William de Alton

William de Alton (born 1207 or 1307)^[1] was a Dominican friar from Alton, Hampshire, who lived during the reign of Edward II.^[2] He is known for writing The Universality of the Pollution of Mankind by Original Sin. This tract on original sin argues that in its polluting all of mankind^[2] it must also have thereby polluted the Virgin Mary, thus contradicting the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.^[3]

References

1. Curtis, William (1896). A Short History and Description of the Town of Alton: In the County of Southampton. Winchester: Warren and Son. ISBN 1-104-00986-2.
2. Samuel Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of England, S. Lewis & Co., 1811, p. 43
3. The Universal magazine, Volume 7, pub. for J. Hinton, 1750