Walter of St.-Victor

Prior of the canons regular of St. Augustine connected with the former abbey of St.- Victor in Paris. The house was founded between 1108 and 1110 by William of Champeaux,* teacher of Peter Abelard, and chartered in 1113. It swiftly became a home for a series of distinguished theologians, mystics, and biblical commentators. Walter, though not the most famous of the Victorines, gained a certain prominence with a treatise called Against the Four Labyrinths of France, which attacked Abelard,* Peter Lombard,* Peter of Poitiers, and Gilbert de la Porrée. Walter described the theology of these four masters as a danger to the church and castigated the dialectical method which they employed. His charges, however, did not seriously impede the growth in popularity of the dialectical method among his contemporaries.