Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Baconthorpe, John

BACONTHORPE, or Bacon, John, called The Resolute Doctor, a learned monk, born towards the end of the 13th century, at Baconthorpe, a village in Norfolk. After spending the early part of his life in the convent of Blakeney, near Walsingham, he removed to Oxford, and from that city to Paris, where he obtained great reputation for his learning, and was esteemed the principal of the Averroists. In 1329 he returned to England, and was chosen twelfth provincial of the English Carmelites. In 1333 he was sent for to Rome, where, we are told, he first maintained the Pope's sovereign authority in cases of divorce; but this opinion he is understood to have afterwards retracted. He died in London in 1346. His chief work was published in 1510, with the title Doctoris resoluti Joannis Bacconis Anglici Carmelitæ radiantissimi opus super quattuor sententiarum libris, 4 vols. folio; it has passed through several editions. The little that is known of this schoolman, who in his own day and order had a reputation rivalling that of Thomas Aquinas, may be seen in Brucker, Hist. Crit., iii. 365; Stöckl, Phil. d. Mittel. ii. 1044–5; Hauréau, Phil. Scol., ii. 476; Prantl, Ges. d. Logik, iii. 318.