William of champeaux biography of martin

William of Champeaux was, like St. Anselm, an opponent of the nominalism of Roscelin. He was born at Champeaux, a village near Melun, about the year At an early age he repaired to Paris to study under the renowned Alsatian teacher Manegold of Lautenbach.

William of Champeaux (born c.

Anselm of Canterbury at that time presided. In he was summoned to Paris, was made archdeacon, and appointed to the chair of philosophy in the cathedral school. In he retired to the monastery of St. Victor, where he continued his career as a teacher and gave the initiative to the mystic movement which is associated with that abbey. He died in William of Champeaux enjoyed among his contemporaries a very high reputation for learning and sanctity.

He was known as the Columna Doctorum ; according to Abelard, he was re et fama praecipuus ; and when he died it was said that "the light of the Word of God was extinguished on earth. Of the philosophical writings of William of Champeaux we possess merely some fragments: a portion of the work De Origine Animae , published by Martene, and forty-two fragments discovered at Troyes by Ravaisson, portions also of a Liber Sententiarum and a Dialogus seu Altercatio Cujusdam Christiani etJudaei.

William of Champeaux (d.

Michaud's Guillaume de Champeaux Paris, is an excellent study of our philosopher and his times. According to Abelard, William maintained that the universal is wholly and essentially present in each individual: Erat autem ea sententia ut eamdem essentialiter rem totam simul singulis suis inesse adstrueret individuis; quorum quidem nulla esset in essentia diversitas sed sola multitudine accidentium varietas.

This is the thesis of realism.