Nominalism and Realism found a new competitor on the philosophic stage when the advanced and victorious system of Conceptualism was established by Abelard. Of this school, John of Salisbury was an enlightened and polished disciple. To him and his co-laborer in the same faith and age, Peter Lombard, succeeded the three great masters who represented the succeeding epoch. Albert the Great, born in Suabia, was by turns professor at Cologne and Paris. In 1260 he was bishop of Ratisbon, but soon withdrew from that post to devote himself exclusively to his philosophical pursuits at Cologne, where he died in 1280. Thomas Aquinas was of a rich and illustrious family, who wished to give him a good position in the world. But he declined all secular honors, and became a Dominican, that he might devote himself entirely to philosophy. He is said to have been an incomparable teacher, and was called the Angel of the School. His birth occurred near Naples, in 1225; he studied under Albert, both at Cologne and Paris, died in 1274, and was canonized in 1323. He was not so scientific as his master, nor so mystical as his compatriot, Bonaventura. He could not dream of modern equality; but, as a Christian philosopher he recommended humanity toward the persecuted, and exemplified the high morality he taught. The English Duns Scotus, born at Dunston, in Northumberland, according to others at Duns, in Ireland, near 1275, possessed a mind of uncommon firmness and powerful action. Physics and mathematics were his forte, while more spiritual themes won the preference and exercised the skill of Albert and Thomas. Cotemporaries named the first the seraphic Doctor, and the second the angelic Doctor, but the third was characterized by another epithet more descriptive of his genius, namely, the subtile, Doctor subtilis.