In 1108 he withdrew to the abbey of St.Victor, and subsequently became bishop of Chalons-sur-Marne.

He died in 1121.

As a teacher his influence was wide; he was a vigorous defender of orthodoxy and a passionate adversary of the heterodox philosophy of his former master, Roscellinus.

That he and Abelard disagreed was only natural, but Abelard's statement that he argued William into abandoning the basic principles of his philosophy is certainly untrue.
"THE UNIVERSALS" It is not within the province of such a note as this to discuss in detail the great controversy between the realists and the nominalists which dominated the philosophical and, to some extent, the religious thought of France during the first half of the twelfth century.

In brief, the realists maintained that the idea is a reality distinct from and independent of the individuals constituting it; their motto, _Universalia sunt realia_, was readily capable of extension far beyond the Church, and William of Champeaux himself carried it to the extent of arguing that nothing is real but the universal.