A correspondent from South Africa wrote to me recently asking about William of Worplesdon whose "wise words" occasionally appear in this column. She explained that one of William's philosophical gems had been comforting for her, and had found a place by her telephone, to be at hand at times of stress. Other enquiries have come in regarding the mystery man and his background.
Unfortunately, I have little reliable information, and indeed have no proof that the man existed. I learned of him from a college friend of many years ago, who was undertaking a postgraduate study of French literature. For her research she was obliged to spend some weeks in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. There she came by chance across some manuscripts in English attributed to William of Worplesdon, which had apparently never been published. How they reached Paris is unknown, but in the time of William there was much traffic of intellectuals and clerics between England and France. My friend copied some of the pieces and sent them to me as of general philosophical interest. Unfortunately I was unable to discover more, since she contracted meningitis and died shortly after returning home.
The likelihood, I think, is that William was a lay brother in Waverley Abbey, the first Cistercian foundation in England, established in 1129. The Abbey is situated only eight miles as the crow flies (and crows in Surrey fly straighter than most) from what must have been in William's day the manor of Worplesdon. If William was a native of that place he would have used it as his surname. In the course of archaeological studies I spent a day examining the overgrown, ruinous, but peaceful remains of the abbey, and can visualise William meditating in the grounds. The Cistercian rules frowned on literary studies and inculcated physical cultivation of the land, and perhaps William persuaded his superiors to allow him to transfer to a French foundation. That might explain how his manuscripts ended up in Paris.