Abstract
William of Champeaux (d. 1122) is best known as the leading master of dialectic (which included logic, grammar, and rhetoric) at Notre Dame when his more famous student, Peter Abelard, came there to study. William allegedly stopped teaching at that centre around 1108, shortly after his realist defenses on the controversial topic of the status of universals were attacked by Abelard, and he took up as a canon regular at the monastery at Saint Victor (Abelard 1967); there is no historical evidence to support the oft-repeated claim that William founded that famous monastery and school, his name is not found among the writings of the Victorines, and upon his death he was buried elsewhere, at Clairvaux (Mews 2001). William’s educational background in dialectic is unknown, but he studied under and taught with Anselm of Laon, and their theological work is preserved in the Liber pancrisis (Lottin 1959), the first known work to publish together the writings of both modern, practicing theologians and patristic sources. After his retirement from teaching, William eventually became Bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne, and belonged to circles of ecclesiastical influence (Mews, forthcoming).
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Cameron, M. (2011). William of Champeaux. In: Lagerlund, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9729-4_532
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