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St Thomas Aquinas (b. 1225, near Aquino, Sicily) was an Italian Dominican theologian whose scholarship propelled him to the first rank among the Scholastics of the Middle Ages. His major works are the Summa theologiae and the Summa contra gentiles. Thomas joined the Dominican order in his teens and was sent in 1245 to study at the University of Paris. His mentor there was Albertus Magnus (1206-80), a noted scholar during a time when the influx of Arabic-Aristotelian thought was arousing a sharp reaction among Christians. Some feared that Islam's appropriation of the ancient philosophers would somehow be used to prove a rational basis for Islam over Christianity. Others feared the influence of rationalism, especially the form advocated by the adherents of Averroes.

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Sir William Blackstone's (1723-1780) four-volume Commentaries on the Laws of England assures him a place in history as one of the greatest scholars of English common law. Blackstone began his lectures on the common law in 1753. His clear, lucid style and the completeness of his work made his lectures and later writings an immediate success. His Commentaries served as a primary instruction tool in England and America well into the nineteenth century and exerted a pronounced influence on the development of the American legal tradition.