  Philip the Chancellor was an influential figure in a number of different circles in the first half of the thirteenth century. He enjoyed a long though rather turbulent ecclesiastical career and was famous for his sermons and his lyric poetry, the latter of which has received attention by a number of musicologists in recent years (see Dronke 1987, Payne 1991, Traill 2003). In the areas of philosophy and theology, his major work, Summa de bono, which was composed sometime in the 1220s–1230s, was a ground-breaking achievement in many ways. Philip was one of the first to organize a Summa around a central foundational principle, the notion of the good. Summa de bono also contains most likely the earliest treatment of a topic that rose to prominence in the later medieval period, the doctrine of the transcendentals. Elements of Philip’s theory of action drew comments from such later notables as Albert the Great. Summa de bono was a well-respected and influential work in the thirteenth century (see Keeler 1937, Callus 1941–43, Principe 1962). 