Albert the Great

Today is the Feast of Albert the Great (c. 1206-1280), the German Dominican, Doctor of the Church, and teacher of Thomas Aquinas. Albert is most famous for his contributions to the natural sciences and his role in bringing Aristotle into medieval philosophy and theology. But Albert also made important contributions to the medieval development of natural law, as ably argued most recently by Jean Porter in her books Natural and Divine Law (1999) and Nature as Reason (2005), so all of us who work in Catholic legal education have reason to celebrate the feast of this remarkable figure from our tradition.