Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/606

 WALTER

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WALTER

Walter of Merton, Bishop of Rochester and founder of Merton College, Oxford, b. probably at Merton in Surrey, or educated there; hence the sur- name; d. 27 Oct., 1277. He came of a land-owning family at Basingstoke; beyond that there is no def- inite information as to the place or date of birth. We know that his mother was Christina Fitz-Ohver andhisfather William, and that in 1237 both parents were dead, and Walter was a clerk in Holy orders. In 12-11 Walter already held a number of hvings in various parts of the country; in 1256 he was an agent for the Bishop of Durham in a law-suit; in 1259 prebendary of St. Paul's, London; and in 1262 prebendary of Exeter and canon of Wells. Walter was also prothonotary of the chancery in 1258; and in 1261 Henry III made him chancellor, in place of Nicholas of Ely. It was in this same year that Walter first set aside two manors in Surrey for the priory at Merton, for the support of "scholars re- siding at the schools". This was the beginning of Merton College. In 1264 Walter drew up statutes for a "house of the scholars of Merton", at Maiden in Surrey; ten years later these scholars were trans- ferred to Oxford, and a permanent house established.

Merton College, thus founded and endowed by Walter, is the earhest example of collegiate hfe at Oxford. Walter's statutes provided for a common corporate hfe under the rule of a warden, but as vows were to be taken and scholars entering a religious order forfeited their scholarship, the college was really a place of training for the secular clergy. While labouring for the estafjlishment of Merton College, Walter was removed from the chancellorship when the barons triumphed in 1263, but was restored again on Henry Ill's death in 1272. He is mentioned as a justiciar in 1271, and three years later (21 Oct., 1274) he was consecrated Bishop of Rochester. While fording the Medway, Bishop Walter fell from his horse and died two days later from the effects of the accident. He wa.s buried in Rochester cathedral, and is described in the "Annales monastici" as a man of liberality and great worldly learning, ever ready in his assistance to the religious orders.

Annates monastici in R. S,: Flares historiarum in R. 5.," Hob- house, Sketch of the Life of Walter de Merton (1859); Brodrick, Memorial of Merton College, Oxf. Hist. Soc.; Foss, Judges of England; Kingsford in Diet. Nat. Biog., s. v. Merton, Walter de.

Joseph Clayton.

Walter of Mortagne, a twelfth-century Scholas- tic philosopher, and theologian, b. at Mortagne in Flanders in the first decade of the twelfth century; d. at Laon, 1174. He was educated in the schools of Tournai. From 1136 to 1144 he taught at the cele- brated School of St-Genevieve in Paris. From Paris he went to Laon and was made bishop of that see. His principal works are a treatise on the Holy Trinity and six "Opuscula". Of the "Opuscula" five are published in d'Ach(5ry's "Spicilegium" (Paris, 1723) and the sixth in P. L. (CLXXXVI, 1052). A logical commentary which is contained in MS. 17813 of the Bililiotheque Nationale and which was published in part by Haur6au in 1892 is also ascribed to him. Finally, there is extant a letter written by him to Abelard in which he ex-pounds the Platonic view that the body is an obstacle to the higher operations and aspirations of the soul. On the question of universals, Walter, according to John of Salisbury, was the leader of the Indifferent ists, according to whom the universal is in itself iniliffer- ent, but becomes the predicate of an indi\idual subject by the addition of various status, tliat is determinations or, at least, points of view. Socrates, for example, is an individual, a species (man), or a genus (animal) according to the xtntus, or point of view, which we adopt. The significant thing about this theory is that it exjjlicitly declares all real exis- tence to bo individual existence and implies that

whatever unity there is in the universal (specific or generic) is a product of thought. It is, therefore, a protest against the exaggerated reahsm of the school of William of Champeaux, and, at the same time, prepares the way for the moderate reahsm which was definitely formulated in the thirteenth century. P. L., CLXXXVI; d'Ach^rt, Spicilegium (Paris. 1723); Hau- R^AU, Notices et eztraits (Paris, 1892), 313; De Wulf, Hist, of Medieval Phil., tr. CoFFETl(New York, 1909), 188; Tukner, HiU. of Phil. (Beaton, 1903), 284.

WiLLiAJi Turner.

Walter of St- Victor, mystic philosopher and theologian of the twelfth century. Nothing is known about Walter except that (about the j'ear 1175) he was prior of the monastery of St- Victor near Paris, that about the time of the Third Lateran Council (1179) he wrote his celebrated polemic, "Contra cjuatuor lab\Tinthos Franciae", and that he died after the year 1180. Du Boulay in his "Hist. Univ. Paris." (1665) fir.st called attention to Walter's treatise and published excerpts from it (repubhshed in P. L., CXCIX). More recently Denifle has de- scribed the MS. and Geyer has published a critical text of the second book. The "four labyrinths" against whom the work is directed are Abelard, Gilbert de la PoiT^e, Peter Lombard, and Peter of Poitiers. It is a bitter attack on the dialectical method in theology, and condemns in no measured terms the use of logic in the elucidation of the mys- teries of faith. Walter is indignant at the thought of treating the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incar- nation "with scholastic levity". Discarding the best traditions of the School of St- Victor, he pours abuse on the philosophers, the theologians, and even the grammarians. "Thy grammar be with thee unto perdition", he cries. 'This violence, however, de- feated his purpose, which was to discredit the dialec- ticians. Not only did he fail to convince his con- temporaries, but he very probably hastened the tri- umph of the method which he attacked. Four years after his polemic was pubUshed, Peter of Poitiers, one of the "labyrintlis", was raised by the pope to the dignity of chancellor of the Diocese of Paris, and before the end of the decade Peter Lombard, another of the "labjTinths", was recognized as an authority in theolog\-, his method adopted in the schools, and his famous "Books of Sentences" used as a text and commented on by all the great teachers — a distinction which it retained all through the thir- teenth centur\-.

Dn B0UL.1Y, Hist. Univ. Paris.^ XT (Paris. 1665), 402 sqq.; Denifle, Archiv /. Literotur- und Kirchcngesch. des M..i., I, 44; Geyer, Die Sentenlia: Divinilatis (Miinstcr, 1909); GrabmanN, Gesch. diT schol. Melhode, II (Freiburg, 1911), 124.

William Turner.

Walter of Winterbum, an English Dominican, cardinal, orator, poet, philosopher, theologian, b. in the thirteenth century; d. at Genoa, 2t) Aug., 1305. He entered the Dominican Order wlien a youth, and became renowned for learning, prudence, and sanctity of life. Edward I, King of England, chose him as his confessor and spiritual director. lie was provincial of his order in England from 1290 to 1298, and was created cardinal, 21 February, 1304, by Benedict XI. In 1305, after having taken part in the election of Clement V, Walter set out from Perugia with several other cardinals to join the po]ie in France, but at Genoa he was seized with his last illness, during which ho was attended by the dean of the Sacretl College, Nicholas de Prato. His remains wore first buried in the church of his order at Genoa, but were later transferred to London, as he had ordered, and interred in the convent to which he had formerly been assigned. Nicholas Trivet, his intimate friend, assures us that Walter was a man endowed with many superior quali- ties, natural and supernatural. Thoroughly versed in knowledge, graced with rare modesty and a kindly disposition, he was a model of religious piety and of