Alexander of Hales (c.1185–1245), English Franciscan theologian, known as the Doctor Irrefragabilis. The first to teach theology by lecturing on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Alexander’s emphasis on speculative theology initiated the golden age of Scholasticism. Alexander wrote commentaries on the Psalms and the Gospels; his chief works include his Glossa in quattuor libros sententiarum, Quaestiones disputatatae antequam esset frater, and Quaestiones quodlibetales. Alexander did not complete the Summa fratris Alexandri; Pope Alexander IV ordered the Franciscans to complete the Summa Halesiana in 1255.
Master of theology in 1222, Alexander played an important role in the history of the University of Paris, writing parts of Gregory IX’s Parens scientiarum (1231). He also helped negotiate the peace between England and France in 1235–36. Later in 1236 he gave up his position as canon of Lichfield and archdeacon of Coventry to become a Franciscan, the first Franciscan master of theology; his was the original Franciscan chair of theology at Paris. Among the Franciscans, his most prominent disciples include St. Bonaventure, Richard Rufus of Cornwall, and John of La Rochelle, to whom he resigned his chair in theology near the end of his life. R.W.