| William Of Saint-amour |
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| 1200 births | |
| 1272 deaths | |
| french writers | |
| medieval writers | |
| scholastic philosophers | |
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William of Saint-Amour was a minor figure in thirteenth-century Scholasticism , chiefly notable for his withering attacks on the Friars . BIOGRAPHY William was born in Saint-Amour, then part of the Duchy Of Burgundy , in c. 1200. Under the patronage of the Count Of Savoy , he was active at the University Of Paris from the 1220s, becoming master of arts in 1228. From a reference in a letter by Gregory IX , it is evident that he had become a doctor of Canon Law by 1238. By 1250 he had been made master of Theology . His principal works of this period are ''In Priora Analytica'' and ''In Posteriora Analytica'', both commentaries on Aristotle . The controversy on which his fame rests began in earnest in the 1250s. The encroachment of the newly formed . Alexander was cardinal protector of the Franciscans and therefore unlikely to side with the seculars: he promptly overturned the restrictions imposed by his predecessor, allowing the friars to be readmitted to Paris. Hostilities resumed immediately, and William began to produce some of his most sustained and vitriolic sermons and treatises. As might be expected, his campaign against the regulars was not tolerated for long. In 1255 Pope Alexander ordered an inquiry into William's orthodoxy, resulting in his suspension from all teaching and administrative duties. In 1256 William produced ''De periculis novissimorum temporum'' (On the Dangers of the Final Days), a vicious tirade against the friars, and the culmination of his antifraternal thought. This ridiculed the more extreme eschatological speculations of some friars (e.g., Gerard Da Burgo Santo Donnino , author of the ''Introductorius de Evangelium Aeternum''), who alleged that the fraternal orders would usher in the third and final age of the world, a glorious era of the Holy Spirit . ''De Periculis'' implied that the friars would indeed be instrumental in precipitating the end of the world, but only because they would facilitate the coming of the Antichrist . The treatise attracted written opposition from Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus , both Dominican friars, and was examined by a curial committee. In 1257 Alexander ordered it to be burned: he also excommunicated William, and exiled him from France. Upon Alexander's death in 1266, William returned to Paris, although does not appear to have been reinstated at the university. He died at Burgundy in September 1272. ''DE PERICULIS NOVISSIMORUM TEMPORUM'' William's major work had an influence far beyond the compass of his own lifetime. It has some claim to being one of the most important works of the High Middle Ages , acting as the fountainhead of a long polemical tradition. Its most important section consists of thirty-nine 'signa' by which 'false Apostles' may be known: in some versions, this list is increased to forty-one. Although it is never openly stated, these 'signs' also describe the behaviour of friars. The signs are, in order:
William decorates these imputations with various allusions to the Benedictine Rule , the Pauline Epistles and Acts Of The Apostles . The friars are variously likened to ravening wolves (''lupi graves''), stealers into people's homes (''penetrantes domos''), idlers and meddlers (''otiosos et curiosos''), aimless wanderers (''gyrovaguos'') and, most recurrently, false preachers (''pseudo-praedicatores''). In Penn Szittya's phrase, this set of accusations and themes formed an enduring 'symbolic language', one that persisted among the friars' opponents for the next three centuries. In France , William's attacks were reiterated in the Parisian disputes of 1354 , when two prominent bishops delivered diatribes against the friars; they also directly stimulated the satires of Rutebeuf and Jean De Meun . In Ireland , his arguments formed the backbone of Richard Fitzralph 's ''Defensio Curatorum'', a much-copied and widely circulated sermon of 1350. In Scotland , Dunbar and Robert Henryson drew on William's motifs; in Germany , the Lutheran pamphleteers Johann Eberlin Von Gunzburg and Heinrich Spelt made much use of his ideas. William's work proved especially influential in England, where one of his earliest supporters, a Master Laurence, appears to have been active. The work of Langland , John Gower and Chaucer directly echoes ''De Periculis'', while its key ideas were assimilated into Lollard ideology from Wyclif onwards (see especially Pierce The Ploughman's Crede ). William's ideas even re-emerge in the Protestant writings of William Tyndale , John Bale and John Foxe , whose ''Actes and Monuments'' quotes ''De Periculis'' in its entirety. Although his own struggle against the friars ended in abject failure, William's legacy was thus extremely far-reaching. He powerfully stigmatised one of the dominant factions in the late medieval church, providing generations of critics with an arsenal of ready-made indictments. REFERENCES AND EXTERNAL LINKS
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