WILLIAM OF BOURGES, Saint. - Archbishop, b. at Arthel, county of Nevers, in the first half of the 12th century, d. in 1209. Of the family of the counts of Nevers, he studied under his uncle Peter the Hermit, archdeacon of Soissons, then at the University of Paris.

Canon of Soissons and of Paris, he renounced his benefices to retire to the monastery of Grandmont, which he left following a dispute between clerics and laymen. He entered among the Cistercians of Pontigny (1167), where he became prior. Later (1184), abbot of Fontaine St-Jean (diocese of Sens), then of Châlis (diocese of Senlis, 1187). Eudes of Sully, archbishop of Paris, appointed him to the archiepiscopal see of Bourges on 23 Nov. 1200. During his episcopate he preserved the austere customs of the cloister. He drew upon himself the anger of Philip Augustus by executing Innocent III's sentence of interdict at the time of the repudiation of Queen Isambert. He died on 10 Jan. 1209, while, at the appeal of Innocent III, he was preparing to take part in the crusade against the Albigensians. He was buried in the cathedral of Bourges, canonized by Honorius III on 17 May 1218. Feast on 10 Jan.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: Three surviving lives, one of them by a contemporary, in Anal. Balland., 3 (1884), pp. 274-361; see also Hist. litt. de la France, XXI, Paris 1847, pp. 375-76; BHL, I, pp. 1283-84; Acta SS. Ianuarii, I, Paris 1863, pp. 628-39; P. Féret, Fac. de théologie de Paris, I, Paris 1894, pp. 357-59; P. Stephan Steffen, Der kl. Wilhelm, Erzbisch. von B., Bregenz 1907, and in Cistercienser Chronik, 19 (1907), pp. 1-13, 38-48, 71-82.

Clemente Schmitt

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William of Bourges, Saint

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