Albertus Magnus

(c. 1200–c. 1280)

   Saint, Bishop, Philosopher and Theologian.

   Albertus was born in Lauingen in Germany. Before entering the Dominican order, he studied at the University of Padua and subsequently he taught at Hildesheim, Freiberg, Ratisbon and Strasbourg. In about 1241 he moved to Paris where he held a chair in theology and where thomas aquinas was among his pupils. In 1248 he was transferred to Cologne where he started a new Dominican centre and between 1253 and 1256 he was Provincial of the German province. After a visit to Rome, where at the request of the Pope he had held a disputation on the oneness of the intellect, he was consecrated Bishop of Ratisbon in 1260. At the end of his life he moved between various German Dominican houses and he eventually died in Cologne. Albertus’s works include the Tractatus de Natura Boni, a Summa Theologica, a commentary on the Ethics of Aristotle and various biblical commentaries. He is an important figure in the history of Christian thought in that he saw the relevance of Aristotelian ideas for Christian theology and he defended the distinction between the truths derived from revelation and those deduced by human reason. Although his work was eclipsed by that of his student Aquinas, he was recognised as an authority by contemporaries such as Roger bacon and Ulrich of Strasbourg. Many legends concerning his miraculous powers grew up in the late Middle Ages. He was named a Doctor of the Church in 1931.

   F.J. Catania, ‘Bibliography of St Albert the Great’, The Modern Schoolman, xxxvii (1959);

   J.A. Weisheipl (ed.), Albertus Magnus and the Sciences (1980).