Giles of Rome
Augustinian theologian
Latin Aegidius Romanus, also called Doctor Fundatissimus
(Latin: “Best-Grounded Teacher”)
born c. 1243, –47, Rome [Italy]
died 1316, Avignon, Fr.
Main
Scholastic theologian, philosopher, logician, archbishop,
and general and intellectual leader of the Order of the
Hermit Friars of St. Augustine.
Giles joined the Augustinian Hermits in about 1257 and in
1260 went to Paris, where he was educated in the house of
his order. While in Paris from 1269 to 1272, he probably
studied under St. Thomas Aquinas, whose philosophical
doctrines he defended against ecclesiastical condemnation
(1277). He supported the Thomistic doctrine of substance in
his Theoremata de esse et essentia (“Essays on Being and
Essence”). A storm of opposition from other theologians
forced Giles to take refuge in Bayeux, Fr. (1278–80).
In 1281 he returned to Italy and was made provincial of
his order in 1283 and vicar-general in 1285. That year Pope
Honorius IV effected Giles’ reinstatement at the University
of Paris, where he taught theology until 1291. He served as
general of the Augustinian Hermits from 1292 to 1295, when
Pope Boniface VIII made him archbishop of Bourges, Fr.
During the political conflict between Boniface and King
Philip IV the Fair of France, Giles wrote, in 1301, a
defense of the pope, De ecclesiastica potestate (“On the
Church Power”); he proposed that the pope must have direct
political power over the whole of mankind.
Developing in an original way Augustinian and Thomistic
doctrines, Giles’s vast literary production includes
Aristotelian and biblical commentaries and theological and
political treatises. Numerous editions of his collected and
individual works appeared in the 15th, 16th, and 17th
centuries. His commentaries on Aristotle’s entire Organon
(i.e., the logical writings) are considered valuable by
logicians.
