Gabriel Biel - Life

Life

Biel's studies were pursued at Heidelberg, Erfurt and Cologne. During the early 1460s, he became a preacher in the Cathedral of Mainz, of which he was vicar. It was while at the cathedral of Mainz that he took to the defense of Adolf von Nassau, and wrote Defensorium obediente apostolice. Later, he became a superior of the canons at Butzbach, and lived in the House of the Brethren on the Rheingau until 1468. He was invited by Count Count Eberhard I to become the first provost of the new Brethren House at St. Mark's, where he served for nine years, furthering the Brethren movement by bringing about a General Chapter of the Brethren house on the upper Rhine in Mainz and integrating Brethren piety into the curricula of the school there. In 1479 was appointed provost of the church in Urach.

At this period Biel cooperated with Count Eberhard in founding the University of Tübingen. Appointed in 1484 as the first professor of theology in the new faculty, he continued to be one of the most celebrated members of its faculty until his death, even serving as Rector in 1484 and 1489. There, he opposed the appointment of the Realist Johann Heynlin to the faculty.

Though he was almost sixty years of age when he began to teach, Biel's work, both as professor and as writer, reflected the highest honour on the young university. His work consists in the systematic development of the views of his master, William Ockham. In later years, he was known as the "last of the Scholastics". He retired to the Brethren House of St. Peter's at Eisiedel, where he died on December 7, 1495.