Gersonides or Levi ben Gershon, 1288–1344, Jewish philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, called also Ralbag, from the initials of his Hebrew name, b. Languedoc. He wrote scientific works ...

Scot, Michael, c.1175–c.1234, medieval scholar, b. Scotland. He served as astrologer and physician at the court of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, where with other scholars he translated Aris...

Siger de Brabant, fl. 1260–77, French theologian, head of the movement known as Latin Averroism. At the Univ. of Paris he taught that the individual soul had no immortality and that only the u...

Yakub I, 1160?–1199, ruler of Morocco (1184–99) and Moorish Spain. He was known as Yakub al-Mansur [the victorious] after his victory over Alfonso VIII of Castile at Alarcos (1195). One of the...

Lull, Ramón, or Raymond Lully, c.1232–1316?, Catalan philosopher, b. Palma, Majorca. Of a wealthy family, he lived in ease until c.1263, when he had a religious experience and was fired with a...

Delmedigo, Elijah ben Moses Abba, c.1460–1497, Jewish philosopher and Talmudist, b. Crete, known also as Elijah Cretensis. He emigrated to Italy as a young man. He studied the Jewish, Islamic,...

Almohads, Berber Muslim dynasty that ruled Morocco and Spain in the 12th and 13th cent. It had its origins in the puritanical sect founded by Ibn Tumart, who stirred up (c.1120) the tribes of ...

Albertus Magnus, Saint, or Saint Albert the Great, b. 1193 or 1206, d. 1280, scholastic philosopher, Doctor of the Church, called the Universal Doctor. A nobleman of Bollstädt in Swabia, he jo...

Scholasticism, philosophy and theology of Western Christendom in the Middle Ages. Virtually all medieval philosophers of any significance were theologians, and their philosophy is generally em...