Robert Kilwardby

His Eminence Robert Kilwardby OP
Cardinal, Archbishop of Canterbury Primate of All England
Appointed	11 October 1272
Term ended	5 June 1278
Predecessor	William Chillenden
Successor	Robert Burnell
Other post	Cardinal Bishop of Porto and Santa Rufina
Orders
Consecration	26 February 1273 by William of Bitton (II.)
Created cardinal	12 March 1278
Rank	Cardinal bishop
Personal details
Born	c. 1215 England
Died	11 September 1279 Viterbo
Buried	Dominican convent, Viterbo
Education	University of Paris
Ordination history
History Episcopal consecration Principal consecrator Bishop William of Bitton (II.) Co-consecrators Nicholas of Ely, Hugh Belsham, O.P., Walter Bronscombe, Godfrey Giffard, and Anian Schonaw, O.P. Date 26 February 1273 Cardinalate Elevated by Pope Nicholas III Date 12 March 1278
Episcopal succession Bishops consecrated by Robert Kilwardby as principal consecrator Robert Wickhampton 13 May 1274 Walter de Merton 21 October 1274 Saint Thomas Cantilupe 8 September 1275 Gerard Grandison 29 March 1276 Bishop William Middleton 29 May 1278 John Bradfield, O.S.B. 29 May 1278

Robert Kilwardby OP (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, and became regent at Oxford University before 1261, probably by 1245. He was named provincial prior of the Dominicans for England in 1261, 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.

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.

In 1278 Pope Nicholas III named Kilwardby Cardinal Bishop of Porto and Santa Rufina. He then resigned Canterbury and left England, 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. 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.

He died in Italy in 1279, and was buried in the Dominican convent in Viterbo.

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." 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.

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.

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 ortu 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).

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Robert Kilwardby — Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal-Bishop of Porto and Santa Rufina; died at Viterbo, 11 Sept., 1279. Nothing is known of his birth or early life, except that he studied at Paris and probably Oxford. For many years he taught grammar and logic at Paris with special success, devoting particular attention to the development of the use of the syllogism, during which time he composed numerous treatises on grammar and philosophy. Of these the work "De divisione scientiarum" was widely studied, as is evidenced by the numerous MS. codices still extant. Later in life he also wrote some theological works: "De passione Christi", "De sacramento altaris", and some commentaries on Scripture. Feeling called to the Order of Preachers, he abandoned his secular career and became a Dominican, devoting himself to theology and the study of the Scriptures and the Fathers. In 1261 he was chosen provincial of the order in England, an office which he held till 1272. Shortly after he ceased to be provincial he was chosen by Pope Gregory X to fill the See of Canterbury, which had then been vacant for two years. As archbishop-elect he, together with other nobles and prelates, proclaimed Edward I as King of England on the death of Henry III, and appointed a regency to govern the kingdom till the new king returned from the Crusades. He was consecrated at Canterbury on 26 Feb., 1273, by the Bishop of Bath and Wells, William Bytton, the pope having allowed him to nominate the consecrating prelate. On 8 May he received the pallium, and he was enthroned at Canterbury in September of the same year, he being the first friar to become metropolitan.

As archbishop he showed little interest in politics, but was very energetic in the administration of the spiritual duties. Having held a convocation in London, he entered upon a thorough visitation of the province. This was interrupted in 1274, as he had to leave England to attend the Council of Lyons. Here he distinguished himself as an ardent supporter of the pope's authority, and his own reputation as a great master of theology added weight to his advocacy. On his return to England he resumed his canonical visitation, traveling through the large dioceses of Winchester and Lincoln. In 1276 he visited the University of Oxford, where he condemned several errors, deprived masters who held erroneous opinions, and took other measures for safeguarding purity of doctrine. In the same year (16 June, 1276) he had the consolation of attending the translation of the relies of St. Richard at Chichester, whose life he had encouraged his brother Dominican, Ralph Boeking, to write. As primate he held two important provincial synods in 1273 and 1277, in which the lower clergy were granted fuller representation than had formerly been allowed. In his private life he was noted for his sanctity, his charity to the poor, and his success as a peacemaker. He was a great benefactor of his own order, and bought the site for a Dominican house at Castle Barnard in London. In 1278 Pope Nicholas III nominated Kilwardby as Cardinal-Bishop of Porto and Santa Rufina, and on 25 July he left England for Italy, taking with him all the registers and archives of Canterbury Cathedral. This unfortunate loss has never been recovered, and the earliest records of the see are those of his successor Archbishop Peckham, who vainly endeavoured to recover the lost papers. The change of life was too severe for an old man, and he fell ill shortly after joining the papal court at Viterbo. There he died in the following year and was buried in the convent of his own order.

QUÉTIF AND ECHARD, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum 1, 374-380; HOOK, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury (London, 1860-84); WILLIAMS, Lives of the English Cardinals (London, 1868); TOUT, in Dict. Nat. Biog., s. v.; CHEVALIER, Répertoire des sources historiques du moyen âge (Paris, 1905).

Bibliography

• Bellenger, Dominic Aidan; Fletcher, Stella (2001). Princes of the Church: A History of the English Cardinals. Stroud, UK: Sutton. ISBN 0-7509-2630-9.
• Burton, Janet (1994). Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain: 1000–1300. Cambridge Medieval Textbooks. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-37797-8.
• Clanchy, C. T. (1993). From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307 (Second ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-0-631-16857-7.
• Fryde, E. B; Greenway, D. E; Porter, S; Roy, I. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third Edition, revised ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56350-X.
• Greenway, Diana E. (1971). "Canterbury: Archbishops". Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066-1300. Vol. 2: Monastic Cathedrals (Northern and Southern Provinces). Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 11 September 2007.
• Knowles, David (1962). The Evolution of Medieval Thought. London: Longman. OCLC 937364.
• Lawrence, C. H. (1999) [1965]. "The Thirteenth Century". In Lawrence, C. H. (ed.). The English Church and the Papacy in the Middle Ages (Reprint ed.). Stroud: Sutton Publishing. pp. 117–156. ISBN 0-7509-1947-7.
• Leff, Gordon (1975). Paris and Oxford Universities in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: An Institutional and Intellectual History. Huntington, NY: Robert E. Krieger Pub. Co. ISBN 0-88275-297-9.
• Moorman, John R. H. (1955). Church Life in England in the Thirteenth Century (Revised ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. OCLC 213820968.
• Prestwich, Michael (1997). Edward I. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-07157-4.

Further reading

• Lagerlund, Henrik & Thom, Paul (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Robert Kilwardby, Leiden: Brill, 2012.
• Lewry, Patrick Osmund Robert Kilwardby's Writings on the Logica vetus Studied with Regard to Their Teaching and Method. Ph.D. diss. Oxford, 1978.
• Thom, Paul, Logic and Ontology in the Syllogistic of Robert Kilwardby, Leiden: Brill, 2007.
• Tugwell, Simon (2004). "Kilwardby, Robert (c.1215–1279)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/15546. Retrieved 12 March 2011. (subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required)

External links

• Silva, José Filipe. "Robert Kilwardby". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ISSN 1095-5054. OCLC 429049174.
• History of Medieval Philosophy Archived 3 September 2023 at the Wayback Machine by Jacques Maritain
• Kilwardby, Robert: Tabula in librum sancti Augustini De civitate Dei (1464), digitized codex at Somni