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.
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List of the most influential people in Religious Studies,
#5101
George Boardman the Younger
1828 - 1903 (75 years)
George Dana Boardman the Younger was an American clergyman. Early life and education Boardman was born in Burma, the son of the Baptist missionaries George Dana Boardman and Sarah Hall Boardman. He returned to the United States as a boy and attended Worcester Academy in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he graduated in 1846, and then Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he graduated in 1852. He continued his education at the Newton Theological Institution and graduated in 1855.
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Girolamo Dandini
1552 - 1634 (82 years)
Girolamo Dandini was an Italian Jesuit and academic. Life He was born in Cesena. With Juan Maldonado he was the first Jesuit professor in Paris, at the Collège de Clermont; there he taught François de Sales. Later he was professor of theology at Perugia.
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John Forbes
1593 - 1648 (55 years)
John Forbes of Corse was a Scottish minister and theologian, one of the Aberdeen doctors, noted for his eirenic approach in church polity and opposition to the National Covenant. Life He was the second son of Patrick Forbes of Corse Castle, bishop of Aberdeen, by his marriage to Lucretia, a daughter of David Spens of Wormiston, Fife. He entered King's College, Aberdeen, in 1607. In 1612 he visited his exiled uncle John Forbes at Middelburg, and then went to the university of Heidelberg. There he studied theology under David Pareus. In 1615 he moved to Sedan and continued his studies under his kinsman Andrew Melville.
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Edward Sugden
1854 - 1935 (81 years)
Edward Holdsworth Sugden was the first master of Queen's College . He was, in partnership with the Methodist Church, responsible for laying down the foundings of the college including the Sugden Principle.
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John Davison
1777 - 1834 (57 years)
John Davison was an English clergyman and academic, known as a theological writer. Life He was born at Morpeth, where his father was a schoolmaster, but brought up in Durham. He was educated at Durham cathedral school, and in 1794 entered Christ Church, Oxford. There he obtained a Craven scholarship in 1796, and was elected Fellow of Oriel College in 1800. In 1810 he became one of the tutors of Oriel.
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Edward Jones
1641 - 1703 (62 years)
Edward Jones , was a Welsh Anglican bishop who served as Bishop of Cloyne and Bishop of St Asaph. Jones was born in July 1641 at Llwyn Ririd, near Montgomery, Powys. He was the son of Richard Jones, by Sarah, daughter of John Pyttes of Marrington. He was educated at Westminster School, whence he was elected in 1661 to Trinity College, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. in 1664, and M.A. in 1668, and was made fellow of his college in 1667. Going to Ireland as domestic chaplain to the Duke of Ormonde, the lord-lieutenant, he was appointed master of Kilkenny College, where Jonathan Swift was his pupil....
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Antonius Thysius the Elder
1565 - 1640 (75 years)
Antonius Thysius was a Dutch Reformed theologian, professor at the University of Harderwijk and University of Leiden. Life He was born on 9 August 1565 in Antwerp, and received a classical education under Bonaventura Vulcanius. In 1581 he followed his teacher to Leiden, where he studied theology under Lambertus Danaeus; Danaeus left for Ghent after a year, and Thysius spent some years travelling, to Frankenthal, Geneva where he was taught by Theodore Beza, then other Swiss cities, and Strasbourg. He was for four years in Heidelberg, and in 1589 went on to England, where he heard in Oxford and Cambridge William Whitaker and John Rainolds.
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Ahmed Zouaoui
1450 - 1488 (38 years)
Ahmed Zouaoui was born in Algiers. He was a theologian and Maliki Mufti of Algiers. Teachers Ahmed Zouaoui had the Imam Abd al-Rahman al-Tha'alibi as a guide and teacher in Malikism and Sufism. He was also a disciple for several scholars as Al-Sakhawi and others.
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August Pieper
1866 - 1942 (76 years)
August Pieper was a German theologian and chairman of the People's Association for Catholic Germany. He is the author of several publications concerning theological, social and political issues. Pieper was born in Eversberg , and died in Paderborn.
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William Arnot
1808 - 1875 (67 years)
William Arnot was a Scottish minister and theological writer. He served in the Church of Scotland but moved to the Free Church of Scotland at the Disruption of 1843. Early life and education He was born on 6 November 1808 at a farm in the parish of Forgandenny near Scone, where his father was a farmer. William was the youngest of seven children. His mother died at his birth. He was educated at the local parish school then trained as a gardener alongside his older brother Robert Arnot. He worked independently as a gardener from age 16 to 20. He then decided to study for the ministry. In Novemb...
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Filippo Archinto
1500 - 1558 (58 years)
Filippo Archinto , born in Milan, was an Italian lawyer, papal bureaucrat, bishop, and diplomat. He served as Governor of Rome and then papal Vicar of Rome. He was personally esteemed both by the Emperor Charles V and by Pope Paul III. He was Bishop of Borgo San Sepolcro , Bishop of Saluzzo , and Archbishop of Milan .
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Alan of Lynn
1348 - 1401 (53 years)
Alan of Lynn , or Alanus de Lynna, was a famous English theologian of the first half of the fifteenth century. He flourished about 1420. He was born at Lynn in Norfolk, and studied philosophy and theology at Cambridge with much credit, taking the degree of Doctor of Divinity there. He afterwards returned to his native place, where he entered the order of the Carmelites, and spent the rest of his life. He died in Norwich, where he had lived for many years.
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David van Goorle
1591 - 1612 (21 years)
David van Goorle was a Dutch philosopher and theologian, and one of the first modern atomists. Biography Van Goorle was the son of David van Goorle Sr., a Protestant refugee from Antwerp, who at the time of his birth was treasurer for stadtholder Adolf van Nieuwenaar. His uncle was Abraham Gorlaeus. His mother was a Frisian noblewoman, the daughter of admiral Doecke van Martena, known for his role in the Dutch and Frisian wars of independence. Although he called himself Ultrajectinus , he grew up with his maternal grandparents in their stins in the Frisian village of Cornjum.
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Lucas Bacmeister
1530 - 1608 (78 years)
Lucas Bacmeister was a Lutheran theologian and church music composer. Alternative spellings of Bacmeister which may be encountered in sources include Backmeister and Bacmeisterus. Lucas Bacmeister is sometimes identified as Lucas Bacmeister the elder in order to differentiate him from his younger son, Lucas Bacmeister the younger who was also a Lutheran Theologian of note.
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Alexander Arbuthnot
1538 - 1583 (45 years)
Alexander Arbuthnot was a Scottish ecclesiastic poet, "an eminent divine, and zealous promoter of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland". He was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in both 1573 and 1577.
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David Hillhouse Buel
1862 - 1923 (61 years)
David Hillhouse Buel Jr. was an American priest who served as the president of Georgetown University. A Catholic priest and Jesuit for much of his life, he later left the Jesuit order to marry, and subsequently left the Catholic Church to become an Episcopal priest. Born at Watervliet, New York, he was the son of David Hillhouse Buel, a distinguished Union Army officer, and descended from numerous prominent New England families. While studying at Yale University, he formed an acquaintance with priest Michael J. McGivney, resulting in his conversion to Catholicism and joining the Society of Je...
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Wenrich of Trier
1100 - 1081 (-19 years)
Wenrich of Trier was a German ecclesiastico-political writer of the eleventh century. Biography He was a canon at Verdun, and afterwards scholasticus at Trier. Sigebert of Gembloux calls him also Bishop of Vercelli, but the early documents of the diocese leave no place for him in the list of bishops.
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Boniface of Brussels
1183 - 1260 (77 years)
Boniface of Brussels was a Catholic prelate who served as the Bishop of Lausanne from circa 1231 until 1239 when he resigned after agents of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II assaulted him. His relics are housed at the Kapellekerk, and at La Cambre where he died.
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Alois Lang
1872 - 1954 (82 years)
Alois Lang was a Master Woodcarver at the American Seating Company, and one of the artists responsible for bringing the medieval art of ecclesiastical carving to life in the United States. Lang was born in Oberammergau in Bavaria, a town long known for its excellence in wood carving. He was apprenticed to his cousin Andreas Lang around the age of 14, spent one year's study with the great wood sculptor Fortunato Galli in Florence, Italy, and moved to the United States in 1890 at the age of 19. Lang first found work in Boston carving elaborate mantelpieces for Back Bay families.
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Arthur Faunt
1554 - 1591 (37 years)
Laurence Arthur Faunt was an English Jesuit theologian and missionary to Poland. Family background Arthur Faunt was the third son of William Faunt of Foston, Leicestershire, by his second wife, Jane, daughter of George Vincent of Peckleton, and widow of Nicholas Purefoy of Fenny Drayton. The family was Roman Catholic.
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Johann Sylvan
1600 - 1572 (-28 years)
Johann Sylvan was a Reformed German theologian who was executed for his heretical Antitrinitarian beliefs. Origins and early career Johann Sylvan probably came from the Etsch valley in the County of Tyrol. By 1555 he was employed as a preacher by the bishop of Würzburg. In 1559 he fled Würzburg and joined the Lutheran church in Tübingen. In 1560 he became a minister in Calw.
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Balthazar Francolini
1650 - 1709 (59 years)
Balthazar Francolini was a Jesuit theologian. He was born in Fermo and became a professor of philosophy at the Gregorian University in Rome. He was an attritionist, holding that imperfect contrition was sufficient to receive the sacrament. He opposed the more rigorous heresy of Jansenism, writing Clericus Romanus Contra Nimium Rigorismum Munitus in 1707.
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Jodok Mörlin
1490 - 1550 (60 years)
Jodok Mörlin, also known in Latin as Jodocus Morlinus or Maurus , was a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wittenberg, the Lutheran pastor of Westhausen bei Hildburghausen, and a Reformer. He is famed as one of the first witnesses, allies and participants of the Reformation and as the father of two Lutheran theologians, Joachim Mörlin and Maximilian Mörlin.
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Dositheus
1884 - 1984 (100 years)
Archbishop Dositheus was a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, bishop of Brooklyn. Biography In 1910 he entered the mathematical faculty of Kharkov University. On 1 April 1914, at the St. Elijah church in Syzran, held his wedding with female gymnasium teacher Klavdia Georgievna Kopylova.
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Ahmad Ullah Maizbhandari
1826 - 1906 (80 years)
Syed Ahmad Ullah Maizbhandari was a Bengali Sufi saint and founder of the Maizbhandari Sufi order in Bengal. Ancestry Ahmad Ullah's ancestors were Syeds and originally migrated from Madinah to Gaur, the erstwhile capital of medieval Bengal, via Baghdad and Delhi. His great-great-grandfather, Hamid ad-Din, was the appointed Imam and Qadi of Gaur, but due to a sudden epidemic in the city, Hamid later migrated to Patiya in Chittagong District. Hamid's son, Syed Abdul Qadir, was made the imam of Azimnagar in modern-day Fatikchhari. He had two sons; Syed Ataullah and Syed Tayyab Ullah. The latter ...
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Johann Geiler von Kaysersberg
1445 - 1510 (65 years)
Johann Geiler von Kaysersberg was a priest, considered one of the greatest of the popular preachers of the 15th century. He was closely connected with the Renaissance humanists of Strasbourg, whose leader was the well-known Jakob Wimpfeling , called "the educator of Germany". Like Wimpfeling, Geiler was a secular priest; both fought the ecclesiastical abuses of the age, but not in the spirit of Martin Luther and his adherents. They looked, instead, for salvation and preservation only in the restoration of Christian morals in Church and State through the faithful maintenance of the doctrines of the Church.
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Joaquín Albareda y Ramoneda
1892 - 1966 (74 years)
Joaquín Anselmo María Albareda y Ramoneda, O.S.B. was a Spanish Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who served as Prefect of the Vatican Library from 1936 to 1962, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1962.
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Bernard Gilpin
1517 - 1583 (66 years)
Bernard Gilpin , was an Oxford theologian and then an influential clergyman in the emerging Church of England spanning the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Jane, Mary and Elizabeth I. He was known as the 'Apostle of the North' for his work in the wilds of northern England.
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Walter of Winterburn
1300 - 1305 (5 years)
Walter of Winterburn was an English Dominican, cardinal, orator, poet, philosopher, and theologian. He entered the Dominican Order when a youth, and became renowned for learning, prudence, and sanctity of life. Edward I, King of England, chose him as his confessor and spiritual director. He was provincial of his order in England from 1290 to 1298, and was created cardinal on 21 February 1304 by Pope Benedict XI.
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George Moschabar
1230 - 1290 (60 years)
George Moschabar was a thirteenth-century Greek Orthodox theologian, who was active in Constantinople during the decades of the 1270s and 1280s, at times serving there as professor of scriptural exegesis. He wrote against the Union of Lyons, at first anonymously, then, when the union was abrogated under Emperor Andronikos II, he took an active part in the synods that enforced a restoration of Orthodoxy. Under Patriarch Gregory II of Constantinople , Moschabar served as chartophylax, i.e., patriarchal secretary, but, because of disagreements between him and the patriarch, he stepped down from ...
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Thomas de Hibernia
Thomas de Hibernia was an Irish theologian. Said to be a native of Palmerstown, County Kildare, he became a Franciscan, and Fellow of Sorbonne, Paris. In later life, he moved to Italy, dying ca. 1296 in the "Convent of Aquila, in the Province of Penin."
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Turrianus
1509 - 1584 (75 years)
Francisco Torres known as Turrianus , was a Spanish Jesuit Hellenist and polemicist. Biography Francisco Torres was born in Herrera, Palencia, the nephew of Dr. Torres, Bishop of the Canaries. He studied at Salamanca and lived in Rome with Cardinal Giovanni Salviati and Seripando.
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Euthymius the Athonite
955 - 1028 (73 years)
Euthymius the Athonite was a Georgian monk, philosopher and scholar, who is venerated as a saint. His feast day in the Orthodox Church is May 13. Euthymius was a Georgian, the ethnonym used by the Byzantines as Iberian, that came from the Kingdom of the Iberians. The son of John the Iberian and nephew of the Tornike Eristavi, Euthymius was taken as a political hostage to Constantinople but was later released and became a monk joining the Great Lavra of Athanasios on Mount Athos. He subsequently became the leader of the Georgian Iviron monastery, which had been founded by his father, and emerged as one of the finest Eastern Christian theologians and scholars of his age.
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Xantes Mariales
1580 - 1660 (80 years)
Xantes Mariales was an Italian Dominican theologian. Life He was of a noble Venetian family. At an early age he entered the Dominican convent of Sts. John and Paul. Remarkable for his versatility and prodigious memory, he was sent to Spain, where he completed his studies.
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Cyrus Nutt
1814 - 1875 (61 years)
Cyrus Nutt served as the fifth president of Indiana University. Biography Cyrus Nutt was born in Southington Township, Trumbull County, Ohio on September 4, 1814. His father was James Nutt and his mother was Mary Viets who married in 1806. Cyrus was the second son, with one brother and two sisters who all lived in a log cabin on a piece of land next to a large farm belonging James father-in-law.
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Geoffrey of Clairvaux
1115 - 1188 (73 years)
Geoffrey of Clairvaux, or Geoffrey of Auxerre, was the secretary and biographer of Bernard of Clairvaux and later abbot of a number of monasteries in the Cistercian tradition. Life He was born between the years 1115 and 1120, at Auxerre. At an early age he entered the ranks of the clergy, and followed for some time the course of lectures given by Abelard.
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Heinrich von Dissen
1415 - 1484 (69 years)
Heinrich von Dissen was a German Carthusian theologian and writer. Life After studying philosophy and theology at Cologne under Heinrich von Gorinchem , a celebrated theologian of the 15th century and vice-chancellor of the university, Heinrich von Dissen became a monk at the Carthusian monastery in Cologne. He took his solemn vows 14 January 1437 and remained at the monastery for the rest of his life. He labored diligently, reading, copying many books for the library of the monastery, and composing numerous works. He was appointed subprior 23 March 1457 and continued in that office until his...
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Hayyim ben Judah ibn Musa
1380 - 1460 (80 years)
Hayyim ben Judah ibn Musa was a Jewish physician, chemist, astronomer, and apologist who contended with Nicholas de Lyra. He was born in 1380 in Béjar, near Salamanca and died in 1460. His main work is Magen va-Romah , in which he criticised Christianity.
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Richard Carpenter
1575 - 1625 (50 years)
Richard Carpenter was an English clergyman and theological writer. Biography He was probably born in Cornwall in 1575. He matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, on 28 May 1592, and took his degrees of B.A. on 19 February 1596, B.D. 25 June 1611, and D.D. 10 February 1616–17. He was elected to a Cornish fellowship at his college on 30 June 1596, and retained it until 30 June 1606; under the advice of Thomas Holland, the Rector, he studied theology, and became noted as a preacher.
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James Martin
1550 - 1584 (34 years)
James Martin was a Scottish philosophical writer and early Ramist. Life He was a native of Dunkeld, Perthshire, and is said to have been educated at the University of Oxford. A James Martin, whose college is not mentioned, commenced M.A. at Oxford on 31 March 1522.
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Giovanni di Casali
1320 - 1375 (55 years)
Giovanni di Casali was a friar in the Franciscan Order, a natural philosopher and a theologian, author of works on theology and science, and a papal legate. He was born in Casale Monferrato around 1320 and entered the Franciscan order in the Genoese province. He was lecturer in the Franciscan stadium at Assisi from 1335 to 1340. He subsequently was lector at Cambridge ca. 1340 to 1341, where he encountered the mathematical physics developed by the Oxford Calculators. He was also an inquisitor in Florence, and a lector in Bologna from 1346 to ca. 1352. In 1375 Pope Gregory XI appointed him ...
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David Dickson the Elder
1754 - 1820 (66 years)
David Dickson of Persilands or David Dickson the Elder was a Church of Scotland minister and father of David Dickson the Younger. Life He was born on 30 March 1754 the third son of Rev David Dickson of Kilbucho, minister of Newlands. He was educated at West Linton parish school, then in Peebles, He studied at Glasgow University and finished his theological training at Divinity Hall in Edinburgh. He was licensed to preach in August 1775 by the Presbytery of Biggar.
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Lewis W. Green
1806 - 1863 (57 years)
Lewis Warner Green was a Presbyterian minister, educator, and academic administrator who was the president of Hampden–Sydney College, Transylvania University, and Centre College for various periods from 1849 to 1863. Born in Danville, Kentucky, baptized in Versailles, and educated in Woodford County, Green enrolled at Transylvania University but transferred to Centre College to complete his education. He graduated in 1824 and in doing so became one of two members of the school's first graduating class. After short periods studying medicine and law, he enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1831 but returned to Kentucky in 1832 before graduating.
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Nur al-Din al-Sabuni
Nur al-Din al-Sabuni also written as Nuraddin as-Sabuni , was a 12th century theologian within the Maturidite school of Sunni Islam, and author of Al-Bidayah min al-Kifayah fi al-Hidayah fi Usul al-Din , a summary of Islamic creed of his more comprehensive work al-Kifayah.
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David Ferguson
1501 - 1598 (97 years)
David Fergusson or Ferguson was a Scottish reformer and minister of the Church of Scotland. He twice served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland: 1573 and 1578. He is said to have been a native of Dundee, though this is not certain. The date of his birth is also conjectural. Spottiswood believed it to be about 1533, while Wodrow suggests ten, or even twenty years earlier, and David Laing thought it could not have been later than 1525. Ferguson was a glover to trade, and though he never attended a university he had a good knowledge of classical languages and had given much study to divinity.
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Candidus
701 - 805 (104 years)
Candidus was the name given to the Anglo-Saxon Wizo or Witto by Alcuin, whose scholar he was and with whom he went in 782 to Gaul. He is author of several philosophical texts wrongly attributed by earlier scholars to the benedictinian monk Brun Candidus of Fulda, the author of the vita of Abott Eigil of Fulda. But recent research into the manuscript tradition furnishing clear evidence attested the authorship of Candidus Wizo, the learned disciple of Alcuin. Based on his deep knowledge of the works of Saint Augustine of Hippo he tried to give proof of god's existence, to demonstrate that the in...
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David Derodon
1600 - 1664 (64 years)
David de Rodon or plain Derodon , was a French Calvinist theologian and philosopher. Derodon was born at Die, in the Dauphiné. He had the reputation of being one of the most eminent logicians of his time. His knowledge of philosophy was both extensive and profound. He taught philosophy at Orange, at Nismes, and at Geneva. He inclined to the doctrines of Gassendi rather than to those of the Cartesian philosophy. He had frequent discussions with the followers of Descartes. He kept up a close correspondence with many learned men of his time, particularly with Galileo and Descartes.
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Jacques-Charles de Brisacier
1641 - 1736 (95 years)
Jacques-Charles de Brisacier was a French orator and ecclesiastical writer. Life Brisacier was born in Bourges. At the age of 25, he entered the Paris Foreign Missions Society and devoted 70 years of his life to this work. The scion of a rich and prominent family, son of the collector-general for the province of Berry, chaplain in ordinary to Queen Maria Theresa of Spain, wife of Louis XIV.
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Andrew Preston Peabody
1811 - 1893 (82 years)
Andrew Preston Peabody was an American clergyman and author. Born in Beverly, Massachusetts, Peabody was descended from Lieut. Francis Peabody of St. Albans, who emigrated to Massachusetts in 1635. He learned to read before he was three years old, entered Harvard College at the age of twelve, and graduated in 1826, the youngest graduate of Harvard with the single exception of Paul Dudley .
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John Wedderburn
1505 - 1556 (51 years)
John Wedderburn was a Scottish poet and theologian. Life The second son of James Wedderburn and Janet Barry, he was born in Dundee about 1500. He studied at the pædagogium , St Andrews, graduated B.A. in 1526 and M.A. in 1528. While at college he came under the teaching of John Mair and Patrick Hamilton the martyr, and, like his elder brother, became an ardent reformer. Returning to Dundee, he was placed under the tuition of Friar Hewat of the Dominican monastery there, and he took orders as a priest. He was chaplain of St Matthew's Chapel, Dundee, in 1532.
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