Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bederic, Henry
BEDERIC or DE BURY, HENRY (fl. 1380), theologian, was born at Bury, in Suffolk, from which place he derived his surname. Bale, whose account seems to have been followed both by Pamphilus and Pits, tells us that he embraced the monastic life very early by entering the Augustinian foundation at Clare, in Suffolk, sixteen miles south of Bury St. Edmunds, as the bent of his whole mind was towards letters. For the sake of increasing his facilities for study, we are told that he visited the most renowned resorts of the learned in England, a phrase which Tanner translates more definitely into several years' residence at Oxford and Cambridge. He then passed on to the Sorbonne divinity schools at Paris, where, according to Pits, after long studies and almost daily exercises in the schools, he took his doctor's degree. On his return to England he was appointed provincial of his whole order for this country, and Pits enumerates his many qualifications for this office — his uprightness of life and prudence in business. Bale praises his keen intellect and his readiness in public preaching ('declamandas e suggesto conciones'), but qualifies his admiration by adding that this was done in papist fashion. The chief works of this writer, as enumerated by the last-mentioned biographer, are: 'Lectures on the Sentences of Peter Lombard,' certain 'Quæstiones Theologiæ' 'Sermones de Beatâ Virgine,' and 'Sermones per Annum.' Bandellus, according to Bale, quotes him as an authority for maintaining that the Virgin Mary was conceived in original sin. Bale and Pits state that John Bederic flourished about 1380; but Pamphilus gives an account of his life under the year 1373.
[Bale, 481; Pamphili Chronica Ordinis Frat. Eremit. S. August. 61; Pits, 526; Tanner.]