus M. “Commenatry and Hermeneutics.” In Re-
naissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. Robert L.
Benson and Giles Constable with Carol D. Lanham. Cam-
bridge: Harvard University Press, 1982, pp. 173–200.
Jeauneau, Édouard. “Deux rédactions des gloses de Guillaume
de Conches sur Priscien.” Recherches de théologie ancienne
et médiévale 27 (1960): 212–47.
——. “Lectio philosophorum”: recherches sur l’École de Char-
tres. Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1973.
Parent, Joseph-Marie. La doctrine de la création dans l’École de
Chartres: études et textes. Paris: Vrin, 1938.
Southern, Richard W. Platonism, Scholastic Method, and the
School of Chartres. Reading: University of Reading, 1979.
Wetherbee, Winthrop. Platonism and Poetry in the Twelfth
Century: The Literary Infl uence of the School of Chartres.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972.
Grover A. ZinnWILLIAM OF OCKHAM (ca. 1285–1347)
Philosopher and Franciscan theologian. William studied
in London and Oxford. His writings include commentar-
ies on the Sentences of Peter Lombard and lectures on
Aristotle’s logic and physics and refl ect the infl uence of
his fellow Franciscan John Duns Scotus (d. 1308).
Ockham was an outstanding dialectician and theolo-
gian, but his outspoken views were not without contro-
versy. Although summoned in 1324 to the papal court
at Avignon to justify his teaching on transubstantiation,
there was no formal condemnation of his doctrines. His
study of the papal constitutions on apostolic poverty led
to his involvement in the debate over Franciscan poverty
and the attack on John XXII (1316–34) as a heretic.
Under the protection of Emperor Louis IV of Bavaria,
the political opponent of the pope, Ockham wrote sev-
eral political works, including the Dialogue, where he
discussed his views on the errors of the papacy and its
rights with respect to the Holy Roman Empire.
Ockham’s doctrines marked a turning point in the his-
tory of philosophy and theology. He held that logic was
separate from theology, that they are both true, and that
they represent different kinds of truth. Thus theology
cannot be proved by logic. This via moderna (“modern
way”) marked the separation between faith and reason
and was a hallmark of late-medieval philosophy.WILLIAM OF AUVERGNE