Sentence:  Indeed , it is even surprising in the Canon of Christ Church and Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History , who fathered this most peculiar view , and in the brilliant Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at Cambridge , who inherited it and is now its most eminent <WSD>proponent</WSD> . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  a person who pleads for a cause or propounds an idea