Roland of Cremona (around 1178–1259) was a Dominican theologian and an early

scholastic philosopher Scholasticism was a medieval school of philosophy that employed a critical organic method of philosophical analysis predicated upon the Aristotelian 10 Categories. Christian scholasticism emerged within the monastic schools that translat ...

. He was the first Dominican

regent master Regent master (''Magister regens'') was a title conferred in the medieval universities upon a student who had acquired a master's degree. The degree meant simply the right to teach, the ''Licentia docendi'', a right which could be granted, in the ...

Paris, France Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

(1229–1230).''The Early Scholastics'', ''The Problem Of The Soul In The Thirteenth Century'', Richard C. Dales, E.J. Brill, 1995, pp. 36–37. He was among the most enthusiastic of those who made use of the newly translated

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...

in the early 13th century.

Composition of the soul

Roland of Cremona did not say as much about the soul as

William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris William of Auvergne (1180/90–1249) was a French theologian and philosopher who served as Bishop of Paris from 1228 until his death. He was one of the first western European philosophers to engage with and comment extensively upon Aristotelia ...

. He believed that the soul was the body's perfection. He affirmed the matter-form composition of the soul, unlike William. The two men agreed that there was a single soul in man and that its nature was simple. The vegetative, sensitive, and rational faculties are all performed by this single entity. The soul is dependent on the body according to Roland of Cremona. Humans differ from angels in having souls which require bodies. They have a natural inclination and dependence on the body, seeking to be joined to it. When the soul leaves the body it is not longer a soul, but becomes a spirit. This is because it no longer has the relationship to the body by which it is deemed a soul. Like

Peter of Spain __NOTOC__ Peter of Hispania ( la, Petrus Hispanus; Portuguese and es, Pedro Hispano; century) was the author of the ', later known as the ', an important medieval university textbook on Aristotelian logic. As the Latin ''Hispania'' was consider ...

, he denied that embryos possess pre-rational souls. Roland of Cremona attributed the growth and development of the soul to the soul of the mother.''A Polarization Of Views'', ''The Problem Of The Rational Soul In The Thirteenth Century'', Richard C. Dales, E.J. Brill, 1995, p. 107.

Career

He joined the

Dominican order The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

in 1219. He was a lecturer at the medieval

University of Toulouse The University of Toulouse (french: Université de Toulouse) was a university in the French city of Toulouse that was established by papal bull in 1229, making it one of the earliest universities to emerge in Europe. Suppressed during the Frenc ...

from its foundation in 1229, and preached against the

Cathars Catharism (; from the grc, καθαροί, katharoi, "the pure ones") was a Christian dualist or Gnostic movement between the 12th and 14th centuries which thrived in Southern Europe, particularly in northern Italy and southern France. Fol ...

in the city. In 1231 he led a party of

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the ol ...

s and

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...

s to exhume from a cemetery the body of a man rumoured to have died a

heretic Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...

. This precipitate action led to protests from the consuls of

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...

, and Roland left the city soon afterwards.

Notes

References

* Victor F. O'Daniel
The First Disciples of Saint Dominic
(full biography from a Dominican point of view) * Daniel Callus OP, "Aristotelian Learning in Oxford" (p. 5) * '' Johannis de Garlandia De triumphis ecclesiae'' ed. Thomas Wright (London: Nichols, 1856) p. 105. * Ayelet Even-Ezra, “Cursus: an early thirteenth century source for nocturnal flights and ointments in the work of Roland of Cremona,” Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft 12/2 (Winter 2017), 314-330. * Ayelet Even-Ezra
Ecstasy in the Classroom: Trance, Self and the Academic Profession in Medieval Paris
(Fordham University Press: NY, 2018). {{Authority control 1178 births 1259 deaths French Dominicans Catharism Catholic philosophers Scholastic philosophers 13th-century philosophers