He taught philosophy and theology at the university of Paris and enjoyed a great reputation as a subtle dialectician; his lectures developing the philosophy of Aristotle attracted a large circle of hearers. In 1204 his doctrines were condemned by the university, and, on a personal appeal to Pope Innocent III, the sentence was ratified, Amalric being ordered to return to Paris and recant his errors.
His death was caused, it is said, by grief at the humiliation to which he had been subjected. In 1209 ten of his followers were burnt before the gates of Paris, and Amalric's own body was exhumed and burnt and the ashes given to the winds. The doctrines of his followers, known as the Amalricians, were formally condemned by the fourth Lateran Council in 1215.
Amalric appears to have derived his philosophical system from Erigena[?], whose principles he developed in a one-sided and strongly pantheistic form. Three propositions only can with certainty be attributed to him:
See W. Preger, Geschichte der deutschen Mystik im Mittelalter (Leipzig, 1874, i. 167-173); Haureau, Hist. de la phil. scol. (Paris, 1872); C. Schmidt, Hist. de l'Eglise d'Occident itendant le moyen age (Paris, 1885); Hefele, Conciliengesch. (2nd ed., Freiburg, 1886).
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