Capreolus, Johannes

CAPREOLUS, JOHANNES: The most distinguished Thomist theologian of the fifteenth century; d. 1444. Little is known of his life. According to Quétif, he joined the Dominican order at Rodez. The subscriptions of the four books of his Defensiones (first printed in Venice, 1483), where he is described as of Toulouse, tell that he finished the first book in 1409 at Paris, where he was then lecturing, the others at Rodez in 1426, 1428, and 1433. So, at least, Quétif asserts; but an extant copy of the editio princeps assigns the composition of the first three books to 1409, and the fourth to 1432, no place given; and the second edition (Venice, 1514–15) gives 1409 for the first two, 1428 and 1432 for the others, all in Paris. The diversity renders all the dates uncertain; nor can we be sure of the date (Apr. 6, 1444) assigned to his death by an inscription on his tomb at Rodez, of evidently later composition. The Dominicans of Toulouse assert that he was for some time at the head of their studium generale.

(A. Hauck.)

Bibliography: J. Quétif and J. Échard, Scriptores ordinis prædicatorum, i. 795 sqq., Paris, 1719: K. Werner, Der heilige Thomas von Aquino, iii, 151 sqq., Regensburg, 1859.