ABSTRACT

John Duns Scotus was one of the most influential theologians of the late Middle Ages. His arguments concerning the Immaculate Conception were influential on Catholic doctrine from the fourteenth century forward, and his writings concerning salvation and beatitude came to form a cornerstone of Catholic teachings until modern times. His teachings on the univocity of the concept of being and his distinction between intuitive and abstractive cognition were so influential that within two decades of his death in 1308, his doctrines had attracted a strong following among thinkers and students in both Paris and Oxford; indeed, even during Scotus’s lifetime, students at Oxford who espoused his method and doctrine were already identified as Scotists by their fellow students. By the middle of the fourteenth century, Scotus’s teachings on a wide range of subjects were frequently cited by theologians in Italy and the German universities as well, and by the late fifteenth century Franciscan studia had come to treat the texts of Scotus as their fundamental authority. 1