power in England, restore ducal authority in Normandy, and reunite his father’s empire,
which fell to his younger brother, Henry I.
Robert S.Babcock
[See also: ROBERT (DUKES OF NORMANDY); WILLIAM I THE CONQUERER]
Barlow, Frank. William Rufus. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
Freeman, Edward A. The Reign of William Rufus and the Accession of Henry. Oxford: Clarendon,
1882.
WILLIAM OF AUVERGNE
(William of Paris; 1180/90–1249). Born in Aurillac in the Auvergne, William was canon
of Notre-Dame in Paris by 1223, regent master at Paris in 1225, and bishop of Paris in
- A secular master himself, William was, however, an early champion of the
mendicant orders, allowing Roland of Cremona to hold the first Dominican chair in
theology (1229). Known for his fairness and good sense, he was confessor to Blanche of
Castile and friend and adviser to Louis IX.
William left a vast corpus of works in encyclopedic style, including a series of tracts
sometimes called his Magisterium divinale (1123–40), which included De universo, Cur
Deus homo, De fide et legibus, and De Trinitate. His De vitiis et virtutibus rivaled that of
William Peraldus (the two men were often confused) in popularity. One of the first
theorists of Purgatory, he was also among the first theological users of Aristotle in Paris,
and he sought out texts of Avicenna, Maimonides’s Guide, Avicebrol, and others in the
service of orthodox belief.
Lesley J.Smith
[See also: ARABIC PHILOSOPHY, INFLUENCE OF; ARISTOTLE, INFLUENCE
OF; MAGIC; PURGATORY; THEOLOGY; UNIVERSITIES]
William of Auvergne. Opera omnia. 2 vols. Paris: Andraeas Pralard, 1674; repr. Frankfurt am
Main: Minerva, 1963.
——. De Trinitate, ed. Bruno Switalski. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1976.
——. The Immortality of the Soul=De immortalitate animae, trans. Roland J.Teske. Milwaukee:
Marquette University Press, 1991.
——. 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.
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