Martin Grabmann (5 January 1875 – 9 January 1949) was a German Roman Catholic priest,medievalist andhistorian oftheology andphilosophy. He was a pioneer of the history ofmedieval philosophy and has been called "the greatestCatholic scholar of his time."[1]
Grabmann was born inWinterzhofen,Bavaria, Germany, on 5 January 1875 to a deeply religious Bavarian parents, Joseph Grabmann (1848-1915), a farmer, and Walburga Bauer (1850-1886). He had two brothers.[2]
He attended the gymnasium inEichstätt. At the College of Philosophy and Theology the Bischoefliches Lyzeum, a centre of scholastic renewal, Grabmann was influenced by his teacher Franz von Paula Morgott (1829-1900) to study the work ofThomas Aquinas.
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In August 1895, Grabmann entered theDominican novitate at what is now Olomouc in the Czech Republic, but he left six months later to pursue the secular priesthood. He was ordained on March 20, 1898. He became atertiary of theDominican Order in 1921. Afterordination, he was sent by his bishop to study inRome.
Grabmann was analumnus of theCollegium Divi Thomæ de Urbe, the futurePontifical University of St. Thomas AquinasAngelicum inRome (Italy). At theAngelicum, he obtained a baccalaureate, a licentiate and a doctorate in philosophy by 1901 and a doctorate in theology in 1902. Grabmann studied palaeography at theVatican Library and was encouraged by two of the most distinguished palaeographers of the time,Henry Denifle, the prefect of the Vatican library, and CardinalFranz Ehrle.[3]
Grabmann was made a professor of theology and philosophy at theCatholic University of Eichstätt in 1906.
The first of his great works,Die Geschichte der scholastischen Methode, in two volumes, 1909 and 1911 made extensive use of unpublished medieval texts. After the publication of his two-volume work, he was awarded an honorary doctorates by theInstitut supérieur de philosophie (Higher Institute of Philosophy) ofLouvain in 1913.
Grabmann was called to theUniversity of Vienna in 1913 to fill the chair of Christian philosophy at the Faculty of Theology. There, he completed pioneering research on the history ofAristotelianism in the 13th century which was published in 1916 asForschungen über die lateinischen Aristoteles-Übersetzungen des XIII. Jahrhunderts.
Grabmann returned to Bavaria in 1918 to serve as professor of dogmatic theology at theUniversity of Munich. His research and publications flourished, including 212 books, articles, and reviews. Between 1921 and 1938, his research took him to most of the majorItalian libraries specializing in medieval studies, as well as to libraries inSpain,France,Belgium, andSweden.[4]
Grabmann's thought was instrumental in the modern understanding of scholasticism and the pivotal role of Aquinas. He was the first scholar to work out the outlines of the ongoing development of thought inscholasticism. He was first to see that Aquinas had a response and development of thought rather than a single, coherently emerged and organic whole.
According to Battista Mondin, Grabmann interprets Aquinas' metaphysics as an advanced version of Aristotle's based on the notion of common being (ens commune) and his rational theology as employing an original concept of being to describe the Divine attributes based on the notion of subsistent being itself (esse ipsum subsistens).[5]
Grabmann was foundational in fostering the variety of contemporary interpretations of both scholasticism and Aquinas.
He died in Eichstätt.
Grabmann's 2-volume masterpieceThe History of Scholastic Method (Die Geschichte der scolastischen Methode) (1909-1911) is the first scholarly work to outline the ongoing development of scholasticism.
His “Thomas Aquinas: His Personality and Thought” (Thomas von Aquin, eine einführung in seine persönlichkeit und gedankenwelt) (1912) emphasizes Aquinas' development of thought more than a single, coherent system.
Although Grabmann's works inGerman are numerous, onlyThomas Aquinas (1928) is available inEnglish.
