Giles of RomeArticle Free Pass Giles of Rome, , Latin Aegidius
Romanus, also called Doctor Fundatissimus (Latin: “Best-Grounded
Teacher”) (born c. 1243, –47, Rome [Italy]—died 1316, Avignon,
Fr.), Scholastic theologian, philosopher, logician, archbishop,
and general and intellectual leader of the Order of the Hermit
Friars of St. Augustine. Giles joined the Augustinian Hermits in
about 1257 and in 1260 went to Paris, where he was educated in
the house of his order. While in Paris from 1269 to 1272, he
probably studied under St. Thomas Aquinas, whose philosophical
doctrines he defended against ecclesiastical condemnation
(1277). He supported the Thomistic doctrine of substance in his
Theoremata de esse et essentia (“Essays on Being and Essence”).
A storm of opposition from other theologians forced Giles to
take refuge in Bayeux, Fr. (1278–80). In 1281 he returned to
Italy and was made provincial of his order in 1283 and vicar-
general in 1285. That year Pope Honorius IV effected Giles’
reinstatement at the Univ