Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) was an Italian Catholic philosopher and theologian in the scholastic tradition. He gave birth to the Thomistic school of philosophy, which was long the primary philosophical approach of the Roman Catholic Church. He is considered by the Catholic church to be its greatest theologian and one of the thirty-three Doctors of the Church....

...The life of Thomas Aquinas offers many interesting insights into the world of the High Middle Ages. He was born into a family of the south Italian nobility and was through his mother Countess Theadora of Theate related to the Hohenstaufen dynasty of Holy Roman emperors....

...In his fifth year he was sent for his early education to the [Benedictine] monastery. However, after studying at the University of Naples, Thomas joined the Dominican order, which along with the Franciscan order represented a revolutionary challenge to the well-established clerical systems of early medieval Europe....

... the Dominicans sent Thomas to Cologne to study under Albertus Magnus; he arrived probably in late 1244. He accompanied Albertus to the University of Paris in 1245, remained there with his teacher for three years, and followed Albertus back to Cologne in 1248. For several years longer he remained with the famous philosopher of scholasticism, presumably teaching. This long association of Thomas with the great philosopher theologian was the most important influence in his development; it made him a comprehensive scholar and won him permanently for the Aristotelian method....

In 1252 Aquinas went to Paris for the master's degree, but met with some difficulty owing to attacks on the mendicant orders by the professoriate of the University. Ultimately, however, he received the degree and entered upon his office of teaching in 1257; he taught in Paris for several years and there wrote some of his works and began others. In 1259 he was present at an important chapter of his order at Valenciennes. At the solicitation of Pope Urban IV (therefore not before the latter part of 1261), he took up his residence in Rome. In 1269-71 he was again active in Paris. In 1272 the provincial chapter at Florence empowered him to found a new studium generale at such place as he should choose, and he selected Naples.

Aquinas had a mystical experience while celebrating Mass on December 6, 1273, after which he stopped writing, leaving his great work, the Summa Theologica, unfinished...He died on March 7, 1274....

...In 1319, the Roman Catholic Church began investigations preliminary to Aquinas's canonization; on July 18, 1323, he was pronounced a saint by Pope John XXII at Avignon. At the Council of Trent only two books were placed on the Altar, the Bible and St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica." (from Wikipedia.com)