The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
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List of the most influential people in Law,
#4101
Uroš Nestorović
1765 - 1825 (60 years)
Uroš Stefanović Nestorović also known as Uroš Stefan Nestorović was a writer, jurist, philosopher, and pedagogue who headed all Eastern Orthodox schools in the Habsburg Monarchy. Uroš Nestorović is considered one of the most prominent Serbian enlighteners and educators along with Teodor Janković Mirijevski, Stefan Vujanovski, Dimitrie Eustatievici and Avram Mrazović.
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Thomas Murray Taylor
1897 - 1962 (65 years)
Sir Thomas Murray Taylor was a 20th-century Scottish advocate and university administrator. He was a devout Christian and active member of the United Free Church of Scotland. When this amalgamated with the Church of Scotland in 1929 he adopted the latter faith, becoming a church elder in 1936. From 1945 he served on the Executive Committee of the World Council of Churches.
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Alona E. Evans
1917 - 1980 (63 years)
Alona E. Evans was an American scholar who specialized in international law and was one of the first American academics to write extensively on legal issues related to international terrorists, fugitives and refugees. Evans was a professor in and the chair of the Department of Political Science at Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, and was the first woman to be president of the American Society of International Law.
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Philipp Reinhard Vitriarius
1647 - 1720 (73 years)
Philipp Reinhard Vitriarius was a jurist from Germany. Vitriarius was born in Oppenheim and after his studies became a professor at Leiden University where his portrait hangs in the Rector's hall. His son Johann Jacob Vitriarius also studied there and took his place as professor, eventually publishing his writings in several volumes. For example: Philipus Reinhardus Vitrarius, Institutiones Juris Publici Romano-Germanici,
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Johann Zanger
1557 - 1607 (50 years)
Johann Zanger was a German jurist, professor of law at Wittenberg University. Born in Brunswick, from 1576 Zanger studied law at Wittenberg University under Hugo Donellus. Subsequently studying in Italy, he gained a doctorate at Basel University in 1580. From 1581 onwards he was professor and judge at the aulic court of justice in Wittenberg. He later became a member of the court of lay assessors, the consistory and the regional court of Lower Lusatia.
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Austin Adams
1826 - 1890 (64 years)
Austin Adams was an American lawyer and justice of the Iowa Supreme Court for twelve years. Heritage Austin Adam's ancestors lived along the hills of the Chums River in Essex, England. Henry Adams, of this family, emigrated to Massachusetts in 1632 with his wife and children. His sons were the ancestors of Samuel Adams, the political philosopher and statesmen; John Adams, second United States president; and Austin Adams.
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Basilius Amerbach the Younger
1533 - 1591 (58 years)
Basilius Amerbach was a lawyer, professor and collector from Basel. He was the only son of Bonifacius Amerbach. He began to study law in 1552 at the University of Tübingen. In 1553 he studied at the University of Padua where his lecturer was Marcus Mantua Benavidius. 1552, he became a law clerk at the Imperial Chamber Court in Speyer. During this time, Basilius surprised his father by choosing to live with Jacob zur Glocke, a goldsmith, rather than a lawyer. After one year as a clerk, he became a professor at the University of Basel.
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Johannes Cardinalis von Bergreichenstein
1375 - 1500 (125 years)
Johannes Cardinalis von Bergreichenstein was a Czech lawyer and diplomat. He was rector of Charles University in Prague 1416-1417. In 1394 he took up the study of law at the Charles University in Prague and received his doctorate at Jan Hus in 1404 to champion the seven liberal arts. 1407 was followed by the examination for Bachelor of laws. Two years later he was already as an envoy of King Wenceslas IV. together with Christian von Prachatitz and Peter de Mladoniovicz at the Council of Pisa in part. As followers of Jan Hus, they should provide for the repeal of the ban imposed against this church.
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Ben Johnson
1858 - 1950 (92 years)
Ben Johnson was an American lawyer and politician; Democrat, United States House of Representatives from March 4, 1907, to March 3, 1927. Biography Born near Bardstown in Nelson County, Kentucky. His father was William Johnson, who was state senator and a Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky. His mother, Nancy, was a member of the committee that selected the design of the Confederate flag; they chose a design submitted by Nicola Marschall. After prep school he went to St. Mary's College, in Marion County, Kentucky, and graduated in June 1878. He then transferred to the Louisville Law University and graduated in 1882.
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William Gibbs McAdoo
1863 - 1941 (78 years)
William Gibbs McAdoo Jr. was an American lawyer and statesman. McAdoo was a leader of the Progressive movement and played a major role in the administration of his father-in-law President Woodrow Wilson. A member of the Democratic Party, he also represented California in the United States Senate.
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Philip Phillips
1807 - 1884 (77 years)
Philip Phillips was an American lawyer and politician from Cheraw, South Carolina, Mobile, Alabama, and Washington, D.C. He was a member of the Democratic Party who served as the U.S. representative from Alabama. Subsequently, he was a prominent lawyer in Washington, D.C., much involved in the political events surrounding the American Civil War.
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David Lewis
1520 - 1584 (64 years)
David Lewis was a Welsh lawyer, judge, and the first Principal of Jesus College, Oxford. Early life Lewis was born in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, Wales. In 1540 he graduated from All Souls College, Oxford, as a Bachelor of Civil Law, and became a Fellow of All Souls in 1541.
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David Grimm
1864 - 1941 (77 years)
David Grimm was a Russian Imperial and then Estonian lawyer and politician. He was a member of Estonian National Assembly .
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Mieczysław Witold Gutkowski
1893 - 1943 (50 years)
Mieczysław Witold Gutkowski was a Polish lawyer, a world-renowned economist who specialized in public finance, and one of the first scholars of economic analysis of law in Poland. He was a professor at the Stefan Batory University in Wilno. He was murdered by German SS units and Lithuanian collaborators in the Ponary massacre.
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Thomas Jones
1614 - 1692 (78 years)
#4116
Keith Baverstock
Dr Keith Baverstock is a former regional adviser for Radiation and Public Health, World Health Organization and current medical researcher and Docent in the Department of Environmental Science at the University of Eastern Finland.
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Noble Brandon Judah
1884 - 1938 (54 years)
Noble Brandon Judah Jr. was an American lawyer and politician. He joined his father's successful law firm in 1907 and eventually succeeded him as a partner. He served one term in the Illinois House of Representatives and married into the National Cash Register fortune. In 1927, Calvin Coolidge appointed Judah Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Cuba.
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Carl Hildebrand von Canstein
1667 - 1719 (52 years)
Carl or Karl Hildebrand von Canstein , Baron or Count of Canstein, was a German aristocrat who founded the Canstein Bible Institute in Halle, Brandenburg-Prussia, the first modern Bible society. Life He was born at Lindenberg on 4 August 1667. He studied law at Alma Mater Viadrina in Frankfurt-on-the-Oder and, upon finishing his courses, he toured the Netherlands, England, France, Italy, and southern Germany from 1686 to 1688. On the death of the Great Elector Frederick William, he returned to Berlin.
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Grace Frick
1903 - 1979 (76 years)
Grace Marion Frick was a translator and researcher for her lifelong partner French writer Marguerite Yourcenar. Grace Frick taught languages at US colleges and was the second academic dean to be appointed to Hartford Junior College.
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James Wright
1716 - 1785 (69 years)
James Wright was a colonial lawyer and jurist who was the last British Royal Governor of the Province of Georgia. He was the only Royal Governor of the Thirteen Colonies to regain control of his colony during the American Revolutionary War.
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Lawrence A. Kimpton
1910 - 1973 (63 years)
Lawrence Alpheus Kimpton was an American philosopher and educator, and a president of the University of Chicago. He earned a B.A. at Stanford and a Ph.D. in philosophy at Cornell University, and he taught at Deep Springs College before joining Chicago as a professor of philosophy in 1943.
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Albert Perkins
1833 - 1896 (63 years)
Albert Cornelius Perkins was an American educator and fourth principal of Phillips Exeter Academy and fourth principal of Adelphi University. Albert Perkins was born on 1833 in Topsfield, Massachusetts to Nehemiah and Lydiah Perkins. He was a descendant of Thomas Dudley and Simon Bradstreet, two governors of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and was the brother to John W. Perkins, the principal of The Governor's Academy and superintendent of the City of Salem public school system. He entered Exeter's rival school Phillips Academy in 1852, where he graduated and entered Dartmouth College, where he in turn graduated in 1859 with an A.M.
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Jomí García Ascot
1927 - 1986 (59 years)
Jomí García Ascot was a poet, essayist, filmmaker, director and educator. Born in Tunisia, he was a Spanish exile who lived in Mexico. Biography José Miguel García Ascot was born on 24 March 1927 in Tunis, Tunisia. The son of a Spanish diplomat, he spent his childhood traveling from Portugal to France to Belgium and Morocco.
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Richard Parker
1810 - 1893 (83 years)
Richard Parker was a nineteenth-century politician, lawyer, and judge from Virginia. Biography Born in Richmond, Virginia, son of Judge and Senator Richard E. Parker. Parker studied law at the University of Virginia, and was admitted to the bar, commencing practice in Berryville, Virginia, near Winchester, where he lived. He was the paymaster at the Harpers Ferry Armory, and was also a slave owner.
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Achille Bocchi
1488 - 1562 (74 years)
Achille Bocchi , of Bologna, was an Italian humanist writer, emblematist, historian and lector in Greek, poetry and "humanae litterae" at the University of Bologna. He is best known for his emblem book Symbolicarum quaestionum de universo genere from 1555, which "takes as its subject the whole of universal knowledge: physics, metaphysics, theology, dialectic, Love, Life and Death, packaging them under the veil of fables and myths." It borrowed from Francesco Colonna. The title page put it in the tradition of serio ludere. Bocchi was a friend of Giovanni Pierio Valeriano Bolzanio, and his work...
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John Skelton
1831 - 1897 (66 years)
Sir John Skelton was a Scottish lawyer, author and administrator. He is best known for his contributions to The Guardian and Blackwood's Magazine. Life Born in Edinburgh, he was the son of James Skelton of Sandford Newton, writer to the signet, sheriff-substitute at Peterhead and original owner of Sandford Lodge, where he was brought up. His mother was Margaret Marjory Kinnear and his sister was Janet Georgina. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh. In 1854 he was admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates; but concentrated on writing.
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William Thompson
1678 - 1739 (61 years)
Sir William Thompson of Middle Temple, was an English judge and Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1709 and 1729. Early life Thompson was second son of Sir William Thompson , serjeant-at-law, and his wife, Mary Stephens of Bermondsey. He was educated at Brentwood Grammar School and admitted at Trinity College, Cambridge on 25 April 1691, aged 14. He was awarded BA in 1695.
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Andreas Dudith
1533 - 1589 (56 years)
Andreas Dudith , also András Dudith de Horahovicza , was a Hungarian nobleman of Croatian and Italian origin, bishop, humanist and diplomat in the Kingdom of Hungary. Dudith was born in Buda, capital city of the Kingdom of Hungary to a Hungarian noble family with Croatian origins. His father, Jeromos Dudits, was a Croatian and his mother was an Italian. He studied in Wrocław, Italy, Vienna, Brussels and Paris.
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Richard von Kaufmann
1850 - 1908 (58 years)
Richard von Kaufmann was a German jurist and art collector. Kaufmann was born in Cologne and became a respected professor and minister of finance. He began to collect art while living in Berlin and donated several works to the new museum began by Wilhelm von Bode. He published a catalog of his collection with help from his friends Bode, Max Friedländer, Friedrich Lippmann and Hugo von Tschudi in 1901.
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Florence Elizabeth Cory
1851 - 1902 (51 years)
Florence Elizabeth Cory was an American industrial designer and school founder. She was the first practical woman designer in the United States. Cory took up designing in 1877, being led to it by the sight of ugly carpets. After a course of theory in Cooper Union, she visited representative factories of the United States, and became familiar with the practical end of the business. She became a designer of wall paper, woolens and silks, as well as carpets. In 1878, Cory taught an afternoon class of 17 women pupils in Cooper Union the art of designing practically for carpets. This was the first class as far as known ever formed to teach practical industrial design to women.
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William Atherton
1806 - 1864 (58 years)
Sir William Atherton QC was a Scottish barrister and Liberal Party politician. An advanced Liberal who favoured the secret ballot and widening of suffrage, he held a seat in the House of Commons from 1852 to 1864, and was a Law Officer of the Crown for four years.
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Rudolf Felder
1842 - 1871 (29 years)
Rudolf Felder was an Austrian jurist and entomologist. He was mainly interested in Lepidoptera, amassing, with his father, Cajetan Felder, a huge collection. Works with Cajetan Felder, Lepidopterologische Fragmente. Wiener Entomologische Monatschrift 3:390–405. Lepidopterorum Amboinensium a Dre L. Doleschall annis 1856 - 1868 collectorum species novae, diagnostibus collustratae. Sitzungsberichten der k. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Wien, Jahr. .with Cajetan Felder and Alois Friedrich Rogenhofer Reise der österreichischen Fregatte Novara um die Erde. . . .. Zool. Theil. Vol. 2, Part 2. Lepidoptera.
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Aguedo Mojica
1908 - 1981 (73 years)
Aguedo Mojica Marrero was a Puerto Rican politician, lawyer and educator. He is noted for his academic work. Early years and studies Aguedo Mojica was born on March 16, 1908, in Humacao, Puerto Rico. He studied at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus where he was doctored in philosophy and later in law from the University of Puerto Rico School of Law. He was also a law professor at the same institution. He worked as a professor at the University of Puerto Rico, as a professor of Latin, in 1943, and thereafter taught philosophical chair. He earned a Doctor degree in Law philosophy...
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Ilija Despot
1885 - 1970 (85 years)
Ilija Despot was a Croatian theologian, lawyer, poet and writer. Early life Ilija Despot was the son of Pavao Despot and Countess Manda Kostanjić of the noble house of Kostanjić from Drvenik. He was also the nephew of the Croatian writer Ivan Despot, after whose example he wished to become a priest. After his theological studies in Zadar however, he decided to remain a layman and went on to study law, in which he achieved a doctorate in Zagreb in 1920.
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Aleem al-Razee
1925 - 1985 (60 years)
Aleem al-Razee was a Bangladeshi lawyer and politician. Early life Razee was born in 1925 in Karatia in Nagarpur Upazila, Tangail District, East Bengal, British India. He completed a M.A. and a law degree from University of Calcutta. He earned a PhD from the University of London.
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Naum Slutzky
1894 - 1965 (71 years)
Naum Slutzky was a goldsmith, industrial designer and master craftsman of the Bauhaus. In the art history literature his first name is sometimes spelled as Nahum or Nawn. Bauhaus Slutzky studied to become a goldsmith at Wiener Werkstätte in Vienna. From 1919 he taught at the Bauhaus in Weimar, working with Johannes Itten. He mainly designed jewellery and lamps, but also teapots and coffee pots . In 1924 he left Bauhaus to become an independent designer.
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John Savage
1779 - 1863 (84 years)
John Savage was an American lawyer and politician. Early life Savage was born on February 22, 1779, in Salem, New York. He was the son of Mary Savage and Edward Savage, who served in the Penobscot Expedition and enlisted in Col. Samuel McCobb's regiment during the American Revolutionary War.
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Lysander Spooner
1808 - 1887 (79 years)
Lysander Spooner was an American abolitionist, entrepreneur, lawyer, essayist, natural rights legal theorist, pamphletist, political philosopher, Unitarian and writer often associated with the Boston anarchist tradition. Although the notion of Spooner as an anarchist has been challenged by legal historian Clay S. Conrad, who pointed out that Spooner advocated constitutionally limited governments in his writings .
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Arkadii Elistratov
1872 - Present (154 years)
Arkadii Ivanovich Elistratov was professor of police law at Moscow University. In the 1910s he drafted laws to end the regulation of prostitution and to outlaw it instead. Selected publications O prikreplenii zhenshchiny k prostitutsii. Kazan, 1903."Bednost' i prostitutsiia" in Soiuz zhenshchin, Nos. 3–4. : 5–7; 4–7."Meditsinskaia statistika zashchitnikov politsii nravov" in Trudy s"ezda po bor'be s torgom zhenshchinami i ego prichinami proiskhodivshchago v S.-Peterburge s 21 do 25 aprelia 1910 goda, Vol. 2., St. Petersburg, 1911–12."Rol' prava i nravstvennosti v bor'be s torgom i kupleiu zhe...
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George Irving
1874 - 1961 (87 years)
George Henry Irving was an American film actor and director. Career Irving started his career as a theatre actor, notably as leading man to Maude Adams. He came to Hollywood in 1914 and acted in over 250 films from 1914 until 1948. Irving was initially an actor-director and directed about 35 silent films, which are mostly forgotten today. He switched exclusively to acting in the mid-1920s and became a character actor until the later 1940s.
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Caspar Ziegler
1621 - 1690 (69 years)
Caspar Ziegler, also Kaspar Ziegler, was a German jurist, poet, hymnwriter and composer. He was the Rektor of the University of Wittenberg. Career Ziegler was born in Leipzig the son of Caspar Ziegler sr., a lawyer and Prokonsul in the town council, and his wife Anna . He studied at the University of Leipzig.
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Astesanus of Asti
Astesanus of Asti was an important Franciscan canon lawyer and theologian, from Asti in Piedmont. His major work is Summa de casibus conscientiae , a confessional work, in manuscript from around 1317 and comprising eight volumes and three indices. Its writing is said to have been at the prompting of Cardinal Giovanni Gaetano Orsini.
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Abdul Razzaq Gilani
1134 - 1207 (73 years)
ʿAbd al-Razzāq b. ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī , also known as Abū Bakr al-Jīlī or ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Jīlānī for short, or reverentially as Shaykh ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Jīlānī by Sunni Muslims, was a Persian Sunni Muslim Hanbali theologian, jurist, traditionalist and Sufi mystic based in Baghdad. He received his initial training in the traditional Islamic sciences from his father, Abdul-Qadir Gilani , the founder of the Qadiriyya order of Sunni mysticism, prior to setting out "on his own to attend the lectures of other prominent Hanbali scholars" in his region. He is sometimes given the Arabic honora...
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J. R. E. Lee
1864 - 1944 (80 years)
John Robert Edward Lee Sr. was an early leader in African-American education. He served as the third President of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, a historically black college, from 1924 to 1944.
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Thomas Lynch
1727 - 1776 (49 years)
Other notable people share this name. See Thomas Lynch .Thomas Lynch was an American planter and statesman from South Carolina. He was a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress of 1765 and the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1776, and signed the 1774 Continental Association.
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Frank Brennan
1873 - 1950 (77 years)
Francis Brennan was an Australian lawyer and politician. He was a member of the Australian Labor Party and served as Attorney-General in the Scullin government . He was a member of the House of Representatives for over 35 years , one of the longest periods of service. His brother Tom Brennan was a United Australia Party senator, a rare instance of family members representing opposing parties.
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Al-Fadl ibn Shadhan
Abu Muḥammad al-Faḍl ibn Shadhan ibn Khalil al-Azdi al-Naysaburi , better known as al-Faḍl ibn Shadhan was an Arab Muslim traditionist, jurist, and theologian. He was highly regarded by the Imami Shi'a as one of the leading Imāmī scholars of his time.
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James Balfour
1705 - 1795 (90 years)
James Balfour of Pilrig JP was a Scottish advocate and philosopher. Life He was born on 20 August 1705 at Pilrig House, midway between Leith and Edinburgh. He was one of the 16 children of Louisa Hamilton and her husband, James Balfour . His father had acquired the estate of Pilrig from the Gilbert family, which had lost a fortune in the Darien Expedition. His father built the current Pilrig House around 1705.
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John of Legnano
1320 - 1383 (63 years)
John of Legnano was an Italian jurist, a canon lawyer at the University of Bologna and the most prominent defender of Pope Urban VI at the outbreak of the Western Schism. Biography John was born in Legnano.
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Petrus van der Aa
1530 - 1594 (64 years)
Petrus or Pieter van der Aa , also called Vanderanus, was a Brabantine jurist. Biography Petrus van der Aa was born in Leuven. His father, Johan van der Aa, was a descendant of a well-known Brabantine family of patricians, which had settled in Leuven, Mechelen and Antwerp.
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