Boniface VIII (ca. 1235-1303), pope (1294-1303) and key figure in the question of papal authority. During his controversy with King Philip the Fair of France, the pope issued a series of bulls, such as the Unam sanctam, which became crucial for the following debate over the pope’s plenitude of power. Boniface’s concern with canon law resulted in a collection of Decretales, the Liber sextus, to be added to the five books of Gregory IX (Decretales Gregorii IX, 1234).
Bozio, Francesco (d. 1635), Oratorian Father under whose name the treatise De temporali ecclesiae monarchia appeared in 1602, although much of the work must be attributed to Tommaso Bozio, his brother and fellow Oratorian. This treatise was one of the most vigorous assertions of the absolute authority of the pope in both temporal and spiritual matters.
Brenz, Johannes (1499-1570), one of the leaders of the Reformation in Germany.
Burchard of Ursperg (d. ca. 1230), monk and author of a well-known chronicle, which was for a long time attributed to Konrad of Lichtenau, his successor as abbot of Ursperg.
Cajetan (Tommaso de Vio) (1469-1534), cardinal and general of the Dominicans. Cajetan was a well-known theologian whose works included a commentary on Aquinas’s Summa, which became a classic reference for Scholastic theologians.
Cassander, George (1513-66), Flemish humanist and promoter of religious peace between Protestants and Catholics. His anonymous treatise, De officio pii viri, which advocated religious toleration, pleased neither Catholics nor Protestants.
Castaldi, Ristoro (Restaurus Castaldus) (d. 1564), a professor of law in Perugia and Bologna.
Castro, Alfonso de (ca. 1495-1558), Franciscan friar, jurist, theologian, and author of many works, including De iusta haereticorum punitione.
Cedrenus, George (eleventh century), Byzantine historian and author of a chronicle covering the period from the creation to his own times.
Charlemagne (ca. 742-814), king of the Franks. He was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III on Christmas day in the year 800. The role of the pope in the transfer of the empire, the translatio imperii, from Rome to the Franks, was a key polemical weapon in the medieval and early modern discussion of papal authority in temporal matters.
Chrysostom, John (ca. 347-407), one of the most influential doctors and preachers in the Greek Church, becoming bishop of Constantinople in 398. He was a prolific writer, and Bellarmine quotes often from his numerous homilies or commentaries on the New Testament (more than fifty of those homilies were dedicated to the Acts of the Apostles).
Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106-43 B.C.), philosopher and orator. Cicero’s eclectic moral and political philosophy was much quoted by Christian authors in Bellarmine’s time, and humanist scholars regarded his style as achieving one of the highest peaks of Latin prose.
Clarus, Julius (Giulio Claro) (ca. 1525-75), Italian humanist and jurist, an expert in civil and penal law.
Cochlaeus, Johann (1479-1552), prolific Catholic controversialist.
Conradus Brunus (Konrad Braun) (ca. 1491-1563), Catholic theologian and canonist, who wrote a number of anti-Protestant works. His De legationibus was a treatise on the legal obligations and rights of ambassadors.
Constantine the Great (ca. 280-337), Roman emperor who converted to Christianity and whose Edict of Milan, or Edict of Constantine, promulgated in 313, allowed Christians freedom of worship. The “Donation of Constantine” was supposed to be a document by which the emperor gave to Pope Sylvester I temporal authority over Italy, and as such it was widely quoted in the medieval debate over the pope’s plenitude of power and his rights in temporal matters. Lorenzo Valla, an Italian humanist (ca. 1405-57), proved the document to be a forgery. Today scholarship is able to date the forged document to a period between the second half of the eighth century and the first half of the ninth.
Covarrubias y Leiva, Diego de (1512-77), Spanish jurist and theologian, pupil of Vitoria and professor at Salamanca. He was the author of many ecclesiological and theological treatises.
Cujas, Jacques (also known as “Jurisconsultus”) (1522-90), an important French jurist and author of a commentary on Roman law.
Cyprian (d. 258), saint and bishop of Carthage, whose works include numerous epistles and a treatise against Novatian titled De Catholicae Ecclesiae unitate.
Cyprianus Benetus Aragonensis (d. 1522), a Dominican professor of theology and author of several theological and ecclesiological treatises.
Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444), Doctor of the Church and author of many works, including numerous commentaries on the Old and New Testaments and various theological and apologetic treatises and sermons.
Diocletian, Aurelius Valerius (ca. 245-312), Roman emperor who in 303 ordered the destruction of the Christian churches and thus started a bitter persecution.
Dionysius the Areopagite, an Athenian whom Paul converted to Christianity (Acts 17:34) and to whom was attributed a series of theological treatises. This attribution has been discarded: the works have been dated to between the end of the fifth century and the beginning of the sixteenth century, and the author is now known as “pseudo-Dionysius.” Most often quoted by medieval and early modern theologicians are his works De coelesti hierarchia and De ecclesiastica hierarchia.
Dionysius of Alexandria (d. 265), bishop and Father of the Church, mainly known to us through Eusebius, which see.
Dionysius (Denys), the Carthusian (ca. 1402-71), monk and theologian, author of numerous works ranging from mystical writings to ecclesiological treatises and exegetical commentaries on the Bible.
Dodechinus (end of twelfth century to beginning of thirteenth century), continuator of Marianus Scotus’s chronicle.
Domitian (Titus Flavius Domitianus) (51-96), Roman emperor and a fierce persecutor of the Christians.
Driedo, John (ca. 1480-1535), theologian at the University of Louvain and author of, among other works, De gratia et libero arbitrio, De libertate Christiana, and De ecclesiasticis scripturis et dogmatibus.
Duns Scotus, John (ca. 1265-1308), Scottish-born Franciscan theologian who taught in England, France, and Germany. His philosophy departed from Aristotelianism in important points and embraced many Augustinian elements.
Durand, Guillaume (Durandus) (ca. 1235-96), bishop of Mende and author of numerous theological, liturgical, and juridical works, including the Rationale divinorum officiorum and the Speculum iudiciale.
Durandus of St. Pourçain (Durandus de Sancto Porciano) (ca. 1270-1334), Dominican theologian of Nominalist tendencies and author of De origine iurisdictionis, a treatise supporting the plenitudo potestatis of the pope.
Einhard (ca. 775-840), courtier and historian whose works include a biography of Charlemagne.
Epiphanius of Salamis (d. ca. 403), bishop and author of many theological and apologetic works against the heresies of his time, in particular Panarion (“cabinet of medicine”), a multivolume catalog of about eighty heresies.
Eucherius (d. ca. 449), saint and theologian; author of various homilies and theological works.
Eunomius (fourth century), disciple of Aetius and founder of Eunomianism, a heretical sect that shared many tenets with Arianism.
Eusebius (ca. 260-340), bishop of Caesarea, a historian, and a prolific commentator on the Bible. His best-known works, which Bellarmine refers to often, are De vita Constantini, Historia ecclesiastica (translated into Latin by Rufinus), and the Chronicle, partially translated into Latin by Jerome.
Eustathius of Sebaste (fourth century), monk involved in the Arian and semi-Arian debates.
Eutyches (fifth century), heresiarch after whom is named the Euthychian or Monophysite