Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mara, William de
MARA, WILLIAM DE (fl. 1280), Franciscan, probably studied at Oxford before he went to Paris, where he came under the influence of Bonaventura and Roger Bacon. In 1284 he published a criticism of Thomas Aquinas, called ' Correct orium,' or 'Reprehensorium,' the substance of which has been printed several times (at Strasburg, 1501 ; Cordova, 1701, &c.) with the reply to it under the name of Ægidius Colonna. William argues that, as the 'principium individuationis' is, according to the Thomists, matter, and not form, individuality, according to them, ceases to exist as soon as the soul leaves the body; in other words, the Dominican school supported the Averroistic heresy of the universal soul. William also wrote in favour of a strict observance of the rule of St. Francis. He died before 1310, when he was classed with Bonaventura, Peckham, and others among the 'solemn masters' of the order. Among his extant works are: 'Quæstiones de Natura Virtutis,' Burney MS. Brit. Museum, 358; and 'Commentaries on the first three books of the Sentences,' manuscripts of which are in the Laurentian Library at Florence, formerly in the Franciscan library of Santa Croce.
[Hist. Litt. de France, xxi. 299; Haureau's Philosophie Scolastique, ii. 99, 1880; Bartholomew of Pisa's Liber Conformitatum, fol. 81; Wadding's Supplementum ad Scriptores, p. 323; Charles's Roger Bacon, p. 240; Analecta Franciscana, ii. 115.]