Gabriel Biel

Gabriel Biel, C.R.S.A. (1420 to 1425 – 7 December 1495), was a German scholastic philosopher and member of the Canons Regular of the Congregation of Windesheim, who were the clerical counterpart to the Brethren of the Common Life.

Biel was born in Speyer and died in Einsiedeln. In 1432 he was ordained to the priesthood and entered Heidelberg University to obtain a baccalaureate. He succeeded academically and became an instructor in the faculty of the arts for three years, until he pursued a higher degree at the University of Erfurt. His first stay was brief, lasting only until he transferred to the University of Cologne. He did not complete his degree there either, and would return to Erfurt in 1451 to finish. The curriculum at these two universities varied greatly, with Cologne stressing St. Thomas Aquinas and overall scholastic curricula heavily, and Erfurt emphasizing William Ockham. Because of his reliance on the scholastic tradition, as well as the nominalist views of Ockham, he is often credited as being an "articulate spokesman of the via moderna and … a discerning user of the thought of via antiqua” (Oberman, 11).

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 Duke 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 on the upper Rhine in Mainz and integrating Brethren piety into the curricula of the school there. In 1479 he was appointed provost of the canonry in Urach.

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