William of Drogheda
WILLIAM OF DROGHEDA
Foremost canonist of his time in England; b. no earlier than 1200 (probably neither Irish nor of an Anglo-Irish family); d. at the hand of his valet in 1245 at his Oxford home, now Drawda Hall. Educated at Oxford, William was teaching law there by 1239. About that year he wrote but left unfinished the Summa aurea, a copious treatise on procedure in ecclesiastical courts. A work of high originality, this practitioner's book circulated in England and on the Continent, where it came to the favorable attention of joannes andreae.
Bibliography: Summa aurea, in Quellen zur Geschichte des römisch-kanonischen Processes im Mittelalter, ed. l. wahrmund, 5 v. (Innsbruck 1905–31) v.2. f. w. maitland, "William of Drogheda and the Universal Ordinary," Roman Canon Law in the Church of England (London 1898) 100–131. f. de zulueta, "William of Drogheda," Mélanges de droit romain dédiés à Georges Cornil, 2 v. (Ghent 1926) 2:639–657. j. c. russell, Dictionary of Writers of Thirteenth Century England (New York 1936) 186–187. h. g. richardson, "Azo, Drogheda, and Bracton," English Historical Review 59 (1944) 22–47. a. b. emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500 1:594–598.
[f. d. logan]