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[German Version] (1316, Helmstedt – Aug 8, 1390, Halberstadt), natural philosopher and logician. Albert studied at the University of Paris, where he became Master of Arts in 1351 and Rector in 1353. In 1362, he entered the service of Urban V; in 1365, he became the first rector of the University of Vienna and in 1366 bishop of Halberstadt. While in Paris, he wrote a commentary on the physical and logical works of Aristotle and a compendium of logic, Perutilis Logica, influenced by William of Occam, as well as the Sophismata. In natural philosophy and logic, his …

[German Version] (c. 1050 – Jul 15, 1117, Laon) was a student of Anselm of Canterbury in Bec, then canon and dean in Laon. From c. 1080, he and his brother Radulph led the cathedral school of Laon, which also included William of Champeaux. Under Anselm's leadership, the Glossa ordinaria, as they were later called, originated on the whole Bible based on statements by the Fathers and more recent theologians. The glosses on the Psalms, John and the letters of Paul…

[German Version] (1351, Compiègne - Aug 9, 1420, Avignon) studied in Paris, took the M.A. in 1368 and the Mag. theol. in 1381; in 1375, he became canon in Soissons, in 1381 in Noyon, later also in Meaux, Amiens, Cambrai, Compiègne, Rouen and Paris; he was rector of the Collège de Navarre from 1384 to 1389 and became father-confessor to Charles VI in 1389. From…

[German Version] (c. 1230, Patcham, Sussex – Dec 8, 1292, Mortlake, Surrey). After joining the Franciscans in 1250, Peckham studied in Paris and Oxford. From 1269 to 1271 he taught as magister regens in Paris, lecturing on the Sentences of Peter Lombard; from 1272 to 1275 he taught at Oxford, where he introduced the disputatio de quolibet (Disputation: II). He defended the Franciscan ideal of poverty (IV) against the Dominican R. Kilwardby. In 1275 he was made provincial of the Franciscan order in England; in 1276 he attended the general chapter in P…

[German Version] (died c. 870), monk at Corbie Abbey. He intervened in the first Eucharistic controversy with his writing De corpore et sanguine Domini (843), directed against Paschasius Radbertus; using dialectical method he opposed a sensory understanding of the Lord’s Supper, showing that the sacrament was always hidden as a mystery beneath a figura, and rejecting identification of the historical with the sacramental body of Christ. In this he influenced Berengar of Tours. In the books De praedestinatione (849/850), also commissioned by Charles the Bald, he opposed Hi…

[German Version] (died c. 1133, abbey of St. Gilles-les-Boucheries) was initially a priest in the French Alps but was removed from office in 1119. As an itinerant preacher in southern France, he criticized the church, rejected infant baptism, rebaptized adults, denied the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and rejected the mass, along with veneration of the cross and building churches. He acknowledged the authority of the Gospels alone, not other biblical books or the church fathers. During…

[German Version] (c. 1275, St. Pourçain-sur-Sioule – Sep 10, 1334, Meaux), Dominican, possibly a student of James of Metz and Hervaeus Natalis c. 1300. In 1307/08 he lectured on the Sentences at St. Jacques, Paris; in 1312 M.Theol. in Paris; in 1313 lector sacri palatii in Avignon; in 1317 bishop of Limoux; in 1318 bishop of Le-Puy-en-Velay; in 1326 bishop of Meaux. His Commentary on the Sentences of 1308 called forth vehement criticism for its anti-Thomist tendencies (condemned several times by his order, esp. i…

[German Version] (Theodoricus Brito; died c. 1156). Thierry taught the artes liberales and theology in Paris c. 1130/1140 and for some time in Chartres. His students included Petrus Helias, Ivo of Chartres, John of Salisbury, and Clarembald of Arras. He wrote primarily commentaries on Cicero’s De inventione, the Rhetorica ad Herennium (c. 1130), and Boethius’s De trinitate (after 1148). His glosses and lectures on the latter have also survived. His doctrine of the Trinity was influenced by the Neoplatonic question of the relationship between one and many. His Tractatus de sex dieru…

[German Version] (1115/1120, Old Sarum – Oct 25, 1180, Salisbury). John studied in Paris (1136–1147) with Abelard, William of Conches, Gilbert of Poitiers, Robert of Melun, Thierry of Chartres, and ¶ Robert Pullus. In 1154, he entered the service of Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury, and in 1162 that of Theobald's successor, Thomas Becket. Because of Becket's conflict with Henry II, John was banished to Reims (1163–1170). In 1176, he became bishop of Chartres. His writings are marked by his classical education. The Entheticus (1155) is a didactic poem on philosophy. The Metalogicon (1…

[German Version] (1040, Chartres? – Dec 23, 1115/1116, Chartres). Following studies in Le Bec (near Lanfranc) and in Paris, Ivo became canon in Nesle, then provost of the canons regular of St. Quentin in Beauvais, and finally bishop of Chartres in 1090. He contributed to the resolution of the Investiture Controversy by distinguishing between ecclesial and royal, unalterable and alterable, spiritual and wordly law. He supported the canons regular (Regulated clergy), whom he placed above the monks. …

[German Version] (c. 560 – Apr 4, 636, Seville). From a Hispano-Roman family who migrated from Cartagena to Seville, Isidore succeeded his brother Leander as archbishop of Seville" in 599/601. He was an adviser to King Sisebut, founded episcopal schools with libraries in Seville, Toledo, and Saragossa and chaired the synods of Seville (619) and Toledo (633). In many of his works, he endeavored to communicate, especially to the clergy, comprehensive religious and secular learning nourished by antiquity. The Differentiae contain an alphabetical list of words meant to elucida…

[German Version] In contrast to the artes mechanicae, in the ancient world the artes liberales constituted the subjects in which a free man should be educated. The early attempts of Sophists to define them were elaborated by Plato; they were systematized by Varro in the 1st century bce. In Late Antiquity, the list of seven and its division into the trivium (linguistic disciplines: grammar, rhetoric, dialectic) and quadrivium (mathematical disciplines: arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) became canonical. While Augustine of Hippo organized the artes liberales …

[German Version] (806/808 – 866/870, Haut-villers, France), entered the monastery in Fulda as the oblate of his noble family, became friends with Walahfrid Strabo in the Reichenau, and was, against his will, inducted as a monk by Rabanus Maurus, from which a synod in Mainz released him in 829. Nevertheless, he permitted himself as a monk from Orbais to be ordained to the priesthood. On his journey to Italy, his ¶ doctrine of double predestination caused a scandal so that Hrabanus had him condemned and expelled in 848 at a synod in Mainz. Following a renewed condemn…

[German Version] (c. 1120/1130 – 1183, Zwettl [?]). In 1153 Peter, a disciple of Gilbert of Poitiers, engaged in an epistolary dispute with Gerhoch of Reichersberg. From 1158 to 1161 he was active as a magister in Vienna. Probably while still in France, he wrote the Zwettler Summa, the most important work on systematic theology of the Porretan school, in which he defended Gilbert’s distinction between the nature and the person of God. The work comprises four sections on the Trinity, the incarnation of God, and the sacraments. Peter had conta…

[German Version] (Scotus; before 1200, Scotland – c. 1235). Michael was present as a magister at the fourth Lateran Council in 1215. Around 1217 he was in Toledo translating works on natural history and philosophy from Arabic into Latin; he acquainted the West with Averroes. In 1220 he was teaching in Bologna. In 1225 he turned down an appointment as archbishop of Cashel in Ireland. He was active at the court of Frederick the Great as a translator and astrologer. The Latin reception of Aristotle, Avicenna, and Averroes was inspired by him. Besides his translations, he wrote the works: Liber i…

[German Version] (c. 1110 – after 1181). The archdeacon of Segovia was a member of the Toledo School of Translation and translated works by Alkindi (Kindī), Alfarabi (Fārābī), Avicebron (S. Ibn Gabirol), Avicenna, Alghazzali (Ġazzālī), and I. Israeli into Latin. His own writings are, for the most part, compilations of Arabic and Latin works. In his doctrine of the soul, De immortalitate animae, he addresses various proofs of immortality that are based on the inner essence of the soul, such as its activity and…

[German Version] (Petrus Aureoli; c. 1280, Gourdon – Jan 10, 1322, Avignon). After becoming a Franciscan around 1300, Peter studied in Paris, possibly with J. Duns Scotus; in 1312 he was teaching in Paris, in 1314 in Toulouse, and from 1316 to 1318 in Paris. In 1318 he received his master’s degree in theology in Paris. In 1320 he became the Franciscan provincial in Aquitaine, and in 1321 archbishop of Aix. In 1311 his Tractatus de paupertate he dealt with the issue of Franciscan poverty (IV, 2). In 1312 he wrote a metaphysical Tractatus de principiis. In 1314 he defended the Immaculate Co…

[German Version] (c. 1130, Poitiers – Sep 3, 1205, Paris) studied at Paris before 1159 and was a student of Peter Lombard. In 1169 he succeeded Peter Comestor in the chair of theology. In 1193 he succeeded Hilduin as chancellor of Notre Dame. In his magnum opus, Sententiarum libri quinque, published before 1170, he applied the dialectical method to theology. His sermons have also survived. His theological methodology was criticized severely in 1180 by Walter of St. Victor, who attacked him along with Abelard as one the “four labyrinths of France.” Reinhold Rieger Bibliography Eds.: Allego…

[German Version] (c. 790 – c. 859 Corbie), abbot of Corbie from 843/844 to 851 and had a part in the founding of Corvey Abbey; he was a vigorous opponent of Ratramnus. In De partu virginis (c. 845), he defended the virginity of Mary at the birth of Jesus (Virgin birth), but he had reservations concerning liturgical celebration of Mary’s bodily assumption into heaven (Mary, Assumption of). In De corpore et sanguine Domini he supported the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the identity of the eucharistic body of Christ with his historical body. His methodology…

[German Version] (c. 1300–1359/1360). As teacher of the artes liberales , Buridan became rector of the University of Paris (II) in 1328 and 1340. Despite his nominalism imbued with Occamism (William of Occam), he partially distanced himself from radical Occamist doctrines, such as the doctrine …