Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Binham, William
BINHAM or BYNHAM, WILLIAM (fl. 1370), theologian, was a native of Binham in Norfolk, where there was a Benedictine priory dependent on the abbey of St. Albans. Doubtless through this connection he entered the monastic profession at the abbey, and became ultimately prior of Wallingford, which was also a cell belonging to St. Albans. He had been a student at Oxford, of which university he is described as doctor of divinity, and had there come into close intimacy with John Wycliffe. Binham, however, remained true to the traditions of the church, and after a while separated himself from his friend, with whom at length he engaged in controversy, and proved, as the catholic Leland confesses, no match for his antagonist. His only recorded work was written on this occasion, 'Contra Positiones Wiclevi.' It is not known to be extant, but Wyclif's reply ('Contra Willelmum Vynham monachum S. Albani Determinatio') is preserved in a Paris manuscript, Lat. 3184, ff. 49–52 (Shirley, Catal. of the original Works of Wyclif, p. 20). The last notice of Binham's life occurs in 1396, when he, as prior of Wallingford, was detained by illness from attending the election of an abbot of St. Albans on 9 Oct. (Gesta Abbatum Monasterii S. Albani, iii. 426, ed. H. T. Riley, 1869).
[Leland's Comm. de Script. Brit. dcxxviii. p. 381; Bale's Script, Brit. Cat. vi. 5, p. 456; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 101.]