Thomas of York, the English metaphysician and theologian, joined the Franciscan order by 1245, and he became doctor of theology at Oxford in 1253. He was fifth lecturer to the Oxford Franciscans (1253/1254) and sixth lecturer at the Cambridge convent (1256/1257). Thomas was the protégé of both Adam Marsh and Robert Grosseteste, whose tradition he followed. He wrote a treatise, Manus Quae contra Omnipotentem (The hand which is raised against the almighty), supporting St. Bonaventure in the battle between seculars and mendicants at Paris.

His major work, Sapientiale, written between 1250 and 1260 and never finished, is the earliest known metaphysical summa of the thirteenth century. It makes use of all the major writers of antiquity, as well as the Muslim and Jewish philosophers (particularly Avicebron and Maimonides), the Church Fathers, and his immediate predecessors at Paris and Oxford. Although he presents all the important opinions on...