WILLIAM OF PAGULA (POUL)

Canon lawyer, a native of Paull (Pagula), Yorkshire, and perpetual vicar of Winkfield, near Windsor, Berkshire (1314–32); d. c. 1332. He was a doctor of Canon Law of Oxford by 1319. Between then and 1332, he wrote five works, all of which, with the exception of the last, are still in manuscript form: the Oculus sacerdotis, the most influential pastoral manual of 14th-and 15th-century England, some 60 manuscripts of which are extant (e.g., New College, Oxford, MS 292; Ohio State University, MS Lat. 1); Summa summarum, a compilation of Canon Law and theology for all grades of ecclesiastics, 13 manuscripts of which still survive (e.g., Oxford, MS Bodley 293; Huntingdon Library, MS EL. 9, H.3); Speculum praelatorum, a combination of the two previous works, of which only one manuscript is known; Speculum religiosorum, the first known tractate De religiosis, now extant in 10 manuscripts; and the Epistola ad regem Edwardum, an open letter to edward iii about excesses of royal retainers in the forest and area of Windsor.

Bibliography: j. moisant, De speculo regis Edwardi III (Paris 1891), who prints the Epistola at pp. 83–123 as a work of Simon Islip. l. boyle, "The Oculus sacerdotis … of William of Pagula," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 5 (1955) 81–110. w. a. pantin, The English Church in the Fourteenth Century (Cambridge, Eng. 1955). a. b. emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500 3:1436–37.

[l. e. boyle]