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Theobald of Étampes (French: Thibaud; Latin: Theobaldus Stampensis) (1080 - after 1120) was a schoolmaster, scholar and theologian of the early 12th century. As a theologian he is recalled for his hostility to the concept of priestly celibacy. In education he is remembered as the first scholar to settle at Oxford, and as a founder or forerunner of Oxford University.
The details of Theobald's biography were delineated only in 2009. [1] He was born in Étampes, France, the son of a canon, and probably educated at Chartres cathedral school. He was in early life acquainted with many married priests, at a time shortly before the Gregorian reform requiring that priests be celibate.
The historian Bernard Gineste has shown that Theobald became master of the parish school of Saint-Martin of Étampes, and private tutor to the young Viscount of Chartres Hugh III of Le Puiset. These early stages of his career took place against a backdrop of social change in Étampes, where King Philippe I de France, and especially his eldest son, the future Louis VI, had recently regained control of the city from the Viscounts of Le Puiset. The king was also a patron of the monks of Morigny, whom he was beginning to favour to the detriment of the local married clergy. Theobald's pupil Hugh rebelled against the imposition of royal authority, and was captured and imprisoned twice, prompting Theobald in 1113 to quit the royal domain in favour of land owned by Henri Beauclerc, hoping to escape the increasingly forceful imposition of the requirement for priestly celibacy and the ascendancy of the monks at the canons' expense.
Theobald next became a schoolmaster at Caen, where he seems to have considered leaving France for Denmark, before eventually electing to travel to Oxford in England. There he taught audiences of 60 to 100 clerics: this assembly of clerical scholars has been described as a precursor to the foundation in the following decades of Oxford University.
Theobald died after 1120, probably in Oxford.
Six letters by Theobald of Étampes have been preserved.
Theobald of Étampes was not a major author, but is regarded as one of the early intellectuals who paved the way for the great renaissance of the 12th century. The major principles of his teaching are respect and a methodical approach, advocating the exposure to reasoning of the doctrine of the Church. He was a participant in the great debates of his age: the consequences of the Gregorian reform; the shifting balance of power within the Church from the clergy to the more ascetic monks, with the backing of the Popes of the age.
Oxford historiographers have often seen him as the founder of the University. A 1907 dramatic production portrayed him as the father of the enlightenment in Oxford, in opposition to the forces of darkness represented by the monks of Abingdon.
His hostility to the principle of priestly celibacy, a position which aligned him with the approach of churches throughout Northern Europe until the end of the Middle Ages, has also made him a sympathetic figure from the perspective of the Anglican Church. In his native, Catholic France, by contrast, his work was gradually forgotten.
Category:Philosophes Category:French writers Category:Latin writers Category:Theologians