William of Auxerre

Drawn from the authors' own words; every quotation links to its place.

Added because Merkelbach classifies him among the moral systems (Summa II, excursus).

His Moral System, as Our Authors Report It

Every report quoted in the author's own words and linked to its place; point at a name to see his words. Haringer's signs give St. Alphonsus's judgment as Haringer found it in St. Alphonsus's works (his notice, Gury-Ballerini, 1884, p. XI); a sign on a writer the 1884 editor added to the list is the editor's own, and is said to be his.

Probabiliorist
“The first who seems to have expounded the principle of Probabiliorism clearly enough is Guilielmus Antisiodorensis, who flourished around the year 1230”Prümmer: the first who seems to have expounded the principle of probabiliorism clearly enough	Prümmer, Manuale I, n. 345
“To the safer practice in the thirteenth century a certain corrective was added from the principle of probabiliorism. William of Auxerre seems to have explained this first rather clearly, says Prummer, Th. M. I, n. 345, when he wrote in the treatise on pollution: "That magisterial rule, that one doubting about something, whether it is illicit, and doing that thing while the doubt stands, sins, because he commits himself to danger, is to be understood of such doubt which is vehement, and more, or at least equally, induces the mind to believe that it is mortally illicit, as that it is licit.”Merkelbach, after Prümmer: he seems to have been the first to explain the principle of probabiliorism rather clearly	Merkelbach, Summa II, excursus on the moral systems

Probabiliorist

“The first who seems to have expounded the principle of Probabiliorism clearly enough is Guilielmus Antisiodorensis, who flourished around the year 1230”Prümmer: the first who seems to have expounded the principle of probabiliorism clearly enough

Prümmer, Manuale I, n. 345

“To the safer practice in the thirteenth century a certain corrective was added from the principle of probabiliorism. William of Auxerre seems to have explained this first rather clearly, says Prummer, Th. M. I, n. 345, when he wrote in the treatise on pollution: "That magisterial rule, that one doubting about something, whether it is illicit, and doing that thing while the doubt stands, sins, because he commits himself to danger, is to be understood of such doubt which is vehement, and more, or at least equally, induces the mind to believe that it is mortally illicit, as that it is licit.”Merkelbach, after Prümmer: he seems to have been the first to explain the principle of probabiliorism rather clearly

Merkelbach, Summa II, excursus on the moral systems

In the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)

“William of Auxerre”, vol. 15, by William Turner. Public domain; transcription at New Advent (which expands some of the print's abbreviations).

A thirteenth-century theologian and professor at the University of Paris. William's name occurs in many of the pontifical documents relating to the University of Paris dating from the first decades of the thirteenth century. From these we learn that he was a magister at the university, that he was archdeacon of Beauvais, and that he was one of the three theologians appointed in 1231 by Gregory IX to prepare an amended edition of the physical and metaphysical works of Aristotle, which had been placed under a ban by the Council of 1210 because of the errors which were contained both in the inaccurate translation, and in the Arabian commentaries accompanying them. Apparently this work of correction was done in Rome; a letter of Gregory IX to King Louis, dated 6 May, 1231, recommends William of Auxerre to the French King and says that the Parisian teacher has laboured "at the Apostolic See, for the reformation of study". William is the author of a work entitled "Summa Aurea", which is not, as it is sometimes described, a mere compendium of the "Books of Sentences" by Peter the Lombard. Both in method and in content it shows a considerable amount of originality, although, like all the Summæ of the early thirteenth century, it is influenced by the manner and method of the Lombard. The teacher by whom William was most profoundly influenced was Praepositinus, or Prevostin, of Cremona, Chancellor of the University of Paris from 1206 to 1209. The names of teacher and pupil are mentioned in the same sentence by St. Thomas: Haec est opinio Praepositini et Autissiodorensis (in I Sent., XV, q. 11). William was, in turn, the teacher of the Dominican, John of Treviso, one of the first theologians of the Order of Preachers. The importance of the "Summa Aurea" is enhanced by the fact that it was one of the first Summæ composed after the introduction of the metaphysical and physical treatises of Aristotle. The work was published at Paris in 1500. Another edition, without date, by Regnault, is mentioned by Grabmann.

Sources: DENIFLE, Chartul. Univ. Paris, I (Paris, 1889); GRABMANN, Gesch. der schol. Methode, II (Freiburg, 1911).