Search

[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] ( Honorius Augustodunensis; 1080/1090 – c. 1150, Weih St. Peter). A Benedictine friar, Honorius of Autun was probably a disciple of Anselm of Canterbury. Around the year 1100, he wrote the Elucidarium in Canterbury, a didactic theological dialogue that became widely circulated. His historico-theological exegesis of the Song of Songs was written in Regensburg, as was his world history Summa totius and the Clavis physicae, the latter being dependent on John Scotus Eriugena. Honorius was above all a ¶ compiler, but with popularizing and systematizing aims. Reinhold Ri…

[German Version] I. The first Council of Lyon was the renewed attempt of Pope Gregory IX to oppose Emperor Frederick Hohenstaufen after the emperor had forestalled a council convoked in Rome by Gregory in 1241. His successor ¶ Innocent IV succeeded in evading the power of the emperor and on Jan 3, 1245, convoked a council in Lyon to clarify the relationship between pope and emperor, take measures against the Tartars, and find help for the Byzantine Empire and the Holy Land. The council held three sessions from …

[German Version] (d. 1090/1095 in Aversa) was a monk in La-Croix-St-Leufroy who studied under Lanfranc of Bec. He declined appointments to bishoprics in England and Rouen, but agreed to become bishop in Aversa in 1088. As an opponent of Berengar of Tours, he did preliminary work on the doctrine of transsubstantiation with the concept of the mutatio substantiva. Reinhold Rieger Bibliography PL 149, 1427–1512 G. Macy, The Theologies of the Eucharist in the Early Scholastic Period, 1984 M. Dell'Omo, “Ricerche biografiche su Guitmondo,” Ben. 40, 1993, 9–34.

[German Version] I. Bishopric and Cathedral School – II. The Cathedral of Notre-Dame I. Bishopric and Cathedral School The bishopric of Chartres probably goes back to the 4th century. The first documented bishop is Adventinus (511). The bishops Fulbert of Chartres (1006–1028), Ivo of Chartres (1090–1116), John of Salisbury (1177–1180), and Peter of Celle (1180–1183) engaged in scholarly activities. The see of Chartres was suffragan to Sens and, from 1622, to Paris. The cathedral sch…

[German Version] (“Doctor subtilis”; 1265/66 Duns?, Scotland – Nov 8, 1308, Cologne). There is great uncertainty on the biography of Duns Scotus. He came from Scotland, entered the Franciscan Order (Franciscans), and studied at Oxford and possibly Paris. He was ordained a priest in 1291. Whether he first taught at Cambridge is under dispute. Around 1300, he lectured ¶ at Oxford on the Sentences of Peter Lombard; likewise in Paris beginning in 1302. He was expelled from the country in 1303 for …

[German Version] (Amaury; born Bène, near Chartres, died 1206, Paris) studied and taught the artes liberales in Paris. He also was engaged in theology and developed a pantheistic Gnostic interpretation of history, inspired by Neoplatonism, based on John Scotus Eriugena and the natural philosophy of Aristotle. Our knowledge of his system depends entirely on works written by his opponents. His teachings were condemned in 1210 by a synod in Paris, along with the teachings of David, and in 1215 by the 4th Lateran Council. His followers were persecuted as heretics. Reinhold Rieger Bibliogra…

[German Version] I. History of Religions – II. Classical Antiquity – III. Bible– IV. Church History – V. Systematics – VI. Practical Exegesis– VII. Religious Art I. History of Religions Allegory (from Gk ἀλληγορέω/ allēgoreō, “say something other [than the literal meaning]”), is a hermeneutical technique (Hermeneutics). The moment a religious message becomes fixed (esp. in writing), a need for interpretation arises. One way to meet this need is t…

[German Version] (Sebundus, Ramon Sibiuda; died Apr 29, 1436, Toulouse), taught philosophy, medicine, and theology in Toulouse, where he was also rector of the university. In his main work, Scientia libri creaturarum (1434/1435; in later eds., Theologia naturalis), he develops a natural theology based on experience, in the Franciscan tradition and oriented to Augustine and Anselm of Canterbury: since humanity is the center of creation, self-knowledge is the key to knowledge of God; theology is a practical science, necessary because…

[German Version] (c. 1080, Conches – c. 1154). From 1120 on he taught at the cathedral school of Chartres. From 1144 to 1149 he was in the service of the duke of Normandy. He wrote commentaries on classical authors such as Boethius ( De consolatione philosophiae), Macrobius, Juvenal, Priscian, and Plato ( Timaeus). His primary interest was natural philosophy, which he explored cosmologically and anthropologically in his Philosophia mundi (c. 1124) and Dragmaticon philosophiae (1144–1149). He drew especially on Arabic medical sources. His copious use of classical and …

[German Version] The Lateran Councils, which were held in the papal palace in Rome, the Lateran, belong among the so-called “papal councils,” because they were convened and largely defined by the bishop of Rome. In the wake of the Counter-Reformation they were counted as the 9th-12th and the 18th ecumenical councils. First Lateran Council. Called in June 1122 by Pope Callistus II, this synod, which met Mar 27–28, 1123 and was attended only by Western representatives, set out to continue the Gregorian “reforms,” after the Concordat (Concordats) of …

[German Version] (1092/93, Polling – Jun 27, 1169, Reichersberg). After his education in ¶ monastery schools in Polling, Moosburg, Freising and Hildesheim, Gerhoch was cathedral scholaster in Augsburg and joined the Augustinian Canons in Rottenbuch in 1124. There he unsuccessfully proposed the Vita communis for the secular clergy. From 1132 until his death, he was provost of the Canons Regular in Reichersberg. In efforts to reform the clergy, whose secularization (Simony) he criticized, he addressed letters and essays to Bernard of Clair…

[German Version] (c. 1170, Suffolk, England – Oct 8/9, 1253). After studying and teaching the artes liberales in Oxford, he studied theology in Paris and taught again at Oxford (c. 1225–1235) for the Franciscans. In 1229, Grosseteste became archdeacon in Leicester and in 1235 bishop of Lincoln. He participated in the Council in Lyon in 1245. He sought to execute reforms in the religious life of the clergy in his diocese. ¶ He translated works by John of Damascus, Dionysius Areopagita, Aristotle ( Eth. Nic. and Cael.) from the Greek. Grosseteste wrote commentaries on the Hexaemeron, the Te…

[German Version] (died 1206/1210) probably received the Master of Arts in Paris, and supposedly spent time at the court of Innocent III. He excerpted and translated Aristotle's works of natural philosophy from Greek, discovered his De problematibus, and developed, under neoplatonic influence, a pantheistic philosophy in which he identified God with the primary material and mind. He defended the worldview of Pythagoras ag…

[German Version] (1147 – after 1203). A student of Alain of Lille and Gilbert of Poitiers, Nicholas wrote the apologetic Ars fidei catholicae, in which, following the model of Euclid’s geometry and inspired by Aristotle’s Analytica posteriora, he tried to derive theological tenets from more fundamental nontheological statements having the character of definitions, postulates, and axioms, forgoing citation of authorities. His hope was to secure the position of theology as a science. The work follows the structure of Peter Lombard’s Sententiae. Reinhold Rieger Bibliography Ed.: Ar…

[German Version] (Middleton; called doctor solidus; c. 1249 – c. 1308), gained his bachelor’s degree in theology between 1278 and 1284, and his master’s ¶ degree in 1284/85. Until 1286/1287 he was provincial of the Franciscans in France, and taught theology in Paris. In 1283 he participated in the condemnation of P.-R. Olivétan. From 1286 to 1297, Richard was tutorto the son of Charles II of Naples. Following Bonaventura, he criticized some of the teachings of Thomas Aquinas and the Averroists (Averroes). He held that t…

[German Version] (c. 1150, Auxerre [?] – 1231, Rome), archdeacon of Beauvais. From 1229 to 1231, he was involved in the conflict between the University of Paris and the French king, acting on the bull Parens scientiarum (Apr 13, 1231) of Gregory IX confirming and expanding the rights of the university. The amendment of the Aristotelian natural sciences by a papal commission on which William sat had no effect. His Summa aurea (1215/1229), his major work, became the textbook of the early Dominican school of Paris. He considered theology a science as defined in Aristotle’s Analytica posterio…

[German Version] (Dec 24, 1475, Oberehnheim [Obernai, Alsace] – 1537, Oberehnheim). After attending the Franciscan monastery school in Strasbourg, Murner entered the order in 1490, became a priest in 1494, and studied between 1495 and 1501 at the universities of Freiburg im Breisgau, Paris, Cologne, Rostock, Prague, Krakov, and Vienna. In Freiburg he became in 1506 doctor of theology, and in Basel in 1519 doctor of canon and civil law. He served his order ¶ as lector in Freiburg, Berne, Speyer, and Frankfurt am Main. In Vienna in 1505 he was crowned poeta laureatus. Following S. Brant h…

[German Version] (c. 1100, Brescia – 1155, Rome). Arnold, who may have been a pupil of Abelard in Paris 1115–1120, was an Augustinian Canon and possibly provost of the monastery of San Pietro a Ripa in Brescia. There, in contact with Cathari and Waldensians, he supported the reform program of the Patarines, opposing …