Abstract

Albert the Great died on November 15, 1280. It is only to be expected that the 700th anniversary of the death of one of the longest-lived philosopher-theologians of the Middle Ages should be marked by a volume of commemorative essays. Indeed, one of the more interesting features of this present work is the "Introduction," wherein the editors have located the Doctor Universalis in terms of his interests, his many and varied writings, and his companion viatores of the late twelfth and the major part of the thirteenth centuries. We know he survived his most famous pupil, Thomas Aquinas, by some six years. It is perhaps more jarring to note that he may have been five years old at the death of Averroes and eleven at the death of Moses Maimonides. He went, as is said, from the decline of the golden age of Arabic and Jewish Philosophy right through to the beginnings of the decline of Scholasticism at the end of the thirteenth century.