Ockham is usually associated with the rule of “Ock-
hams razor.” Known also as the law of parsimony or
economy, the dictum became a foundation stone of
scientifi c method: the simpler a theory or explanation
is, the less chance for error.
Ockham died 10 April 1347 in Munich and was
buried in the Franciscan church. His nominalist phi-
losophy, which emphasized the fundamental reality of
individually existing things, and his political theory on
the limitation of papal power, were to be highly infl u-
ential in Reformation thought.
See also Duns Scotus, John
Further Reading
Courtenay, William J. “Nominalism and Late Medieval Thought:
A Bibliographical Essay.” Theological Studies 33 (1972):
716–34
Courtenay, William J. “Late Medieval Nominalism Revisited:
1972–1982.” Journal of the History of Ideas 44 (1983):
159–64
Leff, Gordon. William of Ockham: The Metamorphosis of
Scholastic Discourse. Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 1975
William of Ockham. Philosophical Writings: A Selection. Ed. and
trans. Philotheus Bohner. Edinburgh: Nelson, 1957.
Phyllis B. Roberts
WILLIAM OF SAINT-AMOUR
(ca. 1200–1272)
William is now chiefl y remembered for his ferocious
campaign against the mendicant orders. We know noth-
ing of his life until he became master of arts in Paris (by
1228). By November 1238, he had received the doctorate
in canon law and was also canon of Beauvais and rector
of Guerville. He went on to study theology in Paris and
ca. 1250 was a regent master.
From about this time, William began his attacks on
the mendicant way of life, and it was through his infl u-
ence that the Dominicans were suspended from teaching
in 1254 for having in effect broken the closed shop of
masters by ignoring the suspension of classes in the
previous year and continuing to teach.
William never substantially amended his views on
the mendicants, and his subsequent fate depended on
who was pope at the time. Innocent IV (r. 1243–54)
was sympathetic, and he fl ourished. Alexander IV (r.
1254–61) was cardinal protector of the Franciscans,
and William was deprived of his privileges and expelled
from France. Clement IV, although disagreeing, allowed
him to return to Saint-Amour, where he died. His most
famous polemical work is De periculis novissimorum
temporum (1256).
Further Reading
Douie, Decima L. The Confl ict Between the Seculars and the
Mendicants at the University of Paris in the Thirteenth Cen-
tury. London: Blackfriars, 1954.
Dufeil, M.M. Guillaume de Saint-Amour et la polémique univer-
sitaire parisienne, 1250–1259. Paris: Picard, 1972.
Lesley J. SmithWILLIAM OF SAINT-THIERRY
(1070/90–1148)
Born in Liège, William of Saint-Thierry studied at the
schools of Reims and perhaps at Laon under Anselm
of Laon, where he may have met Peter Abélard. For
unknown reasons, he renounced his studies and in
1113 became a monk in the Benedictine monastery of
Saint-Nicasius in Reims. In 1118, he became abbot of
Saint-Thierry, near Reims. As a close friend and admirer
of Bernard of Clairvaux, he wished to change orders
and become a Cistercian. However, Bernard dissuaded
him until 1135, when William became a monk in the
newly founded Cistercian monastery of Signy, where
he died in 1148.
On several occasions, William encouraged Bernard’s
literary activities. Bernard’s early work, the Apologia,
a fi erce attack on the traditional Benedictine monastic
lifestyle, was written at William’s request and dedicated
to him. About 1138, William, shocked by the theological
audacity of Abélard, persuaded Bernard to oppose him,
adding to his request a list of Abélard’s errors, published
as the Disputatio adversus Abaelardum. Bernard’s
intervention resulted in Abélard’s condemnation at the
Council of Sens in 1141. William was also instrumental
in bringing about Bernard’s famous series of sermons
on the Song of Songs. When both were ill, they spent
some time together in the infi rmary of Clairvaux, talk-
ing about the Canticle. William also intended to write
a life of Bernard but completed only the fi rst book, the
so-called Sancti Bernardi vita prima.
William published many works on devotional and
exegetical themes, among which are the Expositio in
epistolam ad Romanos (in reaction to Abélard’s com-
mentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans), the Expositio
super Cantica canticorum (a commentary on the Song
of Songs), as well as two compilations on the Song of
Songs from the works of Ambrose and Gregory the
Great and a treatise on the relation between body and
soul (De natura corporis et animae). Author of De
natura et dignitate amoris and De contemplando Deo,
William is also considered to be the author of the famous
Epistola ad fratres de Monte Dei, about the solitary and
contemplative life.
For William, the act of faith is part of and subsumedWILLIAM OF SAINT-THIERRY