Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Burneston, Simon
BURNESTON or BORASTON, SIMON (fl. 1338), divine, presumably a native of Burniston, near Scarborough, was a doctor of divinity of Cambridge and a member of the Dominican monastery at Oxford. The latter fact has led Tanner (Bibl. Brit. p. 143) to suspect that Burneston's ascription to Cambridge is an error. Burneston was distinguished as a preacher, and was chosen to be provincial of his order for England. His works consist of a ‘Tractatus de Mutabilitate Mundi’ (dated 1337 in a manuscript of Lincoln College, Oxford, lxxxi. f. 29, Coxe's Catal. p. 42); ‘Tractatus de Unitate et Ordine ecclesiasticæ Potestatis’ (written in the Dominican house at Oxford in 1338); ‘Opus alphabeticum de Verbis prædicabilibus, cum Concordantia quorundam Doctorum,’ which is identical with the ‘Distinctiones’ mentioned by Tanner (l.c.) as a separate work; ‘Compilatio de Ordine iudiciario,’ and some collections of sermons. Other writings attributed to Burneston, namely the ‘Themata dominicalia’ (unless these be identical with his sermons) and a treatise, ‘De postulandis Suffragiis,’ are not known to be extant. [Bale's Script. Brit. Cat. v. 41, p. 410; Echard's Scriptores Ordinis Prædicatorum, i. 594 a; Coxe's Catalogue of MSS. in the Colleges and Halls of Oxford, under Merton College, No. ci. and ccxvi.]