THOMAS OF WILTON

English theologian (known also as de Wylton); fl. 1288 to 1327. This scholastic was known on the Continent as Thomas Anglicus or, after 1317, as Cancellarius London. A master in arts at Oxford, he was fellow of Merton College from 1288 to 1301, or later. In April 1304 he was granted license to study at a university in England or abroad, and this license was continuously renewed until November 1322. It is not known when he went to Paris, but by 1311 he was teaching there as a bachelor. From c. 1312 to 1322 he was a master in theology at Paris, where his disciples included walter burley. In many ways an independent and tortuous thinker, more devoted to scholastic disputations than to Biblical exposition, he was, nevertheless, deeply influenced by his countryman, duns scotus. His Quaestiones disputatae indicate the extent of Scotus's influence on secular masters at Paris within a decade of the death of the Subtle Doctor. In August 1320 Thomas officially became chancellor of St. Paul's, London, and functioned from 1322 until 1327.

Bibliography: a. maier, "Das Quodlibet des Thomas de Wylton," Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 14 (1947) 106–110. m. schmaus, "Thomas Wylton als Verfasser eines Kommentars zur aristotelischen Physik," Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu München (1956) heft 9. j.m.m.h. thijssen, "The Response to Thomas Aquinas in the 14th Century" Eternity of the World (Leiden 1990).

[j. a. weisheipl]