Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Exeter, William of
EXETER, WILLIAM of, a name belonging, as it seems, to more than one person commemorated by biographers: 1. The author of certain ‘Determinationes’ against Ockham, ‘De Mendicitate, contra fratres,’ ‘Pro Ecclesiæ Paupertate,’ and ‘De Generatione Christi,’ who is said to have been a doctor of divinity and canon of Exeter, and who may be presumed to have written between about 1320 and 1340. 2. The author of a course of sermons on the Beatitudes, who must have flourished much earlier than the above-named William, since the Laudian manuscript of his work (Laud. MS., Miscell. 368, f. 106, Bodl. Libr.) cannot be later than the beginning of the thirteenth century; yet this writer's death is placed by Wood in 1365. 3. A third William of Exeter was physician to Queen Philippa, and held a variety of church preferments, which are enumerated by Tanner; among them was the precentorship of Lincoln. He is said to have graduated in arts, medicine, and theology, but no writings are assigned to him.
[Bale MS. Selden, supra, 64, f. 52, Bodl. Libr.; Scriptt. Brit. Cat. v. 33, p. 405; Pits, De Angl. Scriptt. 426; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 356 et seq.]