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[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] ( 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] (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 …

[German Version] (c. 1050 Compiègne – 1120/1125) studied at Soissons and Reims; among the places he taught was Loches, where Abelard studied with him. His application of dialectics and semantics to theology made his teaching regarding the Trinity as a unity of the divine essence in three persons appear as tritheism, although his aim was to avoid Sabellianism and Arianism. He was forced to recant at a synod in Soissons (1090/1093). His critics, including Abelard in his Theologia summi boni, did not understand his concerns but objected that his writings did not use concepts …

[German Version] I. The Philosophical Problem The universals controversy concerns the nature of the general and its relationship to the particular (General/Particular). The fundamental ontological assumption that the world consists of objects with attributes is reflected in the subject-predicate structure of declarative sentences, based on the logical relationship of singular to general terms, elements to sets, individuals to general concepts. Can this logical and ontological dualism, governed by the …

[German Version] (c. 1000, Tours – Jan 6, 1088, St. Côme near Tours) studied with Fulbert in Chartres, and became the head and chancellor of the school of Tours, where he taught the Trivium ( Artes liberales ). He advised the count of Anjou and was archdeacon of Angers. His eucharistic doctrine, over which he became embroiled in a fierce dispute with Lanfranc of Pavia, was condemned in 1050 at synods in Rome and Vercelli…

[German Version] (1298/1299, Autrécourt – Jun 17, 1369, Metz). After studying law in Orleans (?) and theology in Paris, in 1335/1336 he received his first degree in theology and in 1339/1340 his licentiate. In 1340 he was appointed dean of the cathedral chapter of Metz. In 1340 Benedict XII summoned him to Avignon to stand trial for false teaching; in 1346 he was finally condemned by Pope Clement VI and had to recant. In his writings and correspondence (e.g. with the Franciscan Bernard of Arezzo),…

[German Version] (after 1250 – Aug 7, 1323, Narbonne). A Dominican friar who joined the order in Morlaix (1276), Hervaeus Natalis lectured in Paris from 1302 to 1309, was appointed Dominican provincial in 1309, and superior general in 1318. He defended Thomas Aquinas against Henry of Ghent, J. Duns Scotus, Peter Aureol, Jakob of Metz, and Durandus ¶ de Sancto Porciano. However, he criticized the assumption of a real difference between being and essence as well as Aquinas's psychological doctrine of Trinity. Reinhold Rieger Bibliography Works include: Quodlibeta XI, Tractatus, 1513, …

[German Version] (May 13, 1638, Dieppe – Apr 11, 1712, Dieppe), studied at the Oratorian College in Dieppe and in 1657 at the Jesuit College in Rouen. In 1670 he became a priest of the Oratory. His Histoire critique du Vieux Testament (1678; ET: A Critical History of the Old Testament, 1682) was confiscated at the instigation of J.B. Bossuet but was published in a new edition in Amsterdam and Rotterdam in 1680. In it he attempted to counter the attacks of B. Spinoza on the authority of the Old Testament with the principle of the historical grow…

[German Version] (de la Porrée, de Poitiers; c. 1080, Poitiers, France – Sep 4, 1154, Poitiers) studied with Hilary of Poitiers, Bernard of Chartres and Anselm of Laon. After canonries in Poitiers and Chartres, he taught in Paris and became bishop of Poitiers in 1142. In his commentaries on Boethius, Gilbert distinguished between speculative (physics, ethics, logic) and practical sciences (e.g. medicine). He divided physics into natural science, mathematics and theology. In order to understand the…

[German Version] This English translator and natural philosopher was a Benedict, who lived between 1070 and 1160 and was probably from Bath, to which he returned in 1130; he studied in Tours, probably taught in Laon, and undertook extensive journeys in the Mediterranean region, where he became acquainted with Arab science. His chief merit consists in his mediation of ancient and Arab natural philosophy of Antiquity to the West. He translated Euclid's Elements, the introduction to astrology by Abu Mashar, and the astronomical tables of al-…

[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] (“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] (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…

1. AllgemeinAufgrund der komplexen Entstehungsgeschichte der europ. Universitäten (= Univ.) gab es im HochMA eine Th. F. nur an den nach dem Modell von Paris in vier Fakultäten (Artisten-F., Juristische Fakultät, Medizinische Fakultät und Th. F.) untergliederten Lehranstalten. Die nach dem Vorbild Bolognas gegründeten Hochschulen hingegen bestanden aus zwei Untereinheiten, die selbst Univ. hießen (Univ. der Juristen bzw. der Artisten und Mediziner). Die Theologie gehörte hier nicht zum Univ.-Studium, sondern wurde an Einrichtungen der Bettelorden betrieben (Mönchtum…

1. OverviewGiven the complex history of the growth of the European universities, in the high Middle Ages there was a theological faculty only at the educational institutions organized into four faculties on the Paris model (arts, law, medicine, and theology; Law, Faculty of, Medicine, faculty of ). The tertiary institutions modeled on Bologna consisted instead of two sub-units, themselves called universities (University of the Jurists, University of the Artists and Physicians). Here theology was …

[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] I. Religious Studies – II. Old Testament – III. New Testament – IV. Church History – V. Systematic Theology – VI. Law – VII. Judaism I. Religious Studies 1. The use of the term grace has been influenced strongly by the historically innovative Pauline conception. For Paul, grace is a gift, a unique fruit of God's salvific purpose and redemptive action. After the analogy of other redemptive religions, Paul employed this term to denote a fundamental aspect of the salvific action of the deity. In other religion…

[German Version] I. Natural Sciences and Psychology – II. Religious Studies – III. Philosophy – IV. Old Testament – V. New Testament – VI. Church History – VII. Dogmatics and Ethics – VIII. Judaism – IX. Islam I. Natural Sciences and Psychology 1. Evolution From the perspective of the natural sciences, the theory of evolution offers the most comprehensive framework for understanding human beings. It views the human species as a late product of a biogenetic process that began with the origin of life (VI) on earth some 3.8 billion …

[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…