Thomas Aquinas
THOMAS AQUINAS (Tommaso d'Aquino, 1225–1274), Italian Dominican theologian, doctor of the church, patron of Roman Catholic schools, and Christian saint. One of the most important and influential scholastic theologians, Thomas is seen by the Roman Catholic church as uniquely "her very own" (Pius XI). He has been honored with the scholastic titles Doctor Communis (thirteenth century) and Doctor Angelicus (fifteenth century), among others.
Life and Works
The youngest son of Landolfo d'Aquino, lord of Roccasecca and Montesangiovanni and justiciary of Emperor Frederick II, and his second wife, Teodora of Chieti, Thomas had five sisters, three older brothers, and at least three half brothers. The family castle of Roccasecca, where Thomas was born, midway between Rome and Naples, was on a mountain in the northwest corner of the kingdom of Sicily. Sicily was ruled by the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederic II (1194–1250), who was in almost continual warfare with the papal armies of Honorius III (1216–1227), Gregory IX (1227–1241), and Innocent IV (1243–1254). Divided political and religious loyalties rendered the position of the d'Aquino family precarious.
Thomas spent his first five years at the family castle under the care of his mother and a nurse. As the youngest son of the family, Thomas was given (oblatus, "offered") to the Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino by his parents at the age of five or six in the firm hope that he would eventually choose the monastic life and become abbot.
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