and which makes William from first to last a distinguished figure in the 'university' of that city.[1]
The meagre facts thus elicited concerning the philosopher's external biography are abundant in comparison with those recorded of his colleague at Chartres, Richard l'Évêque, whose virtues as a man and a scholar are, a celebrated in no ordinary terms by his pupil and friend, John of Salisbury. Richard, so far as is known, left no memorial as a writer. Unlike William he advanced from teaching to the active service of the church; he became archdeacon of Coutances, and finally in 1171 bishop of Avranches. The situation of his ministry brought him also into connexion with the house of Anjou, and it was his city of Avranches that witnessed the readmission of Henry the Second to the communion of the church after the murder of Thomas Becket. He died in 1182, the last survivor of the masters of Chartres.
Gilbert of La Porrée has a more important place in the philosophical history of the age even than William of Conches, partly because his studies lay in departments of learning to which a greater relative weight was attached, than to natural philosophy or grammar. A contemporary panegyrist proclaims him lacking in no one of the seven liberal arts, save only astronomy;[2] but in sober history he appears as a theologian and a dialectician. In dialectics he holds in one way a quite unique position; for
- ↑ Dr. Schaarschmidt, who was the first, I think, to combat this theory, is inclined, Johannes Saresberiensis 22, to question William's connexion with Paris at any time. The epitaph however, or rather the panegyric, upon him, which says,
Eius praeclaret natu Normannia, vie tu
Francia, Parisius corpore, mente polus,is stated to have been the composition of Philip Harveng, abbat of Bonne Espérance, who died perhaps thirty years after William: Du Boulay, Historia Universitatis Parisiensis 2. 743. It appears indeed that M. Charma disputes this evidence and discovers the philosopher's grave in a village near Evreux: see Hauréau, Singularités historiques et littéraires 266. This, if proved, would be a welcome solution of a vexed question.
- ↑
Temporibus nostris celeberrimus ille magister,
Logicus, ethicus hic, theologus atque sophista,
Solaque de septem cui defuit astronomia:—Du Boulay 2. 736.
