Medieval Theologians
he Middle Ages ran from the Council of Chalcedon in 451 to the eve of the Reformation in 1517. In those centuries the gospel reached the peoples of northern Europe, the monasteries became the homes of learning, the papacy grew in power, and the scholastics built the great systems of medieval theology. The 18 figures below were among the major contributors of the era. Each page gives a short sketch of his life and teaching, with sources cited.
Much of what the Reformers rejected took its settled form in these centuries: the papacy of Gregory, the seven sacraments of Lombard, the transubstantiation of Radbertus and Aquinas, and the theology of merit. Yet the Reformers also found witnesses to the truth among the medieval teachers, from Gottschalk and Bernard to the forerunners listed at the end. Each sketch notes at least one way in which the figure contributed to Roman Catholic theology, Reformation theology, or both.
The Early Middle Ages
Missionaries, monks, and the first medieval pope, from the fall of Rome to the age of Charlemagne.
- Patrick of Ireland — The Briton, once a slave in Ireland, who returned as a missionary and planted a monastic church among the Celts.
- Boethius — The Roman statesman and philosopher, “last of the Romans, first of the scholastics,” who wrote The Consolation of Philosophy in prison.
- Benedict of Nursia — The abbot of Monte Cassino whose Rule became the pattern for monastic life in the West.
- Columba — The Irish monk who founded Iona and carried the gospel to the Picts and Scots.
- Gregory the Great — The monk-pope who expanded the power of the papacy and set the course of medieval teaching on grace and merit.
- Maximus the Confessor — The monk who suffered mutilation and exile for confessing that Christ has a true human will as well as a divine one.
- The Venerable Bede — The English monk-scholar whose Ecclesiastical History is our chief source for the early English church.
- Boniface — The English monk who evangelized the Germans and bound their churches to the bishop of Rome.
The Carolingian Debates
The ninth-century controversies over the Lord’s Supper and predestination.
- Paschasius Radbertus — The Carolingian abbot who wrote the first doctrinal book on the Eucharist and taught that the bread becomes the very flesh born of Mary.
- Ratramnus of Corbie — The Carolingian monk who answered Radbertus, teaching with Augustine that Christ is present in the Supper spiritually.
- Gottschalk of Orbais — The Saxon monk who revived Augustine’s doctrine of predestination and died imprisoned for it.
The Scholastics
The monks and masters of the cathedral schools and universities, from Anselm to Ockham.
- Anselm of Canterbury — The Benedictine archbishop who sought “faith seeking understanding” and taught that Christ’s death made satisfaction to God.
- Peter Abelard — The brilliant Paris teacher who pioneered scholastic method and taught the moral influence theory of the atonement.
- Bernard of Clairvaux — The Cistercian abbot, preacher, and mystic whom Calvin quoted more than any medieval writer.
- Peter Lombard — The author of the Sentences, the textbook of medieval theology, who fixed the number of the sacraments at seven.
- Thomas Aquinas — The greatest theologian of the Middle Ages, whose synthesis of Aristotle and Christian doctrine became Rome’s official theology.
- John Duns Scotus — The Franciscan “subtle doctor” who taught the primacy of God’s will and championed the Immaculate Conception of Mary.
- William of Ockham — The English Franciscan whose nominalism shaped the late medieval schools and who held Scripture to be the only infallible authority.
Forerunners of the Reformation
The late medieval preachers and scholars whose pages appear elsewhere on this site.
- Peter Waldo — The merchant of Lyons whose followers, the Waldensians, carried the Scriptures to the common people.
- John Wycliffe — The Oxford theologian, the “Morning Star of the Reformation,” behind the first complete English Bible.
- John Hus — The Czech reformer, burned at Constance in 1415, who attacked clerical abuses and the authority of the pope.
- Girolamo Savonarola — The Florentine preacher who called for moral reform and was hanged and burned as a heretic in 1498.
- Desiderius Erasmus — The prince of the humanists, whose Greek New Testament of 1516 served the Reformation he would not join.
