Holderness, i. 30–3; G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage, i. 56; Doyle's Official Baronage, i. 26; Dugdale's Baronage, i. 63–4.]
WILLIAM of Drogheda (d. 1245?), canonist, was an eminent lecturer on canon law at Oxford during the first half of the thirteenth century. Between 1241 and 1245 he was principal advocate for William of Montpellier in the litigation about his election to the see of Coventry and Lichfield; and such weight was attached to his advocacy that the bishop-elect, hearing in 1245 of William's death, gave up his claim (Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. iv. 423). According to Mr. Rashdall, however, the canonist in 1250 gave his hall or house at Oxford to the prior and convent of Sherborne, who in 1255 sold it to the university; it is now No. 33 High Street, and is still called ‘Drawda Hall.’ William also appears to have been rector of Stratton Audley, Oxfordshire (Cal. Pap. Reg. i. 214).
About 1239 William wrote, for the use of his pupils, his ‘Summa Aurea,’ an elaborate treatise on canon law, which was still quoted as an authority, even at Bologna, some centuries later (Bethmann-Hollweg, Der Civil-process des gemeinen Rechts, vi. 123, 124; Albericus Gentilis, Laudes Acad. 1605, p. 54). Two manuscripts are extant at Caius College, Cambridge ({sc|Wunderlich}}, Zeitschrift, xi. 79), and others are at Luxemburg (Stadtbibliothek, No. 105), at Tours (Dorange, Cat. MSS. p. 310), and in the Vatican (Stevenson, Codd. Lat. Bibl. Vat. p. 283). None of these manuscripts appear to be perfect; extracts from the Caius manuscripts are printed in the ‘English Historical Review’ (xii. 645), and a full description of the work is given in Professor F. W. Maitland's ‘Roman Canon Law’ (1898, pp. 107 sqq.).
[Authorities cited; Rashdall's Universities of Europe, ii. 374, 470.]
WILLIAM of Durham (d. 1249), reputed founder of Durham Hall, now University College, Oxford, was possibly born at Durham and educated there or in the neighbouring monastery of Wearmouth, proceeding thence to Oxford. He subsequently studied at Paris, where he became a ‘famosus magister’ (Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. iii. 168; cf. Denifle, Chart. Univ. Paris. i. 118). He left that university in 1229, after the riots between the students and citizens of Paris, and is said to have ‘headed a migration to Oxford.’ For the latter statement there seems to be no evidence (Rashdall, Universities of Europe, i. 470), though William's three companions mentioned by Matthew Paris, including Nicholas de Farnham [see Nicholas], were provided with professorships at Oxford, and it is not unlikely that William went thither in answer to Henry III's invitation of 14 July 1229 to Paris scholars. Before 1237 he had become archdeacon of Durham; he is identified by Le Neve with a William who is stated in an inscription in a window in University College to have been archdeacon of Durham in 1219, but this date is probably a mistake for 1249; Leland, Tanner, and Chevalier confuse him with William Shirwood [q. v.], and he is also identified with a William de Lanum said to have been archdeacon in 1234 (Le Neve, iii. 302; Rashdall, i. 470). William was also rector of Wearmouth (Cal. Papal Letters, i. 251), and was granted by Richard Poor [q. v.], bishop of Durham, ‘with the assent of the chapter and consent of the king,’ certain rights over the town of Sunderland and manors of Wearmouth and ‘Sephor’ (ib.) At one time, according to Matthew Paris, he was archbishop-elect of Rouen, probably before or after the episcopate of Pierre de Colmieu, who held that see from 1237 to 1245. He was also chaplain to the pope (ib.) After Nicholas de Farnham's election to the bishopric of Durham in 1241, William's rights over Sunderland and Wearmouth were called in question. He appealed to the pope, and the case was heard by Pierre de Colmieu, now bishop of Albano, and the cardinal of St. Laurence. A compromise was reached by William and the bishop of Durham's proctor, and on 22 Dec. 1248 the pope issued from Lyons a mandate directing the bishop of Ely, Hugh of Northwold [q. v.], and the archdeacon of Ely [see Ely, Nicholas of], not to suffer him to be molested on account of his rights. On his way home, however, William died at Rouen (Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. v. 91; Hist. Anglorum, iii. 67; in the ‘Abbreviatio,’ Hist. Anglorum, iii. 311, he is said to have died ‘transalpinans,’ a statement adopted by Rashdall, though apparently he was only coming from Lyons). Matthew Paris says William ‘abounded in great revenues, but was gaping after greater,’ which Smith interprets as the bishopric of Durham, suggesting that to obtain it was the object of his visit to the pope.
By his will William left 310 marks to Oxford University to be invested in rents for the support of ten or more masters of arts studying theology. ‘The university placed the money in a chest and used it “partly on their own business” and partly in “loans to others” which were never repaid’ (Rashdall, ii. 470). There is no evidence that William of Durham intended the
