Hermannus Alemannus translated Arabic philosophical works into Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

. He worked at the Toledo School of Translators

Toledo School of Translators

The Toledo School of Translators is the name that commonly describes the group of scholars who worked together in the city of Toledo during the 12th and 13th centuries, to translate many of the philosophical and scientific works from classical Arabic, classical Greek, and ancient Hebrew.The School...

 around the middle of the thirteenth century (from approximately 1240 to 1256) and is almost certainly to be identified with the Hermannus who was bishop of Astorga in León

León (province)

León is a province of northwestern Spain, in the northwestern part of the autonomous community of Castile and León.About one quarter of its population of 500,200 lives in the capital, León. The weather is cold and dry during the winter....

 from 1266 until his death in 1272.

Work

His translations have been identified from prologue

Prologue

A prologue is an opening to a story that establishes the setting and gives background details, often some earlier story that ties into the main one, and other miscellaneous information. The Greek prologos included the modern meaning of prologue, but was of wider significance...

s and colophon

Colophon (publishing)

In publishing, a colophon is either:* A brief description of publication or production notes relevant to the edition, in modern books usually located at the reverse of the title page, but can also sometimes be located at the end of the book, or...

s in the surviving manuscripts, three of which are dated. They are: the Rhetoric

Rhetoric (Aristotle)

Aristotle's Rhetoric is an ancient Greek treatise on the art of persuasion, dating from the 4th century BC. In Greek, it is titled ΤΕΧΝΗ ΡΗΤΟΡΙΚΗ, in Latin Ars Rhetorica. In English, its title varies: typically it is titled Rhetoric, the Art of Rhetoric, or a Treatise on...

, comprising the almost complete text of Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

 interspersed with portions of Averroes

Averroes

' , better known just as Ibn Rushd , and in European literature as Averroes , was a Muslim polymath; a master of Aristotelian philosophy, Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Maliki law and jurisprudence, logic, psychology, politics, Arabic music theory, and the sciences of medicine, astronomy,...

' middle commentary and short fragments from Avicenna

Avicenna

Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā , commonly known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persian polymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived...

 and Alfarabi; the introductory section of Alfarabi's commentary on the Rhetoric; Averroes' middle commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics

Nicomachean Ethics

The Nicomachean Ethics is the name normally given to Aristotle's best known work on ethics. The English version of the title derives from Greek Ἠθικὰ Νικομάχεια, transliterated Ethika Nikomacheia, which is sometimes also given in the genitive form as Ἠθικῶν Νικομαχείων, Ethikōn Nikomacheiōn...

 (Toledo, 1240); an Arabic epitome of the Ethics known as the Summa Alexandrinorum (1243 or 1244); and the middle commentary on the Poetics (Toledo, 1256), this last being known as the Poetria.

See also

• The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy
  Medieval philosophy
  Medieval philosophy is the philosophy in the era now known as medieval or the Middle Ages, the period roughly extending from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century AD to the Renaissance in the sixteenth century...
  
   : From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism
  Scholasticism
  Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context...
  
  , 1100-1600, editors: Norman Kretzmann
  Norman Kretzmann
  Norman J. Kretzmann was a Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University who specialised in the history of medieval philosophy and the philosophy of religion.Kretzmann joined Cornell's Department of Philosophy in 1966...
  
  , Anthony Kenny
  Anthony Kenny
  Sir Anthony John Patrick Kenny FBA is an English philosopher whose interests lie in the philosophy of mind, ancient and scholastic philosophy, the philosophy of Wittgenstein and the philosophy of religion...
  
  , Jan Pinborg
  Jan Pinborg
  Jan Pinborg was a renowned historian of medieval linguistics and philosophy of language. He was the most famous member of the Copenhagen School of Medieval Philosophy pioneered by Heinrich Roos in the 1940s. Pinborg was a pupil of Roos.-Notes:...
  
   ; associate editor: Eleonore Stump. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire] ; New York : Cambridge University Press
  Cambridge University Press
  Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
  
  , c1982. pp. 59–60.