Owing to the perturbed state of Europe Vives lived in many places, including Paris and Oxford, although often based at Bruges, where his Stoic teaching and hostility to Aristotle were largely tolerated. He edited Augustine’s City of God, and wrote widely on educational matters, producing among other things a highly popular teaching manual for Latin. De anima et vita (Of the soul and life, 1538) is an early empirical study of the emotions.