William was born at
Champeaux near
Melun. After studying under
Anselm of Laon and
Roscellinus, he taught in the school of the cathedral of
Notre-Dame, of which he was made
canon in 1103. Among his pupils was
Peter Abelard, whom he had a disagreement with because Abelard challenged some of his ideas, and because William thought Abelard was too arrogant. Abelard calls him the "supreme master" of dialectic after he replaced his master as the new teacher. In 1108 he resigned his positions as
archdeacon of Paris and master of Notre Dame, and retreated to the shrine of St Victor, outside the city walls of Paris, where, under his influence, there formed what would become the
abbey of St Victor. He was a friend of
Bernard of Clairvaux, having helped Bernard recuperate from ill-health; later he motivated Bernard to write some of his important works including the
Apologia, which was dedicated to William. In the last of these he maintains that children who die unbaptized must be lost, the pure soul being defiled by the grossness of the body, and declares that God's will is not to be questioned. He upholds the theory of
Creationism (i.e., that a soul is specially created for each human being).
Ravaisson-Mollien has discovered a number of fragments by him, among which the most important is the
De Essentia Dei et de Substantia Dei; a
Liber Sententiarum, consisting of discussions on ethics and scriptural interpretation, is also ascribed to Champeaux. He is considered the founder of an early version of moderate realism, a philosophy which held that
universals exist in particular things as common substances individuated by accidents and in the mind as concepts. ==Notes==