Scientists also took part in another study, peering into how Aquinas died, revealing that a “traumatic brain injury” may be to blame for the philosopher’s death.

In the year 1274, Aquinas set off in good health to attend the Second Council of Lyon, having been invited by Pope Gregory X.

The Dominican priest never arrived, and historical accounts have pointed to either an illness or something more sinister, even assassination.

However, in studying the skull, the cause of death can now be attributed to a specific type of hematoma, when blood collects between the brain and skull, the report found.

“The authors postulate,” the study states, “that Aquinas may have suffered a traumatic brain injury and that his death at age 48 was occasioned by a chronic subdural hematoma.”

Three doctors, Gabriel LeBeau, Abdul-Rahman Alkiswani and Paul Camarata, and theologian Daniel Mauro published these findings in the journal World Neurology.

Witness accounts noted in the study claim the saint had struck his head when a tree had fallen on his way to Naples, Italy. Aquinas stopped to rest after the accident, first in Maenza and also at the Abbey of Fossanova. However, his situation did not improve, and he died a few weeks later.

“Most chronic subdural hematomas (cSDH) are preceded by some form of minor to moderate head injury,” the researchers stipulate.

“A critical reading of the accounts of the last weeks of his life makes a strong case for cSDH: with the classic clinical history of a relatively minor head trauma, a period of lucidity, and then a gradual decline as the hematoma expands over several weeks. Aquinas was not ill prior to the head injury, and the violent collision with the tree on the Via Latina marked the beginning of his demise.”

It’s a shame the article doesn’t go into their forensics research. There’s nothing about what in the skull indicated that.