DURANDO di SAINT-POURÇAIN. — In the world Guillaume Durand, a celebrated Dominican theologian and writer known as «doctor resolutissimus», born at St-Pourçain in France circa 1275, died at Meaux on 10 September 1334. A religious at Clermont-Ferrand, after studying at the University of Parigi, he became master of theology in 1312, then master of the sacred palace at Avignon, and on 16 August 1317 bishop of Limoux, from which he moved in 1318 to Le Puy and finally, in 1326, to Meaux.
Of ready intelligence, broad culture, and brilliant exposition, D. was also highly independent in his judgments and in philosophy attributed no value to authority. Fundamentally Aristotelian, in certain respects he was Platonic-Augustinian and showed the influence of his teacher Giacomo di Metz. Already in his Commento alle Sentenze of Lombardo, delivered at the University of Parigi, he departed on many points from the doctrine of S. Tommaso. He thus provoked a natural reaction throughout the Dominican Order, leading to a special ordinance of the General Chapter of 1309, which required all lecturers to adhere to the doctrines of Aquinas. The condemnation, which at first seemed to have been avoided, nevertheless followed. A commission presided over by Erveo Natale drew up a list of 93 erroneous propositions, 91 of which were condemned by the General Chapter of London in 1314. Subsequently various Dominican masters, headed by Erveo Natale, combated those errors in their writings. Reaffirming his positions in the third redaction of the Commento alle Sentenze, the controversy between D. and the Thomists was brought to a close by Durandello’s work (circa 1330): Evidentiae contra Durandum.
His most important works are: Commentarii in IV libros Sententiarum (Parigi 1508, 1515, 1533, 1539, 1547, and subsequently various other editions in Lione, Anversa, and Venezia); De origine paretatum et iurisdictionum (Parigi 1506); De visione Dei quam habent animae sanctorum ante iudicium generale (partly published in O. Raynaldus, Annales, ecclesiastici [ed. Mansi], IV, Lucca 1750, cols. 570–74); De paupertate Christi (partly published ibid., cols. 575–77).