Lesley J.Smith
[See also: ABÉLARD, PETER; ANSELM OF LAON; PHILOSOPHY; SAINT-
VICTOR, ABBEY AND SCHOOL OF]
Green-Pedersen, Neils J. “William of Champeaux on Boethius’ Topics According to Orléans Bibl.
Mun. 266.” Cahiers de l’Institut du Moyen Âge Grec et Latin 13(1974):13–30.
Fredborg, Karin M. “The Commentaries on Cicero’s De inventione and Rhetorica ad Herennium
by William of Champeaux.” Cahiers de l’Institut du Moyen Âge Grec et Latin 17(1976): 1–39.
Jolivet, Jean. “Données sur Guillaume de Champeaux dialecticien et théologien.” In L’abbaye
parisienne de Saint-Victor au moyen âge, ed. Jean Longère. Turnhout: Brepols, 1991, pp. 235–
51.
Tweedale, Martin M. “Logic (i): From the Late Eleventh Century to the Time of Abelard.” In A
History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy, ed. Peter Dronke. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1988, pp. 196–226.
Weisweller, Heinrich. “L’école d’Anselme de Laon et de Guillaume de Champeaux.” Recherches
de théologie ancienne et mé-diévale 4(1932):237–69, 371–91.
WILLIAM OF CONCHES
(ca. 1085–ca. 1154). Named by John of Salisbury as one of his teachers, William 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 Chartres, as opposed to Paris. John of Salisbury calls William
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 consolatione
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 conso-latione identified 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 “cloak-ing” 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,
cosmological, geographical, and meteorological phenomena and questions, summing up
scientific knowledge in the era before the translation of Aristotle’s scientific 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.
Grover A.Zinn
[See also: BOETHIUS, INFLUENCE OF; CHARTRES; MACROBIUS,
INFLUENCE OF; MARTIANUS CAPELLA; PLATO, INFLUENCE OF; SCHOOLS,
CATHEDRAL]
William of Conches. Glosae in Iuvenalem, ed. Bradford Wilson. Paris: Vrin, 1980.
The Encyclopedia 1849