Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pagula, William

by James Gainsborough Fotheringham

PAGULA, WILLIAM (d. 1350?), theologian, whose name is also given as Pagham, Paghaner, and Paghanerus, had a great reputation among his contemporaries for piety and erudition. After having obtained his degrees in canon and civil law and in theology, he became vicar of the church of Winkfield, near Windsor (1330), where he devoted his time to study and writing. He wrote:

1. ‘Summa summarum de jure canonico pariter ac divino,’ lib. v.
2. ‘Oculum sacerdotis dextrum,’ lib. i.
3. ‘Oculum sacerdotis sinistrum,’ called also ‘De ignorantia sacerdotum’ (cf. MS. in Balliol College, Oxford, Codex 80, with an addition entitled ‘Cilium oculi sacerdotis,’ which treats of confession, absolution, and the sacrifice of the mass).
4. ‘Speculum Religiosorum,’ lib. i., dedicated to Edward III.

Manuscript copies of his writings are to be found in the college libraries at Cambridge and Oxford, at Lambeth, and in other cathedral libraries, but none of them seem to have been printed. He died about 1350, and was buried in his church.

Walter Harris, in his edition of Ware's ‘Works’ (i. 146), confuses Pagula with William de Paul [q. v.], bishop of Meath. Alegre, in his ‘History of the Carmelites,’ carefully distinguishes between the two. Oudin seeks to identify Pagula with Walter Parker (Gualterus Parchero), to whom Pits ascribes the same works as to Pagula, but to whom he gives a separate notice in his appendix, No. 10. Pits states that he has been unable to ascertain the time in which Parker lived.

[Pits, De Illustr. Angliæ Scriptt. p. 476; Fabricius, Bibl. Latin., v. 181; Oudin, De Scriptt. Eccles. iii. 867; Ware, De Scriptt. Hib. ed. Walter Harris; Paradisus Carmelitici Decoris a Alegre de Casanate, Lyons, 1639; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 578; Notes and Queries, 8th ser. viii. 203.]

J. G. F.