William Binham

William Binham was an English theologian and Benedictine prior of Wallingford in Berkshire. He took the degree of D.D. at Oxford, where he was for a time intimate with Wycliffe, against whom he afterwards wrote Contra Positiones Wiclevi.

Life
William Binham was a native of Binham in Norfolk, where there was a Benedictine priory dependent on the abbey of St. Albans. Probably through this connection he entered the monastic profession at the abbey, and became ultimately prior of Wallingford in Berkshire, which was also a cell belonging to St. Albans. The last notice of Binham's life occurs in 1396, when he, as prior of Wallingford, was detained by illness from attending the election of an abbot of St. Albans on 9 October.

Works
John Bale states that Binham wrote a book (his only recorded work) against the teachings of Wycliffe, Contra Positiones Wiclevi, or Contra Vuiclevi propositiones. It is not known to be extant, but Wyclife's reply, Contra Willelmum Vynham monachum S. Albani Determinatio, or Contra Bynhamum monachum, is preserved in a Paris manuscript. If Binham was the opponent mentioned by Wyclife, he must have been a student at Oxford, of which university he is described as doctor of divinity, and had there come into close intimacy with Wycliffe. Binham, however, remained true to the traditions of the Church and the rights of the clergy, and after a while separated himself from his friend, with whom at length he engaged in controversy, and proved, according to the Catholic Leland, no match for his antagonist.