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 WILLIAM

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WILLIAM

Williajn Hart, Blessed, b. at Wells, 1558; suffered at '\rk, 15 IMarcli, 1583. Elected Trappes Scholar at Lincoln College, Oxford, 25 May, 1571, he suppli- cated B.A., IS June, 1574. The same year he fol- lowed the rector, John Bridgewater, to Douai. He accompanied the college to Reims, and returned thither after a severe operation at Namur, 22 Novem- ber, 1578. He took the college oath at the English College, Rome, 23 April, 1579, whence he was or- dained priest. On 26 starch, 15S1, he left Rome, arriving at Reims 13 May, and resuming his journey 22 May. On reacliing England he laboured in '^'orkshire. He was present at the Mass at which Blessed Wil- liam Lacy was cajjtured, and only escaped by stand- mg up to his chin in the muddy moat of York Ctistle. Betrayed by an apostate on Christmas Day, 1582, and thrown into an underground dungeon, he was put into double irons. After examination before the Dean of York and the Council of the North, he was arraigned at the Lent Assizes. From the unprofessional ac- count of his trial, which states that he was arraigned on two counts, we may be fairly certain that he was on trial on three, namely: (1) under 13 Eliz. c. 2 for having brought papal WTitings, to wit his certificate of ordination, into the realm; (2) under 13 Eliz. c. 3. for having gone abroad without royal licence; and (3) under 23 Eliz. c. 1. for having reconciled John Wright and one Couling. On what counts he was found guilty does not clearly appear, but he was cer- tainly guilty of the second.

Camm, Lives of the English Martyrs, II (London, 1904-5), 600-634; GiLLOW, Bibl. Diet. Eng. Calh.; Statutes at Large, II (London. 1780-1800); Challoner, Missionary Priests, I (Edinburgh, 1877), n. 19.

John B. Wainewright.

William Home, Blessed. See Thomas John- son, Blessed.

William Lacy, Blessed, b. at "Hauton", York- shire (probably Houghton or Tosside, West Riding); suffered at York, 22 Aug., 1582. He married a widow, named Cresswell, whose sons, Arthur and Joseph, became Jesuits. Little is related of his family by his biographers. He had a brother Ralph of Preston in Amoundemess, a si.ster Barbara, and nephews (apparently her sons) Robert and William (Cal. S. P., Dom."add. 1566-79, London, 1871, p. 562). He held a position of emolument under the Crown, possibly as coroner, till about 1565. One of this name, probably a relative, was a coroner for the West Riding in 1.581-2 (Dasent, "Acts of the Privy Council", xiii, 3,58). After fourteen years' persecu- tion for his faith, which included imprisonment at Hull, and after the death of his wife, he went abroad and arrived at Reims, 22 June, 1580. On 25 Sep- tember following he went on to Pont-a-Mousson, and thence to Rome, where, after obtaining a dispensation, he became a priest. This dispensation was necessary before ordination, as Lacy had been married twice, once to a widow. On 10 May, 1.581, he was at Loreto on his way to England. He was arrested after a Ma=8 said by Thomas Bell, afterwards an apostate, in York Castle, 22 July, 1582. He suffered great hardships, being loaded with heavy irons, confined in an under- ground dungeon, an<l subjected to numerous examina- tions. He was arraigned on 1 1 Aupist, prob.ablv under 13 Eliz. cc. 2 .and 3. With him suffered Blessed Richard Kirkman, bom at .\ddingham, in the West Riding. He arrived at Douai in 1577 and, after the transference of the English College to Reims, was or- dained priest on Holy Saturday, 1579. On his re- turn to England in Augu.st he seems to have found a refuge with Robert Dymoke, hereditary Champion of England (d. in Lincoln gaol for his faith, 11 Sept., 1580), .at Scrivelsby, Lincolnshire. He was eventu- ally arrested, 8 .August, 1582, by Francis Wortley, J. P., and seems to have been arraigned a day or two after under 23 Eliz. c. 1. After condemnation the

two martyrs shared one cell in a turret till 10 August, when Blessed Richard was removed to an under- ground dungeon.

Keogh and Camm in Lives of the English Martyrs, ed. Camm, II (London, 1904-5). 564-88; Gillow, Bibl. Diet. Eng. Cath., a. V. Lacy, William; Challoner, Missionary Priests, I, nn. 16 and 17; Bridgewater, Concertatio Ecclesia (Treves, 1588), 97-101.

John B. Wainewright.

William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris, medieval philosopher and tbe(ik)gian, b. at Aurillac in Auvergne towards the end of the twelfth century; d. in Paris, 1249. The date of his birth and the circumstances of his early education are unknown. In the first dec- ades of the thirteenth century he went to Paris to study, and became successively teacher in the faculty of arts and in that of theology (about 1220). In 1228 he became Bi.shop of Paris, continuing, as his official decrees show, to take an active interest in the institution in which he had studied and taught. His works include several treatises on iiractical theology, for example, "De virtutibus", "De moribus"j "De sacramentis", a dogmatic treatise "De trinitate" (in which there is much that pertains to philosophy as well as to theology), and philosophical works "De universo", "De anima", "De immortalitate ani- mae", the last being merely a rescript of a work bear- ing the same title by Dominic Gundisalvi. These were collected and published at Nuremberg, 1496, and republished at Venice, in 1.591, and at Orleans, 1674. William of Auvergne represents the first stage of the movement which ended in the adoption and adapta- tion of Aristotle's philosophy as the basis of a sy.ste- matic exposition of Christian dogma. It was difficult for him to break all at once with the Augustinian method and doctrine which had prevailed in the schools up to this time. Besides, the only text of Aristotle then available was full of errors of transla- tion and of perversions on the part of Arabian com- mentators. Still he set about the task of rescuing Aristotle from the Arabians, and although he often failed to find a consistent basis of reconciliation be- tween the Augustinian and the Aristotelean elements, he did important work in preparing the way for his more fortunate and more successful followers, Alex- ander of Hales, Albert the Great, and St. Thomas. He did not cover the whole ground of theology as they did; his "De univenso" is neither a "Summa theo- logica", nor a "Book of Sentences"; it is more .specif- ically an attempt to found a science of reality on prin- ciples opposed to those of the Arabian School. In his theological works he devotes special attention to the Manichean heresy, which in his time had been re- newed by the Cathari (q. v.). He devoted attention also to refuting the Arabian doctrine of the eternity of the world. In his interpretation of the Platonic theory of ideas he identifies the intelligible world (K6<ruos TOip-os) with the Son of God.

IKBERWEO. Hist. 0/ Phil., tr. MoiTi.s, II (Ncw York, 1892), 434; Turner, Hist, of Phil (Boston, 1903), 325, 326. The best French and German work.s are: Valoib. Guillaume d' Auvergne (Paris, 1880): Baumoartner, Die Erkcnnlnisslehre d. Wilh. v. Auvergne (Milnster, 1K03); Giittmann, Die Scholastik des 13 Jahrh. in ihren Bcziehungen sum Judenium (Breslau, 1902), 13-32.

William Turner.

William of Auxerre, a thirteenth-century theo- logian and professor at the University of Paris. Wil- liam's name occurs in many of the pontifical docu- ments relating to the University of Paris dating from the first decades of the thirteenth century. From these we learn that he was a tmifiistcr at the univer- sity, that he was archdeacon of Beauvais, and that he was one of the three theologians appointed in 1231 by Gregory IX to jirepare an amended edition of the physical and metaphysical works of Aristotle which hai been placed under a ban by the Council of 1210 because of the errors which were contained both in the inaccurate translations and in the Arabian com-