Robert Kilwardby

Template:Short description Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox Christian leader

Robert Kilwardby (c. 1215 – 11 September 1279) was an Archbishop of Canterbury in England and a cardinal. Kilwardby was the first member of a mendicant order to attain a high ecclesiastical office in the English Church.

Life

Kilwardby studied at the University of Paris, then was a teacher of grammar and logic there. He then joined the Dominican Order and studied theology,<ref name=Lawrence146>Lawrence "Thirteenth Century" English Church and the Papacy p. 146</ref> and became regent at Oxford University before 1261,<ref name=Thought288>Knowles Evolution of Medieval Thought p. 288</ref> probably by 1245.<ref name=Leff290>Leff Paris and Oxford Universities pp. 290–293</ref> He was named provincial prior of the Dominicans for England in 1261,<ref name=BHOCant>Greenway Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066-1300: Volume 2: Monastic Cathedrals (Northern and Southern Provinces): Canterbury: Archbishops</ref> and in October 1272 Pope Gregory X appointed him as Archbishop of Canterbury to end a dispute over the election. Kilwardby was provided to the archbishopric on 11 October 1272, given the temporalities on 12 December 1272, and consecrated on 26 February 1273.<ref name=Handbook233>Fryde, et al. Handbook of British Chronology p. 233</ref>

Kilwardby crowned Edward I and his wife Eleanor as king and queen of England in August 1274, but otherwise took little part in politics. He instead concentrated on his ecclesiastical duties, including charity to the poor and donating to the Dominicans.<ref name=Moorman371>Moorman Church Life p. 371</ref>

In 1278 Pope Nicholas III named Kilwardby Cardinal Bishop of Porto and Santa Rufina.<ref name=Princes173>Bellenger and Fletcher Princes of the Church p. 173</ref> He then resigned Canterbury and left England,<ref name=Handbook233/> taking with him papers, registers and documents belonging to the see. He also left the see deep in debt again, after his predecessor had cleared the debt.<ref name=Moorman173>Moorman Church Life, p. 173.</ref> While in theory this was a promotion, probably it was not, as the pope was unhappy with Kilwardby's support of efforts to resist the payment of papal revenues and with the lack of effort towards the reforms demanded at the Second Council of Lyon in 1274.<ref name=Edward249>Prestwich Edward I p. 249</ref>

He died in Italy in 1279, and was buried in the Dominican convent in Viterbo.<ref name=Princes173/>

Reputation

Kilwardby's theological and philosophical views were summed up by David Knowles who said that he was a "conservative eclectic, holding the doctrine of seminal tendencies and opposing...the Aristotelian doctrine of the unity of form in beings, including man."<ref name=Thought249>Knowles Evolution of Medieval Thought p. 249</ref> Some sources state that he was the author of Summa Philosophiae, a history and description of the schools of philosophical thought then current, but the writing style is not similar to his other works, and Knowles, for one, does not believe it was authored by Kilwardby.<ref name=Thought287>Knowles Evolution of Medieval Thought p. 287</ref>

It has been alleged that Kilwardby was an opponent of Thomas Aquinas. In 1277 he prohibited the teaching of thirty theses, some of which have been thought to touch upon Thomas Aquinas' teaching. Recent scholars, however, such as Roland Hissette, have challenged this interpretation.<ref name=Burton206>Burton,Monastic and Religious Orders pp. 206–207</ref>

Works

Writings on grammar

Commentaria Priscianus minor (A Commentary on the books 17 and 18 of Priscian's Institutiones grammaticae)

Writings on logic

Notulae super librum Praedicamentorum
Notulae super librum Perihermeneias
Notule libri Priorum
Notule libri Posteriorum
Comentum super librum Topicorum
Notulae super librum Porphyrii
De natura relationis
Priorum Analyticorum expositio
Notuale super librum Sex Principiorum

Writings on natural philosophy

De spiritu fantastico sive de receptione specierum
De tempore

Writings on ethics

Quaestiones supra libros Ethicorum
Quaestiones in librum primum Sententiarum
Quaestiones in librum secundum Sententiarum
Quaestiones in librum tertium Sententiarum
Quaestiones in librum quartum Sententiarum
De ortu scientiarum

De tempore has been edited and translated by Alexander Broadie, and published as On Time and Imagination, Part 2: Introduction and Translation. A critical edition of De orto scientiarum was published by Albert G. Judy, for The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in 1976. A critical edition of the four volumes of Quaestiones in librum Sententiarum was published in five volumes in 1982–1993 by Elisabeth Gössmann, Gerhard Leibold, Richard Schenk and Johannes Schneider for the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

The Notuel libri Priorum (on Aristotle's Prior Analytics), has been edited and translated by Paul Thom and John Scott (Oxford: Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, 2015; two volumes).

Kilwardby was also the author of a summary of the writings of the Church Fathers, arranged alphabetically, Tabulae super Originalia Patrum, edited by Daniel A. Callus (Bruges: De Tempel, 1948).