Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/223

 DUNRAVEN, (1812–1871). [See .]

DUNS, JOANNES SCOTUS, known as the (1265?–1308?), schoolman, was born according to one tradition about 1265, according to another about 1274. The earlier date agrees better with the voluminous character of the works ascribed to him, unless indeed he continued to live and write long after 1308. He has always been represented by the Franciscans as a member of their order, though they have never been able to determine either when or where he entered it. There has been much dispute as to his nationality and birthplace. An Irish Franciscan, Maurice O'Fihely, archbishop of Tuam, who in 1497 edited a commentary on the ‘Metaphysics of Aristotle,’ which he supposed to be the work of Duns, claims him in the preface as a compatriot. As to the authenticity of this work see remarks on Wadding's edition of ‘Duns,’ vol. iv. infra. To this conjecture (for it seems to have been no more) Hugh MacCaghwell (1571–1626), archbishop of Armagh, added the suggestion that he was probably born at Dun (now Down) in Ulster; and Luke Wadding, also an Irishman, in the life prefixed to his edition of the complete works of Duns (Lyons, 1639), follows suit. On the other hand, the fourteenth-century author or editor of the commentary on Aristotle's ‘Metaphysics’ above referred to, in proclaiming himself at the close of the work a disciple of Duns, describes him as ‘natione Scotus,’ from which it is clear that he was then regarded as a native of Northern Britain. Thomas de Eccleston, a contemporary authority (Monumenta Franciscana, Rolls Ser. i. 32), disposes altogether of the idea that Ireland was known to the Franciscans as Scotia. He states that all Britain north of York was reckoned in the province of Scotia, from which he expressly distinguishes the province of Hibernia. On entering the Franciscan order Duns would, according to custom, take the name of his birthplace. Hence this was at an early date identified by the Scotch with Duns or Dunse in Berwickshire (, Asserti Scotiæ Cives sui, 17). Against this has to be set the authority (such as it is) of a statement of Leland that in a manuscript in Merton College, Oxford, Duns was said to have been born in the village of Dunstane in Northumberland (Comm. de Scriptt. Brit. i. cccxv). There is no evidence by which the point can be settled one way or the other. There is a tradition that he was a fellow of Merton College, which, however, is not confirmed by the records of the college. He is also said to have succeeded William Varron in the Oxford chair of divinity in 1301, and to have attracted great multitudes to his lectures, but his name does not occur in the catalogue of Oxford readers in divinity given in the ‘Monumenta Franciscana,’ app. ii., though the list purports to cover his period. His principal theological treatise has, however, always been known as the ‘Opus Oxoniense.’ On the strength of a letter (dated November 1304) from Gonsalvo, general of the Franciscan order, to the warden of the university of Paris, recommending one Joannes Scotus, described as ‘subtilissimo ingenio,’ for the bachelor's degree, Wadding asserts that Duns took the B.A. degree about that time. As, however, there is nothing improbable in supposing that the Franciscan order contained more than one Scotchman named John, who might in a letter of recommendation be credited with the possession of a subtle intellect, it is impossible to feel confident that the ‘frater Joannes Scotus’ referred to is identical with Duns. The rest of the traditional account, viz. that he became the ‘regent’ of the university of Paris, that in public disputation he maintained the tenet of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary with such ingenuity and resource as to win the title of Doctor Subtilis, that in 1308 he was sent by Gonsalvo to Cologne, that there he was received with enthusiasm by all ranks, and that there on 8 Nov. 1308 he died of apoplexy, seems to have no more solid foundation than the statements of writers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, such as William Vorrillong (Super Sentent. Venice, 1496, ad fin.), Paul Lange (fl. 1500, Chronicon Citizense, sub anno 1330), Pelbartus de Themeswar (fl. 1500), who in a passage quoted by Wadding relates what took place on the occasion of the disputation concerning the immaculate conception of the Virgin with the circumstantiality of an eye-witness, Tritheim (Catal. Scriptt. Eccles. Basel, 1494, fol. xcvii.), and Antonio Possevino (Apparatus, Venice, 1597). All that seems to be certain is that in 1513 a monument was erected to his memory in the Minorite church at Cologne, where he was supposed to have been buried. An inscription on a wooden tablet is said to have run, ‘Scotia me genuit, Anglia me suscepit, Gallia me docuit, Colonia me tenet.’

The traditional account of the life of Duns is repeated with variations by Bale (Scriptt. Maj. Brit. 1548), Pits (De Angl. Scriptt. 1619), Ferchi (Vita Duns Scoti, Cologne, 1622), and with the help of legendary embellishments is expanded into a considerable volume by Ximenes Samaniego (Vida del Padre J. Dunsio Escoto, Madrid, 1668). The