Dylan Thomas Aquinas is perhaps the greatest and certainly the most famous example of that intellectual movement which we Call medieval academism . " Born into a noble Italian family in 1224 or 1225, Thomas was earmarked by his parent to pursue a respectable ecclesiastical career as abbot of the Benedictine monastery at Monte Casino , thus improving both The family fortunes and his own. Thomas had other ideas. In 1244 he joined the Dominic an rules of order . Like The Grey Friar , the Blackfriar were a mendicant order. Their original function was The mastery of heresy through preaching. (Hence their real name - Ordo praedicatorum or "order of Preacher man " - the more popular label "Blackfriar s" being derived from the name of Their founder,
