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.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Religious Studies,
#5101
Morgan Dix
1827 - 1908 (81 years)
Morgan Dix was an American Episcopal Church priest, theologian, and religious author. Early life Dix was born on November 1, 1827, in New York City. He was the son of Catherine Morgan, the adopted daughter of Congressman John J. Morgan , and Major General John Adams Dix , U.S. Senator from New York , Secretary of the Treasury , Governor of New York and Union major general during the Civil War. His father was notable for arresting six members of the pro-Southern Maryland legislature, preventing that divided border state from seceding, and for arranging a system for prisoner exchange via the D...
Go to Profile#5102
Teodoro de Lellis
1428 - 1466 (38 years)
Teodoro de Lellis or Teodoro Lelli was a Roman Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Treviso and Bishop of Feltre . Biography On 15 February 1462, Teodoro de Lellis was appointed during the papacy of Pope Pius II as Bishop of Feltre. On 17 September 1464, he was appointed during the papacy of Pope Paul II as Bishop of Treviso. He served as Bishop of Treviso until his death on 31 March 1466.
Go to Profile#5103
Pope John V
635 - 686 (51 years)
Pope John V was the bishop of Rome from 23 July 685 to his death on 2 August 686. He was the first pope of the Byzantine Papacy consecrated without prior imperial consent, and the first in a line of ten consecutive popes of Eastern origin. His papacy was marked by reconciliation between the city of Rome and the Empire.
Go to Profile#5104
Lorenzo Sears
1838 - 1916 (78 years)
Lorenzo Sears was an American historian and biographer. He was born in Searsville, Massachusetts . He graduated from Yale College in 1861 and from the General Theological Seminary, New York in 1864. He was rector of various Episcopalian parishes in New England until 1885. From 1885 to 1903 he served as professor at the University of Vermont and at Brown University .
Go to Profile#5105
Safi al-Din al-Hindi
1246 - 1315 (69 years)
Safi al-Din al-Hindi al-Urmawi was a prominent Indian Shafi'i-Ash'ari scholar and rationalist theologian. Al-Hindi was brought in to debate at Ibn Taymiyya during the second hearing in Damascus in 1306. Taj al-Din al-Subki, in his Tabaqat al-Shafi'iyya al-Kubra, reports him to have said: "Oh Ibn Taymiyya, I see that you are only like a sparrow. Whenever I want to grab it, it escapes from one place to another."
Go to Profile#5106
James Cotton
1780 - 1862 (82 years)
James Henry Cotton was a clergyman and educationist who held the position of Dean of Bangor from 1838 until his death and was instrumental in the restoration of Bangor Cathedral. He was the son of George Cotton, Dean of Chester, uncle of George Cotton, Bishop of Calcutta and the first cousin of Sir Stapleton Cotton. He was educated at Rugby School and Trinity College, Cambridge, and ordained shortly after graduating. By 1810 he was junior vicar and precentor of Bangor Cathedral, and as such was responsible for the fabric of the building. In the same year he married Mary Anne Majendie, daughter of Henry Majendie, the Bishop of Bangor; they had one son.
Go to Profile#5107
Oliver of Paderborn
1170 - 1227 (57 years)
Oliver of Paderborn, also known as Oliver Scholasticus or Oliver of Cologne , was a German cleric, crusader and chronicler. He was the bishop of Paderborn from 1223 until 1225, when Pope Honorius III made him cardinal-bishop of Sabina. He was the first Paderborn bishop to become a cardinal. Oliver played a significant role in the Crusades as a preacher, participant and chronicler.
Go to Profile#5108
Domingo de Oña
1560 - 1626 (66 years)
Domingo de Oña, O. de M. or Pedro de Oña was a Roman Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Gaeta and Bishop of Coro . Biography Domingo de Oña was born in Burgos, Spain in 1560 and ordained a priest in the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy. On 27 August 1601, he was appointed during the papacy of Pope Clement VIII as Bishop of Coro. On 9 December 1601, he was consecrated bishop by Domenico Ginnasi, Archbishop of Manfredonia. On 27 June 1605, he was appointed during the papacy of Pope Paul V as Bishop of Gaeta. He served as Bishop of Gaeta until his death on 13 October 1626.
Go to Profile#5109
Adolf Büchler
1867 - 1939 (72 years)
Adolf Büchler was an Austro-Hungarian rabbi, historian and theologian. Biography In 1887, he began his theological studies at the Rabbinical Seminary of Budapest, and at the same time studied in the Department of Philosophy of the university under Ignác Goldziher and Moritz Kármán. Büchler continued his studies at the Breslau Seminary and in 1890 graduated with a PhD from Leipzig University, his dissertation being Zur Entstehung der Hebräischen Accente, which was later published in the Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akademie der Wissenschaften of 1891.
Go to Profile#5110
Georg Michael Telemann
1748 - 1831 (83 years)
Georg Michael Telemann was a German composer and theologian. Telemann was born in Plön, the son of the local pastor Andreas Telemann and his wife Augusta Clara Catharina Capsius. After the death of his father in 1755, he moved to Hamburg, where he was taken in and raised by his then 74-year-old grandfather Georg Philipp Telemann. In Hamburg, he attended the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums, and from 1770, the Akademisches Gymnasium. On the death of his grandfather in 1767, the 19 year old Georg Michael composed Trauer-Ode auf das betrübte Absterben meines Großvaters Herrn Georg Philipp Telemann, des Hamburgischen Musik-Chor-Direktors.
Go to Profile#5111
John McCaul
1807 - 1887 (80 years)
John McCaul was an Irish-born Canadian educator, theologian, and the second president of the University of Toronto from 1848 to 1853. McCaul was born in Dublin, Ireland and earned Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts and Doctor of Laws degrees from Trinity College, Dublin. He served as a Church of Ireland clergyman before moving to Toronto, Upper Canada in 1839 to become the principal of Upper Canada College. He resigned from the position in 1842 to serve as vice-president of King's College and professor of logic, rhetoric, and classics. In 1849, King's College was renamed as the University of Toronto, and McCaul was elected to succeed John Strachan as president.
Go to Profile#5112
Francis Chenevix Trench
1805 - 1886 (81 years)
Francis Chenevix Trench was an English divine and author. Francis, born in 1805, was the eldest son of Richard Trench , barrister-at-law, by his wife Melesina Trench, Richard Chenevix Trench was his younger brother. Francis entered Harrow School early in 1818, and matriculated from Oriel College, Oxford, on 12 November 1824, graduating B.A. in 1834 and M.A. in 1859. On 4 June 1829 he entered Lincoln's Inn with the intention of studying law, but in 1834 he was ordained deacon and became curate of St. Giles, Reading. In the following year he was ordained priest, and on 13 September 1837 he was appointed perpetual curate of St.
Go to Profile#5113
John Kynton
1455 - 1536 (81 years)
John Kynton was an English 16th-century Franciscan friar, divinity professor, and a vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford. In 1500 Kynton graduated as a Doctor of Divinity at Oxford, where he was a Minorite or Friar Minor. He was appointed Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University as part of a committee several times annually during 1503–1513.
Go to Profile#5114
Antoine de Mouchy
1494 - 1574 (80 years)
Antoine de Mouchy was a French theologian and canonist, at Paris. A traditional explanation of the French term mouchard, meaning police spy or informer, is that it derived from his use of intelligence-gathering networks, when working as an inquisitor. This folk-etymology was adopted by Voltaire, following François-Eudes de Mézeray. It has been plausibly contested, on the grounds that the word is found used in the fifteenth century.
Go to Profile#5115
Cyriacus Spangenberg
1528 - 1604 (76 years)
Cyriacus Spangenberg was a German theologian, Protestant reformer and historian, son of the reformer . Cyriacus was born in Nordhausen. As a student, he was a fellow tenant of Martin Luther in Wittenberg, later became a minister in Eisleben, and in 1559 the General Dean of the Grafschaft Mansfeld.
Go to Profile#5116
Adam of Dryburgh
1140 - 1212 (72 years)
Adam of Dryburgh , in later times also known as Adam the Carthusian, Adam Anglicus and Adam Scotus, was an Anglo-Scottish theologian, writer and Premonstratensian and Carthusian monk. Life He was born around 1140 in the Anglo-Scottish border area to parents whose names and identities are unknown. The details of his earliest education are not known. He is known to have rejected a clerical life in favour of monasticism, entering the Premonstratensian house of Dryburgh Abbey as a young man and becoming a priest there in 1165 at the age of twenty-five.
Go to Profile#5117
Jackson Lawlor
1860 - 1938 (78 years)
Hugh Jackson Lawlor was an Irish Anglican priest and author. He is best remembered for his term as Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. Hugh Jackson Lawlor was born in Ballymena, County Antrim. He was educated at Drogheda Grammar School, Rathmines School, Dublin and Trinity College Dublin from where he graduated with BA in mathematics in 1882, getting his MA in 1885. For a while in the 1880s, he was an examiner in mathematics for the Intermediate Board of Education. He was a curate at Christ Church, Kingstown from 1885 to 1893 then an assistant to Archbishop King's Lecturer in Divinity at Trinity College Dublin.
Go to Profile#5118
William of Woodford
1330 - 1397 (67 years)
William of Woodford or Wydford, OFM was an English cleric and scholastic philosopher, known as an opponent of Wycliffe. Life Although William of Woodford was erroneously identified by the Irish historian Wadding with William of Waterford , there seems to be no doubt that Woodford was an Englishman. He became a Franciscan and was educated at Oxford, where he graduated D.D.
Go to Profile#5119
Al-Bahrani
1238 - 1299 (61 years)
Kamal al-Din Maitham bin Ali bin Maitham al-Bahrani , commonly known as Sheikh Maitham al-Bahrani was a leading thirteenth-century Twelver Eastern Arabian theologian, author and philosopher. Al Bahrani wrote on Twelver doctrine, affirmed free will, the infallibility of prophets and imams, the appointed imamate of `Ali, and the occultation of the Twelfth Imam. Along with Kamal al-Din Ibn Sa’adah al Bahrani, Jamal al-Din ‘Ali ibn Sulayman al-Bahrani, Maytham Al Bahrani was part of a thirteenth-century Bahrain school of theology that emphasised rationalism.
Go to Profile#5120
William Overton
1525 - 1609 (84 years)
William Overton was an English bishop. Life He was born in Clerkenwell, Middlesex, England. He became a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1551, and rector of Balcombe and vicar of Eccleshall in 1553. He was also made a prebendary at Chichester, Winchester, and Salisbury. He became Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry in 1580, and remained in post until his death in 1609.
Go to Profile#5121
Sidi Boushaki
1394 - 1453 (59 years)
Sidi Boushaki or Ibrahim Ibn Faïd Ez-Zaouaoui was a maliki theologian born near the town of Thenia, east of Algiers. He was raised in a very spiritual environment with high Islamic values and ethics within the Algerian Islamic reference.
Go to Profile#5122
Adam S. Bennion
1886 - 1958 (72 years)
Adam Samuel Bennion was a leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . Born in Taylorsville, Utah Territory, Bennion received degrees from the University of Utah, Columbia University, and the University of California. He also studied at the University of Chicago. He became a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on April 9, 1953, filling a vacancy created by the death of John A. Widtsoe.
Go to Profile#5123
Martin of Alnwick
Martin Alnwick or of Alnwick was an English Franciscan friar and theologian. Biography Little is known of Alnwick's early years. He certainly originated from Northumberland, and a 'Martinus' is recorded in several disputations at Oxford University at the end of the 13th-century, possibly Alnwick. The first definite record of Alnwick was in 1300, where he was one of the Oxford friars who unsuccessfully requested the licence to hear confessions from the bishop of Lincoln, John Dalderby. At Oxford, Alnwick soon received a Doctor of Theology and, in 1304, became the 32nd regent master of the univ...
Go to Profile#5124
Gabriele Fiamma
1533 - 1585 (52 years)
Gabriele Fiamma or Gabriello Fiamma was a Roman Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Chioggia . Biography Marco Medici was born in 1533 and ordained a priest in the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine. On 23 January 1584, he was appointed during the papacy of Pope Gregory XIII as Bishop of Chioggia. He served as Bishop of Chioggia until his death on 14 July 1585.
Go to Profile#5125
Gerard of Abbeville
1225 - 1272 (47 years)
Gerard of Abbeville was a theologian from the University of Paris. He formally became a theologian in 1257 and from then was known as an opponent of the mendicant orders, particularly in the second stage of the conflict, taking part in a concerted attack that temporarily affected their privileges.
Go to Profile#5126
Eulogios Kourilas Lauriotis
1880 - 1961 (81 years)
Eulogios Kourilas Lauriotes was a bishop of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania. He was the Orthodox metropolitan bishop of Korçë in Albania between 1937 and 1939, and a professor of philosophy and author on religious matters. He later became one of the leaders of the Northern Epirus movement, propagating that Greece should annex southern Albania.
Go to Profile#5127
Katharine Lambert Richards Rockwell
1891 - 1972 (81 years)
Katharine Lambert Richards Rockwell was an American theologian, writer, and professor. Rockwell served as national secretary for the YWCA and as a member of their Board of Trustees for two terms. She also chaired the YWCA's Department of Religious Education.
Go to Profile#5128
John Douglas
1721 - 1807 (86 years)
John Douglas was a Scottish scholar and Anglican bishop. Douglas was born at Pittenweem, Fife, the son of a shopkeeper, and was educated at Dunbar, East Lothian, and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he gained his M.A. degree in 1743.
Go to Profile#5129
Antoine de la Roche Chandieu
1534 - 1591 (57 years)
Antoine de la Roche Chandieu was a French Reformed theologian, poet, diplomat and nobleman. His trend toward the Reformed Protestantism was strengthened during his study of law at Toulouse; after a theological course at Geneva, he became the pastor of the Reformed congregation of Paris between 1556 and 1562.
Go to Profile#5130
Peter Payne
1385 - 1456 (71 years)
Peter Payne was an English theologian, diplomat, Lollard and Taborite. The son of a Frenchman by an English wife, he was born at Hough-on-the-Hill near Grantham. He was educated in Oxford, where he adopted Lollard opinions, and had graduated as a master of arts before 6 October 1406, when he was concerned in the irregular proceedings through which a letter declaring the sympathy of the university was addressed to the Bohemian reformers. From 1410 to 1414 Payne was principal of St Edmund Hall, and during these years was engaged in controversy with Thomas Netter of Walden, the Carmelite defende...
Go to Profile#5131
Galvanus de Bettino
1361 - 1384 (23 years)
Galvanus de Bettino was an Italian theologian. He was the first to hold the chair in canon law at Fünfkirchen in Hungary in 1371. Galvanus received his doctorate in canon law at Padua in 1361. He taught there at least for the years 1365-1368. After his appointment at Pécs, he returned to lecture in Bologna in 1374. From 1379 to 1382 her returned to Padua, then finished his career in Bologna until his death, which occurred before 1395.
Go to Profile#5132
Uthred of Boldon
1320 - 1397 (77 years)
Uthred or Uhtred of Boldon was an English Benedictine monk, theologian and writer, born at Boldon, North Durham; he died at Finchale Abbey. Life Uhtred joined the Benedictine community of Durham Abbey about 1332 and was sent to London in 1337. Three years later he entered Durham College, Oxford, a house which the Durham Benedictines had established at Oxford for those of their members who pursued their studies at the University of Oxford. He was graduated there as licentiate in 1352 and as doctor in 1357. During the succeeding ten years, and even previously, he took part in numerous disputations at Oxford University, many of which were directed against members of the mendicant orders.
Go to Profile#5133
John Young
1514 - 1580 (66 years)
John Young was an English Catholic clergyman and academic. He was Master of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and was later imprisoned by Elizabeth I. He is not John Young , Master of Pembroke Hall later in the century, and afterwards Bishop of Rochester.
Go to Profile#5134
John Howe
1630 - 1705 (75 years)
John Howe was an English Puritan theologian. He served briefly as chaplain to Oliver Cromwell. Life Howe was born at Loughborough. At the age of five he went to Ireland with his father, who had been ejected from his living by William Laud, but returned to England in 1641 and settled with his father in Lancaster. He studied at Christ's College, Cambridge, and at Magdalen College, Oxford , where for a time he was fellow and college chaplain. At Cambridge he came under the influence of Ralph Cudworth and Henry More, from whom he probably received the Platonic tinge that marks his writings. About 1654 he was appointed to the perpetual curacy of Great Torrington, Devon.
Go to Profile#5135
William Taylor
William Taylor was a medieval English theologian and priest, executed as a Lollard. Nothing is known of Taylor's career before he named as Principal of St Edmund Hall, Oxford in a rent roll for 1405–1406. One sermon from 1406 survives, and was republished by the Early English Text Society in 1993.
Go to Profile#5136
Ibrahim al-Halabi
1460 - 1549 (89 years)
Burhān ad-Dīn Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ḥalabī was an Islamic jurist who was born around 1460 in Aleppo, and who died in 1549 in Istanbul. His reputation as one of the most brilliant legists of his time chiefly rests on his work entitled Multaqā al-Abḥur, which became the standard handbook of the Ḥanafī school of Islamic law in the Ottoman Empire.
Go to Profile#5137
Nicolas d'Orbellis
1500 - 1472 (-28 years)
Nicolas d'Orbellis was a French Franciscan theologian and philosopher, of the Scotist school. Biography He was born about 1400. He seems to have entered the monastery of the Observantines, founded in 1407, one of the first in France.
Go to Profile#5138
Pieter Datheen
1531 - 1588 (57 years)
Pieter Datheen, Latin Petrus Dathenus, English, Peter Datheen, was a Dutch Calvinist theologian, the 16th century reformer of The Netherlands, who accomplished many things for the advancement the Reformed Church liturgy and ecclesiastical polity.
Go to Profile#5139
Suzanne de Dietrich
1891 - 1981 (90 years)
Suzanne Anne de Dietrich was a French Protestant theologian known for her work in the ecumenical movement. Youth and education Alsatian origins Suzanne de Dietrich is the daughter of Charles de Dietrich and Anne von Türcke, and the granddaughter of Albert de Dietrich. The de Dietrich family is an emblematic family of Alsatian industrialists, several of whose members were ammestres or mayors of Strasbourg, notably Philippe-Frédéric, who commissioned the Chant de guerre pour l'armée du Rhin, composed by Claude Rouget de Lisle on April 25, 1792, while Suzanne's maternal family belonged to the n...
Go to Profile#5140
Augustine Schulte
1856 - 1937 (81 years)
Augustine Joseph Schulte was an American Catholic priest and professor at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Pennsylvania, who served as the interim rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome from 1884 to 1885.
Go to Profile#5141
Thumama ibn Ashras
Thumama ibn Ashras , also known as Abu Maʿn al-Numayri was a Mu'tazila theologian during the era of the Abbasid Caliphate, the third Islamic caliphate. Life Thumama ibn Ashras was of Arab descent. He served under an influential family during the Abbasid era, the Barmakids, and was arrested when they fell from favour in 802 CE. His reputation was sufficiently restored by around the year 807 CE that Harun al-Ras̲h̲d had him join his expedition to Khorasan.
Go to Profile#5142
Rupertus Meldenius
1582 - 1651 (69 years)
Rupertus Meldenius, aka Peter Meiderlin and Peter Meuderlinus was a Lutheran theologian and educator. The son of a Swabian priest, studied in Adelberg and after school visited the lower Konvikts in Maulbronn at the Tübinger Stift, where he met Johann Valentin Andreae. Meiderlin was a student of Mathias Haffenreffer and 1601 obtained a master's degree. In 1605, he was at the Repentant convent in Tübingen, 1607, he assumed the Chair of the deceased philologist Martin Crusius. After a post as senior deacon in Kirchheim unter Teck, 1612, he was "Ephorus" of the Evangelical College of St. Anna in Augsburg.
Go to Profile#5143
Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Nasafi
Abu'l-Hasan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Bazdawi al-Nasafi was an early 10th-century Isma'ili missionary and theologian. In he succeeded in converting the Samanid emir, Nasr II, to Isma'ilism, and ushered in a period of Isma'ili dominance at the Samanid court that lasted until Nasr's death. In the subsequent persecution of the Isma'ilis, launched by Nuh I, al-Nasafi himself fell victim. As a theologian, he is generally credited with being among those who introduced Neoplatonic concepts into Isma'ili theology. His doctrines dominated indigenous Isma'ilism in the Iranian lands in the 9th–10th centu...
Go to Profile#5144
Thomas Wilton
1270 - 1320 (50 years)
Thomas Wilton was an English theologian and scholastic philosopher, a pupil of Duns Scotus, a teacher at the University of Oxford and then the University of Paris, where he taught Walter Burley. He was a Fellow of Merton College from about 1288.
Go to Profile#5145
Joannes Aurifaber
1519 - 1575 (56 years)
Joannes Aurifaber , born Johann Goldschmidt in Weimar, Germany, was a Lutheran churchman, theologian, and a Protestant reformer. Owing to a similarly-named contemporary, he is sometimes distinguished by the cognomen Vimariensis or Vinariensis .
Go to Profile#5146
Frederic Harton
1889 - 1958 (69 years)
Frederic Percy Harton was an Anglican priest and author during the twentieth century. He was the husband of writer Sibyl Harton. He trained for the priesthood at King's College, London ; and ordained Deacon in 1913 and Priest in 1914. After curacies in Hornsey and Stroud Green he was Vicar of Ardeley from 1922 to 1926. He was at St Paul, Colombo from 1926 to 1927 then Warden of the Sisters of Charity, Knowle, Bristol. He was then Vicar of Baulking from 1936 to 1951.
Go to Profile#5147
Giovanni Mincio da Morrovalle
1250 - 1312 (62 years)
Giovanni Mincio may also refer to antipope Benedict XGiovanni Minio or Mincio, of Morrovalle or Murrovale was an Italian Franciscan who became Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, cardinal-bishop of Porto , Protector of the Order of Friars Minors and dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals .
Go to Profile#5148
Richard Middleton
1300 - 1300 (0 years)
Richard Middleton was an English ecclesiastic and Lord Chancellor of England. Middleton was appointed Lord Chancellor on 29 July 1269. He was out of office before his death, but his successor Walter de Merton is first mentioned in the office on 29 November 1272.
Go to Profile#5149
William Atwater
1440 - 1521 (81 years)
William Atwater was an English churchman, who became Bishop of Lincoln in 1514. He was a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1480. He served as Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, in the period from 1497 to 1502.
Go to Profile#5150
Clarence Pickett
1884 - 1965 (81 years)
Clarence Evan Pickett was an American religious leader, notable 20th century Quaker, and head of a non-governmental, humanitarian relief agency. Background Pickett was born on October 19, 1884, in Cissna Park, Illinois. He came from a family of Quakers and grew up in Glen Elder, Kansas. He studied at Penn College in Iowa, the Hartford Theological Seminary and at Harvard.
Go to Profile