Hello and welcome to Life of the Week from History Extra, where leading historians delve into the

lives of history's most intriguing and significant figures. Thomas Aquinas was a 13th century

Dominican theologian whose groundbreaking ideas set medieval Europe aflame and continue to

resonate with many today. As 2025 marks the

800th anniversary of his birth, I spoke to Professor of Philosophy, Robert Pasnow to find out more

about the man behind some of medieval Europe's most significant philosophical and theological works.

To start, we need to get to know Thomas Aquinas.

If you could sum him up very briefly, who was he?

Yeah, he was the greatest philosopher slash theologian of the high Middle Ages, at least in Europe, if you're going to

focus on European philosophy, he was the great figure. He was the person who took the traditions

of antiquity, joined them together with a Christian worldview, and created a new philosophy

that really carried forward and its broad

outlines all the way to the early modern period in the 17th century. Aquinas was the

formative force who pulled these things together.

That's quite the sales pitch there for him. Now, as we get to know him, obviously we're going to come on to some of his works later as we talk,

but we need to go right back to the beginning here. What do we know about Thomas's early life,

his family, background, his upbringing? Right. As it happens, he was born 800 years ago. This is

the 800th anniversary of his birth. We don't know the exact date, but it's pretty

clear that it was in 1225. He was born in the little village of Aquino. His given name was Thomas,

and Aquinas is the Latinate form of saying that he was from the village of Aquino. That's halfway

between Rome and Naples. He was the youngest of nine children. He was born into a

wealthy family. You can still visit the castle of Rakhaseca where he was born and where he grew up.

...