Albertus Magnus

Life events

1. Born

   Albert was born sometime before 1200, most probably in Lauingen (now in Bavaria), where he identified himself as Albert of Lauingen; two later sources give his age at death in 1280 as about 87, yielding the commonly cited birth year of 1193, though this evidence is insufficient to confirm the date precisely.

2. Educated — 1223

   Albert was probably educated principally at the University of Padua, where he received instruction in Aristotle writings; in 1223 (or 1229) he became a member of the Dominican Order and subsequently studied theology at Bologna and elsewhere before being selected as lecturer at Cologne.

3. Other — 1245

   In 1245 Albert became master of theology under Guerric of Saint-Quentin at Paris, making him the first German Dominican to achieve this distinction; he then held the Chair of Theology at the College of St. James at the University of Paris, where Thomas Aquinas began studying under him.

4. Other — 1254

   In 1254 Albert was made provincial of the Dominican Order, during which tenure he publicly defended the Dominicans against attacks by the secular faculty of the University of Paris and answered what he identified as errors in the work of the Islamic philosopher Averroes.

5. Other — 1259

   In 1259 Albert participated in the General Chapter of the Dominicans at Valenciennes together with Thomas Aquinas and others, establishing a ratio studiorum for the Order that introduced philosophy as a formal subject for students not yet prepared for theology.

6. Consecrated — 1260

   In 1260 Pope Alexander IV appointed Albert bishop of Regensburg; during his three years in office he refused to ride a horse in accord with Dominican practice, traversing his large diocese on foot, before resigning in 1263 when Pope Urban IV relieved him and asked him to preach the Eighth Crusade in German-speaking lands.

7. Wrote

   Albert collected writings, gathered in 1899, filled thirty-eight volumes covering logic, theology, botany, geography, astronomy, mineralogy, alchemy, zoology, and other disciplines; he digested, interpreted, and systematized the entire Aristotelian corpus in accord with Church doctrine, combining ancient sources with his own empirical investigations.

8. Died — 1280

   Albert died on 15 November 1280 in the Dominican convent in Cologne after suffering declining health from 1278; his relics are housed in a Roman sarcophagus in the crypt of the Dominican St. Andrew Church in Cologne.

Relationships

Documented claims

• Albert was known during his lifetime as Doctor universalis and Doctor expertus for his encyclopedic knowledge; the epithet Magnus was appended to his name only late in his life. (likely)
• Albert was the first medieval scholar to comment on virtually all of Aristotle writings, making them accessible to wider academic debate; most modern knowledge of Aristotle was preserved and presented by Albert. (likely)
• Albert is credited with the discovery of the element arsenic and experimented with photosensitive chemicals, including silver nitrate. (plausible)
• An exhumation three years after Albert death in 1280 reported his body incorrupt, but a later exhumation in 1483 found only a skeleton remaining. (plausible)
• According to legend, Albert discovered the philosopher stone and passed it to Thomas Aquinas before his death, but this is demonstrably false since Aquinas died six years before Albert. (legendary)

Sources

• Albertus Magnus — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albertus_Magnus)