Giles of Rome - Early Life

Early Life

Very little in known about his early life, although Jordan of Saxony claimed in his late 14th century work Liber Vitasfratrum that Giles belonged to the Colonna family of Rome. But Jordan of Saxony was not a contemporary of Giles, and many scholars remain skeptical of his account of Giles' early life. Having entered the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine at Rome, he was sent to Paris for his philosophical and theological studies, and became there the disciple of Thomas Aquinas. He was the first Augustinian appointed to teach in the University of Paris.

It is likely that Giles was a student of Thomas Aquinas during the period between 1269 and 1272. He began many of his commentaries on the works of Aristotle during the 1270s. Giles was in Paris doing theology until Bishop Étienne Tempier condemned the Aristotelian school of thought, including those who wrote commentaries on Aristotle's work, in the Condemnation of 1277. Giles, whose work had been condemned, disappeared from the Paris academic scene. There is no information on Giles between the period of 1277 and 1281, when he returned to Italy. However, in 1281, at the Thirty-sixth Council of Paris, in which several differences between bishops and mendicant orders were arranged, he sided with the bishops against the regulars. Referring to this, a contemporary philosopher, Godfrey of Fontaines mentioned him as the most renowned theologian of the whole city (qui modo melior de totâ villâ in omnibus reputatur), suggesting he might have been in Paris during this period before going back to Rome.

Philip III of France entrusted to him the education of his son, who later, in 1285, ascended the throne as Philip IV. When the new king, after his coronation at Reims, entered Paris, Giles gave the address of welcome in the name of the university, insisting on justice as the most important virtue of a king. (For the text, see Ossinger, in work cited below.)

In 1285 Giles' work was again called into question, but by 1287 he was allowed to continue teaching. Eight years later in 1295 Giles was appointed as the archbishop of Bourges, which he wrote about in his work De renunciatione.