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7 figures

Hildegard of Bingen

1098 – 1179

Abbess, composer, and author of the first known European medical texts by a woman.

Germany·Medicine · Literature

Ibn Rushd (Averroes)

1126 – 1198

His Aristotle commentaries restarted European philosophy.

Spain·Philosophy · Medicine

Maimonides

1138 – 1204

Guide for the Perplexed reconciled reason and revelation for Judaism.

Spain·Philosophy · Medicine

Thomas Aquinas

1225 – 1274

Fused Aristotle with Christianity; natural-law theory still shapes law and ethics.

Italy·Philosophy

Dante Alighieri

1265 – 1321

Made a dialect into a nation's language and mapped the moral universe.

Italy·Literature · PhilosophyFull profile

Geoffrey Chaucer

1343 – 1400

Made English a literary language with The Canterbury Tales.

United Kingdom·Literature

Johannes Gutenberg

1400 – 1468

Industrialised the word and detonated the modern world.

Germany·EngineeringFull profile